The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (83 page)

“If the gentleman who lives in yonder house, which is said to be haunted by the devil, does not grant us the shelter of his roof tonight, we shall be compelled to sleep here.”

Hardly had he uttered the words when a strange figure appeared at the entrance to the cavern.

“It is
he
!” exclaimed Makoko, grasping my arm.

I stared at the stranger.

He was tall, lanky, of bony frame, and melancholy aspect. Unconscious of our presence, he stood leaning on his fowling-piece at the entrance of the cavern, showing a strong aquiline nose, a thin moustache, a stern mouth, and lack-lustre eyes. He was bareheaded; his hair was thin, while a few grey locks fell behind his ears. His age might have been anywhere between forty and sixty. He must have been strikingly handsome in the days when the light still shone in those time-dimmed eyes and those bitter lips could still break into a smile – but handsome in a haughty and forbidding style. A kind of terrible energy still lurked beneath his features, spectral as those of an apparition.

By his side stood a hairless dog, low on its legs, which was evidently barking at us. Yet we could hear nothing! The dog, it was plain, was dumb, and
barked at us in silence
!

Suddenly the man turned towards us, and said in a voice of the most exquisite politeness:

“Gentlemen, it is out of the question for you to return to La Chaux-de-Fonds tonight. Permit me to offer you my hospitality.”

Then, bending over his dog, he said:

“Stop barking, Mystere.”

The dog closed his jaws at once.

Makoko emitted a grunt. During the five hours that we had been enjoying the chase, Mathis and Makoko had told Allan and myself, who were strangers to the district, some strange and startling stories about our host, whom they represented as having had, like Faust, dealings with the Evil Spirit.

It was not without some trepidation, therefore, that we all moved out of the cavern.

“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, with a melancholy smile, “it is many a long year since my door was thrown open to visitors. I am not fond of society, but I must tell you that one night, six months ago, a youth who had lost his way came and knocked at that door and begged for shelter till the morning. I refused him his request. Next day a body was found at the bottom of the big marl-pit – a body partly devoured by wolves.”

“Why, that must have been Petit-Leduc!” cried Makoko. “So you were heartless enough to turn the poor lad away, at night and in the midst of winter! You are his murderer!”

“Truly spoken,” replied the man, simply. “It was I who killed him. And now you see, gentlemen, that the incident has rendered me hospitable.”

“Would you tell us why you drove him from your door?” growled Makoko.

“Because,” he replied, quietly, “my house brings misfortune.”

“I would rather risk meeting the powers of darkness than catching a cold in the head,” I retorted, laughing, and without further parley we set off, and in a short while had reached the door of the ancient mansion, which stood among the most desolate surroundings, on a shelf of barren rock, swept by all the winds of heaven.

The huge door, antique, iron-barred, and studded with enormous nails, revolved slowly on its hinges, and opened noiselessly. A shrunken little old dame was there to welcome us.

From the threshold we could see a large, high room, somewhat similar to the room formerly styled the retainers’ hall. It certainly constituted a part of what remained of the castle, on the ruins of which the mansion had been erected some centuries before. It was fully lighted by the fire on the enormous hearth, where a huge log was burning, and by two petrol lamps hanging by chains from the stone roof. There was no furniture except a heavy table of white wood, a large armchair upholstered in leather, a few stools, and a rude sideboard.

We walked the length of the room. The old woman opened a door. We found ourselves at the foot of a worm-eaten staircase with sunken steps. This staircase, a spiral one, led to the second storey of the building, where the old woman showed us to our rooms.

To this day I can recall our host – were I to live a hundred years I could not forget that figure such as it appeared to me, as if framed by the fireplace – when I went into the hall where Mother Appenzel had spread our supper.

He was standing in front of my friends, on the stone hearth of that enormous fireplace. He was in evening dress – but such evening dress! It was in the pink of fashion, but a fashion long since vanished. The high collar of the coat, the broad lapels, the velvet waistcoat, the silken knee-breeches and stockings, the cravat, all seemed to possess the elegance of days gone by.

By his side lay his dog Mystere, his massive jaws parted in a yawn – yawning, just as he had barked,
in silence.

“Has your dog been dumb for long?” I ventured to ask. “What strange accident has happened to him?”

"He has been dumb from his birth,” replied my host, after a slight pause, as if this topic of conversation did not please him.

Still, I persisted in my questions.

“Was his father dumb – or perhaps his mother?”

“His mother, and his mother’s mother,” he replied, still coldly, “and
her
mother also.”

"So you were the master of Mystere’s great-grandmother?”

“I was, sir. She was indeed a faithful creature, and one who loved me well. A marvellous watch-dog,” added my host, displaying sudden signs of emotion which surprised me.

“And she also was dumb from her birth?”

“No, sir. No, she was not born dumb –
but she became so one night when she had barked too much
!”

There was a world of meaning in the tone with which he spoke these words that at the moment I did not understand.

Supper was served. During the meal the conversation did not languish. Our host inquired whether we liked our rooms.

“I have a favour to beg of you,” I ventured to say. “I should like to sleep in the haunted room!”

No sooner had I uttered the sentence than our host’s pale face became still paler.

“Who has told you that there was a haunted room in this house?” he asked, striving with difficulty to restrain an evident irritation.

Mother Appenzel, who had just entered, trembled violently.

“It was you, Mother Appenzel?”

“Pray do not scold the good woman,” I said; “my indiscreet behaviour alone must bear the blame. I was attempting to enter a room, the door of which was closed, when your servant forbade me to do so. ‘Do not go into the haunted chamber,’ she said.”

“And you naturally did not do so?”

“Well, yes; I did go in.”

“Heaven protect us!” wailed Mother Appenzel, letting fall a tumbler, which broke into pieces.

“Begone!” cried her master. Then, turning to us, he added, “You are indeed full of curiosity, gentlemen!”

“Pray pardon us if we are so,” I said. “Moreover, permit me to remind you that it was you yourself who alluded to the rumours current on the mountainside. Well, it would afford me much pleasure if your generous hospitality should be the occasion of dispersing them. When I have slept in the room which enjoys so evil a reputation, and have rested there peacefully, it will no longer be said that, to use your own expression, ‘your house brings misfortune.’ ”

Our host interrupted me: “You shall not sleep in that room; it is no longer used as a bedroom. No one has slept there for fifty years past.”

“Who, then, was the last one to sleep in it?”

“I myself – and I should not advise anyone to sleep in it after me!”

“Fifty years ago, you say! You could only be a child at the time, at an age when one is still afraid at nights—”

“Fifty years ago I was twenty-eight!”

“Am I committing an indiscretion when asking you what happened to you in that room? I have just come from visiting it, and nothing whatever happened to me. The room seems to me the most natural of rooms. I even attempted to prop up a wardrobe which seemed as if it were about to fall forward on its face.”

“You laid hands on the wardrobe!” cried the man, throwing down his table-napkin, and coming towards me with the gleam of madness in his eyes. “You actually laid hands on the wardrobe?”

“Yes,” was my quiet answer; “as I say, it seemed about to fall.”

“But it cannot fall! It will never fall! Never again will it stand upright! It is its nature to be in that position for all time to come, trembling with fear for all eternity!”

We had all risen. The man’s voice was harsh as he spoke these most mysterious words. Heavy drops of perspiration trickled down his face. Those eyes of his, which we had thought dimmed for ever, flashed with fury. He was indeed awful to contemplate. He grasped my wrist and wrung it with a strength of which I would have deemed him incapable.

“You did not open it?”

“No.”

“Then you do not know what is in it? No? Well, all the better! By Heaven, I tell you, sir, it is all the better for
you
!”

Turning towards his dog, he shouted:

“To your kennel! When will you find your voice again, Mystere? Or are you going to die like the others –
in silence
?”

He had opened the door leading to a tower, and went out, driving the dog before him.

We were deeply moved at this unexpected scene. The man had disappeared in the darkness of the tower, still pursuing his dog.

“What did I tell you?” remarked Makoko, in a scarcely audible tone. “You may all please yourselves, but, as for me, I do not intend to sleep here tonight. I shall sit up here in this hall until daybreak.”

“And so shall I,” added Mathis.

Makoko, bending over us, his eyes staring out of their sockets, continued: “Do you not see that he is a madman?”

“You two fellows with your death-mask faces,” exclaimed Allan, “are not going to prevent us from enjoying ourselves. Supposing we start a game of ecarte. We will ask our host to take a hand; it will divert his thoughts.”

An extraordinary fellow was Allan. His fondness for card-playing amounted to a mania. He pulled out a pack of cards, and had hardly done so when our host re-entered the hall. He was now comparatively calm, but no sooner had he perceived the pack of cards on the table than his features became transformed, and assumed such an expression of fear and fury that I myself was terrified.

“Cards!” he cried. “You have cards!”

Allan rose and said, pleasantly:

“We have decided not to retire for the night. We are about to have a friendly little game of ecarte. Do you know the game?”

Allan stopped. He also had been struck with the fearful expression on our host’s face. His eyes were bloodshot, the sparse hairs of his moustache stood out bristling, his teeth gleamed, while his lips hissed out the words:

“Cards! Cards!”

The words escaped with difficulty from his throat, as if some invisible hand were clutching it.

“Who sent you here with cards? What do you want with me? The cards must be burnt – they must be burnt!”

Of a sudden he grasped the pack and was about to cast it into the flames, but he stopped just on the point of doing so, his trembling fingers let drop the cards, and he sank into the armchair, exclaiming hoarsely: