She looked at the paper.
“Hullo,” she said. “Ah, one of you has been playing a trick on me!”
We assured her that this was not so, and she read what she had written.
“Gardener, gardener,” it ran. “I am the gardener. I want to come in. I can’t find her here.”
“O Lord, that gardener again!” said Hugh.
Looking up from the paper, I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed on mine, and even before she spoke I knew what her thought was.
“Did you come home by the empty cottage?” she asked.
“Yes: why?”
“Still empty?” she said in a low voice. “Or—or anything else?”
I did not want to tell her just what I had seen—or what, at any rate, I thought I had seen. If there was going to be anything odd, anything worth observation, it was far better that our respective impressions should not fortify each other.
“I tapped again, and there was no answer,” I said.
Presently there was a move to bed: Margaret initiated it, and after she had gone upstairs Hugh and I went to the front door to interrogate the weather. Once more the moon shone in a clear sky, and we strolled out along the flagged path that fronted the house. Suddenly Hugh turned quickly and pointed to the angle of the house.
“Who on earth is that?” he said. “Look! There! He has gone round the corner.”
I had but the glimpse of a tallish man of heavy build.
“Didn’t you see him?” asked Hugh. “I’ll just go round the house, and find him; I don’t want anyone prowling round us at night. Wait here, will you, and if he comes round the other corner ask him what his business is.”
Hugh had left me, in our stroll, close by the front door which was open, and there I waited until he should have made his circuit. He had hardly disappeared when I heard, quite distinctly, a rather quick but heavy footfall coming along the paved walk towards me from the opposite direction. But there was absolutely no one to be seen who made this sound of rapid walking. Closer and closer to me came the steps of the invisible one, and then with a shudder of horror I felt somebody unseen push by me as I stood on the threshold. That shudder was not merely of the spirit, for the touch of him was that of ice on my hand. I tried to seize this impalpable intruder, but he slipped from me, and next moment I heard his steps on the parquet of the floor inside. Some door within opened and shut, and I heard no more of him. Next moment Hugh came running round the corner of the house from which the sound of steps had approached.
“But where is he?” he asked. “He was not twenty yards in front of me—a big, tall fellow.”
“I saw nobody,” I said. “I heard his step along the walk, but there was nothing to be seen.”
“And then?” asked Hugh.
“Whatever it was seemed to brush by me, and go into the house,” said I.
There had certainly been no sound of steps on the bare oak stairs, and we searched room after room through the ground floor of the house. The dining-room door and that of the smoking-room were locked, that into the drawing-room was open, and the only other door which could have furnished the impression of an opening and a shutting was that into the kitchen and servants’ quarters. Here again our quest was fruitless; through pantry and scullery and boot-room and servants’ hall we searched, but all was empty and quiet. Finally we came to the kitchen, which too was empty. But by the fire there was set a rocking-chair, and this was oscillating to and fro as if someone, lately sitting there, had just quitted it. There it stood gently rocking, and this seemed to convey the sense of a presence, invisible now, more than even the sight of him who surely had been sitting there could have done. I remember wanting to steady it and stop it, and yet my hand refused to go forth to it.
What we had seen, and in especial what we had not seen, would have been sufficient to furnish most people with a broken night, and assuredly I was not among the strong-minded exceptions. Long I lay wide-eyed and open-eared, and when at last I dozed I was plucked from the borderland of sleep by the sound, muffled but unmistakable, of someone moving about the house. It occurred to me that the steps might be those of Hugh conducting a lonely exploration, but even while I wondered a tap came at the door of communication between our rooms, and, in answer to my response, it appeared that he had come to see whether it was I thus uneasily wandering. Even as we spoke the step passed my door, and the stairs leading to the floor above creaked to its ascent. Next moment it sounded directly above our heads in some attics in the roof.
“Those are not the servants’ bedrooms,” said Hugh. “No one sleeps there. Let us look once more: it must be somebody.”
With lit candles we made our stealthy way upstairs, and just when we were at the top of the flight, Hugh, a step ahead of me, uttered a sharp exclamation.
“But something is passing by me!” he said, and he clutched at the empty air. Even as he spoke, I experienced the same sensation, and the moment afterwards the stairs below us creaked again, as the unseen passed down.
All night long that sound of steps moved about the passages, as if someone was searching the house, and as I lay and listened that message which had come through the pencil of the planchette to Margaret’s fingers occurred to me. “I want to come in. I cannot find her here.” … Indeed someone had come in, and was sedulous in his search. He was the gardener, it would seem. But what gardener was this invisible seeker, and for whom
