Tom Ossington's Ghost (Horror Thriller). Richard Marsh
glances, he stammered, stumbled, stopped.
“Yes? — go on.”
“I have been seeking such an opportunity.”
“Indeed? And do you wish me to suppose that you believed that you — you — could be taught anything in music by an unknown creature who fastened a plate announcing lessons in music, to the palings of such a place as this?”
He was silent — looking as if he would have spoken, but could not. She went on:
“I thank you for the pleasure you have given me — the unexpected pleasure. It is a favourite piece of mine which you have just performed — I say ‘performed’ advisedly. I never heard it better played by any one — never! and I never shall. You are a great musician. I? — I am a poor teacher of the rudiments of the art in which you are such an adept. I am obliged by your suggestion that I should give you lessons. I regret that to do so is out of my power. You already play a thousand times better than I ever shall — I was just going out as you came in. I must ask you to be so good as to permit me to go now.”
He rose from the music stool — towering above her higher and higher. From his altitude he looked down at her for some seconds in silence. Then, in his deep bass voice, he began, as it seemed, to excuse himself.
“Believe me ——”
She cut him short.
“I believe nothing — and wish to believe nothing. You had reasons of your own for coming here; what they were I do not know, nor do I seek to know. All I desire is that you should take yourself away.”
He stooped to pick up his hat. Rising with it in his hand, he glanced towards the window. As he did so, the man who had leaned over the palings came strolling by again. The sight of this man filled him with his former uneasiness. He retreated further back into the room — all but stumbling over Miss Brodie in his haste. In a person of his physique the agitation he displayed was pitiful. It suggested a degree of cowardice which nothing in his appearance seemed to warrant.
“I— I beg your pardon — but might I ask you a favour?”
“A favour? What is it?”
“I will be frank with you. I am being watched by a person whose scrutiny I wish to avoid. Because I wished to escape him was one reason why I came in here.”
Madge went to the window. The man in the road was lounging lazily along with an air of indifference which was almost too marked to be real. He gave a backward glance as he went. At sight of Madge he quickened his pace.
“Is that the man who is watching you?”
“Yes, I— I fancy it is.”
“You fancy? Don’t you know?”
“It is the man.”
“He is shorter than you — smaller altogether. Compared to you he is a dwarf. Why are you afraid of him?”
Either the question itself, or the tone in which it was asked, brought the blood back into his cheeks.
“I did not say I was afraid.”
“No? Then if you are not afraid, why should you have been so anxious to avoid him as to seek refuge, on so shallow a pretext, in a stranger’s house?”
The intruder bit his lip. His manner was sullen.
“I regret that the circumstances which have brought me here are of so singular and complicated a character as to prevent my giving you the full explanation to which you may consider yourself entitled. I am sorry that I should have sought refuge beneath your roof as I own I did; and the more so as I am compelled to ask you another favour — permission to leave that refuge by means of the back door.”
She twirled round on her heels and faced him.
“The back door!”
“I presume there is a back door?”
“Certainly — only it leads to the front.”
Again he bit his lip. His temper did not seem to be improving. The girl’s tone, face, bearing, were instinct with scorn.
“Is there no means of getting away by the back without returning to the front?”
“Only by climbing a hedge and a fence on to the common.”
“Perhaps the feat will be within my powers — if you will allow me to try.”
“Allow you to try! And is it possible that you forced your way into the house on the pretence of seeking lessons in music, when your real motive was to seek an opportunity of evading pursuit by means of the back door?”
“I am aware that the seeming anomaly of my conduct entitles you to think the worst of me.”
“Seeming anomaly!” She laughed contemptuously. “Pray, sir, permit me to lead the way — to the back door.”
She strode off, with her head in the air; he came after, with a brow as black as night. At the back door they paused.
“I thank you for having afforded me shelter, and apologise for having sought it.”
She looked him up and down, as if she were endeavouring, by mere force of visual inspection, to make out what kind of a man he was.
“I want to ask you a question. Answer it truthfully, if you can. Is the man in front a policeman?”
He started with what seemed genuine surprise.
“A policeman! Good heavens, no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. He’s very far from being a policeman — rather, if anything, the other way.” What he meant to infer, she did not know; but he laughed shortly, “What makes you ask such a thing?”
She was holding the door open in her hand. He had crossed the threshold and stood without. Malice — and something else — gleamed in her eyes.
“Because,” she answered, “I wondered if you were a thief.”
With that she slammed the door in his face and turned the key. Then, slipping into the kitchen which was on her left, keeping the door on the jar, remaining well in the shadow, she watched his proceedings through the window.
For a moment he stayed where she had left him standing, as if rooted to the spot. Then, with an exaggerated courtesy, taking off his hat, he bowed to the door. Turning, he marched down the garden path, his tall figure seeming more gigantic than ever as she noted how straight he held himself. In a twinkling he was over the fence and hedge. Once on the other side, he shook his fist at Clover Cottage.
The watcher in the kitchen clenched her teeth as she perceived the gesture.
“Ungrateful creature! And to think that a man who has the very spirit of music in his soul, and who plays the piano like an angel, should be such a wretch! That a monster seven feet high, who looks like a combination of Samson and Goliath rolled into one, should be such a coward and a cur — afraid of a pigmy five foot high! I hope I’ve seen the last of him. If I have any more such pupils I shall have to shut up shop. Now perhaps I shall be allowed to post my MS. and run across to Brown’s to get a chop for Ella’s tea.”
With that she passed from the back to the front. Outside the front door she paused to look around her and take her bearings, half doubtful as to whether any more dubious strangers might not be in sight.
The only person to be seen was the man whose presence had proved so disconcerting to her recent visitor. He had reached the corner of the street, and, turning, strolled slowly back towards Clover Cottage. He gave one quick, shifty glance at her as she came out, but beyond that he took — or appeared to take — no notice of her appearance.
“Now, I wonder,” she said to herself, “who you may be. Your friend, who, for all I know, is now running for his life across the common, said you were no policeman