The Unknown Ajax

something behind me. If Hugo hadn’t been there, I should have picked up my skirts and fled!”

“Humdudgeon!” scoffed Richmond. “In broad daylight?”

“Well, it ain’t humdudgeon,” intervened Claud. “I know just what she means, and a dashed nasty feeling it is! It happened to me once, walking up the lane here. Couldn’t get it out of my head there was something following me. Made my flesh creep, because it was getting dark, and not a soul about.”

“Did you run?” asked Anthea, quizzing him.

“I should dashed well think I did run!” he replied. “It was a devilish great black boar that had got loose. Never had such a fright in my life! Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh, but they’re dangerous things, boars.”

“I’d prefer to have a boar behind me than a ghost,” said Anthea. “At, least it would be a live thing!”

“Well, if you think a live boar behind you would be better than a dead one, it’s easy to see you’ve never been chased by one!” said Claud, with some feeling. “And as for ghosts, you ought to know better than to believe in ’em! They don’t exist.”

“Oh, don’t they?” struck in Richmond. “Would you be willing to spend the night in the grounds of Dower House?”

“You know, Richmond, you’ve got the most uncomfortable notions of anyone I ever met,” said Claud. “Dashed if I don’t think you’re a trifle queer in your attic! A nice cake I’d make of myself, prowling round the Dower House all night!”

“But wouldn’t you be afraid to, Claud?” Anthea asked. “Truly, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I’d be afraid to! I’d be bound to catch a chill, for it stands to reason I couldn’t keep on walking for ever, and I’d be lucky if it didn’t turn to an inflammation of the lung. I’m not afraid of seeing a ghost, if that’s what you mean. I know dashed well I shouldn’t.”

“Don’t be too sure of that!”

Claud bent a sapient eye upon his young cousin. “Well, I am sure of it. And don’t you take a notion into your head that I ain’t up to slum, my boy, because I am! What I should see, if I was such a nodcock as to spend the night at the Dower House, would be you, capering about in your nightshirt, with a pillowcase over your head. I don’t doubt I’d see that!”

Richmond laughed, but said emphatically: “Not I! Anywhere else I’d be happy to try if I couldn’t hoax you, but not at the Dower House! Once is enough, thank you!”

Hugo, who had been glancing through the latest edition of the Morning Post to reach Darracott Place, lowered the journal at this, and looked at Richmond with a twinkle in his eye. “Seemingly you’re the only person who ever saw the poor lady plainly,” he remarked. “What did she look like, lad?”

“I didn’t see her plainly enough to be able to answer that,” Richmond returned. “Besides, she was gone in a flash.”

“But you did see a female form, didn’t you?” Anthea asked.

“Yes, I thought it was someone from the village, when I first caught sight of it, but there wasn’t much light, of course, and—”

“A misty form?” interrupted Claud.

“Yes. That is—”

“Did it shimmer?”

“Lord, I don’t know! There was no time to see whether it did or not: one moment it was there, and the next it had melted into the shrubbery.”

“Thought as much!” said Claud, with a satisfied air. “I get it myself. In fact, it runs in the family. There’s only one thing for it, and that’s mercury. You take my advice, young Richmond, and the next time you see things slipping away when you look at them ask my Aunt Elvira for a Blue Pill! Surprised she doesn’t give ’em to you, because it’s as plain as a pikestaff you’re as liverish as Vincent!”

Vincent, entering the room in time to hear his comparison, interrupted Richmond’s indignant refutal, saying, as he shut the door: “Am I liverish? I wonder if you could be right? I thought it was boredom. What have you been doing to earn this stigma, bantam?”

The matter was explained to him by Richmond and Anthea in chorus. Hugo had returned to the Morning Post, and Claud had lost interest, his mind being occupied suddenly by a more important matter. As Vincent strolled forward, Claud’s gaze was dragged irresistibly to his gleaming Hessians, and he fell into a brown study, wondering if their magical gloss could have been produced by a mixture of brandy and beeswax, and if it had ever occurred to Polyphant to experiment with this entirely original recipe. He tore his eyes away from the Hessians, and found that Vincent was looking mockingly down at him.

“Even I do not know, brother,” Vincent said gently. “I hope you haven’t wasted any blunt on champagne? It isn’t that.”

Claud was pardonably annoyed. “If you want to know what I was thinking—”

“I do know,” interpolated Vincent. “I beg your pardon, Anthea! You were saying?”

“I was saying—no, Claud, don’t answer him! it’s precisely what he wants you to do!—I was saying that whatever Richmond may, or may not, have seen, I think the Dower House is haunted,” stated Anthea. “I had the horridest feeling, all the time I was there!”

Hugo, who was seated sideways on the window seat, with the Morning Post spread before him, raised his head, and said, with a grin: “No wonder, if you let that old humbug bamboozle you into believing him!”

“You’re not going to tell me that Spurstow said the place was haunted?” demanded Richmond. “Because I’ll swear he never did so! He doesn’t give a rush for any ghost! I happen to know, too, that when they ask him questions about it, down at the Blue Lion, he turns surly, and won’t answer. Why should he take it into his head to start talking about it to you?”

“Hugo thought he was trying to frighten him. And I must say, Hugo, it does seem as though you might be right!”

“Fiddle!” said Richmond. “Why should he want to frighten Hugo?”

“Happen he thought I’d too much interest in the place,” suggested Hugo, turning a sheet of his journal.

“Hugo said that he would like to strip all the ivy off, and clear away those thick shrubs,” explained Anthea.

“I wonder? You know, it’s perfectly true that he tries to keep everyone away. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that he might be hiding something, because Aunt Matty never would see visitors either, but when Hugo put it into my head—Richmond, could he be using the Dower House as a hiding-place for run cargoes?”

“He could be,” Richmond replied, “but I don’t advise you to accuse him of it. He’ll take it very unkind, and start prosing about having been thirty years in service and never a stain on his reputation. Ash told me he went right up in the bows when that clunch, Ottershaw, set a watch on the Dower House.”

“Good God, did he do so?” exclaimed Anthea. “I never knew that! When was it?”

“Oh,, soon after Ottershaw was sent here! Just after Christmas, wasn’t it?”

“Dear me, what stirring events seem to take place when I am not here to be beguiled by them!” remarked Vincent. “What made Ottershaw suspect Spurstow?”

“His face, I should think,” said Claud. “Anyone would!”

“The Preventives always suspect haunted houses,” said Richmond, ignoring the interruption. “Ottershaw’s a bigger sapskull than the man we had before! He came up to see my grandfather about it!” He grinned at Vincent, his eyes alight with mischief. “You ask Chollacombe how Grandpapa liked it!”

“I am sure he disliked it very much,” said Vincent, flicking open his snuff-box. “I have every sympathy with him. A gross impertinence: Spurstow has been in Grandpapa’s service all his life.”

“But was that all the reason Ottershaw had?” demanded Anthea. “Merely that the Dower House is haunted?”

Richmond shrugged. “No use asking me: I’m not in the fellow’s confidence. All I know is that he had the place watched. Spurstow discovered it, of course, and nabbed the rust. He went off to Rye, ran Ottershaw to earth in the Ship, and asked him what the devil he meant by it. I wasn’t there myself, but I’m told there was a rare kick-up. Ottershaw lost his temper, because Spurstow challenged him to go back with him and search the Dower house, and of course, he dared not do it without a warrant, unless he had Grandpapa’s permission, which he most certainly had not!”