‘Twelve o’clock,’ said Evesham. ‘New Year’s Day. Happy New Year–everybody. As a matter of fact that clock’s five minutes fast…I don’t know why the children wouldn’t wait up and see the New Year in?’
‘I don’t suppose for a minute they’ve really gone to bed,’ said his wife placidly. ‘They’re probably putting hairbrushes or something in our beds. That sort of thing does so amuse them. I can’t think why. We should never have been allowed to do such a thing in my young days.’
‘Autre temps, autres moeurs,’ said Conway, smiling.
He was a tall soldierly-looking man. Both he and Evesham were much of the same type–honest upright kindly men with no great pretensions to brains.
‘In my young days we all joined hands in a circle and sang “Auld Lang Syne”,’ continued Lady Laura. ‘“Should auld acquaintance be forgot”–so touching, I always think the words are.’
Evesham moved uneasily.
‘Oh! drop it, Laura,’ he muttered. ‘Not here.’
He strode across the wide hall where they were sitting, and switched on an extra light.
‘Very stupid of me,’ said Lady Laura, sotto voce. ‘Reminds him of poor Mr Capel, of course. My dear, is the fire too hot for you?’
Eleanor Portal made a brusque movement.
‘Thank you. I’ll move my chair back a little.’
What a lovely voice she had–one of those low murmuring echoing voices that stay in your memory, thought Mr Satterthwaite. Her face was in shadow now. What a pity.
From her place in the shadow she spoke again.
‘Mr–Capel?’
‘Yes. The man who originally owned this house. He shot himself you know–oh! very well, Tom dear, I won’t speak of it unless you like. It was a great shock for Tom, of course, because he was here when it happened. So were you, weren’t you, Sir Richard?’
‘Yes, Lady Laura.’
An old grandfather clock in the corner groaned, wheezed, snorted asthmatically, and then struck twelve.
‘Happy New Year, Tom,’ grunted Evesham perfunctorily.
Lady Laura wound up her knitting with some deliberation.
‘Well, we’ve seen the New Year in,’ she observed, and added, looking towards Mrs Portal, ‘What do you think, my dear?’
Eleanor Portal rose quickly to her feet.
‘Bed, by all means,’ she said lightly.
‘She’s very pale,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite, as he too rose, and began busying himself with candlesticks. ‘She’s not usually as pale as that.’
He lighted her candle and handed it to her with a funny little old-fashioned bow. She took it from him with a word of acknowledgment and went slowly up the stairs.
Suddenly a very odd impulse swept over Mr Satterthwaite. He wanted to go after her–to reassure her–he had the strangest feeling that she was in danger of some kind. The impulse died down, and he felt ashamed. He was getting nervy too.
She hadn’t looked at her husband as she went up the stairs, but now she turned her head over her shoulder and gave him a long searching glance which had a queer intensity in it. It affected Mr Satterthwaite very oddly.
He found himself saying goodnight to his hostess in quite a flustered manner.
‘I’m sure I hope it will be a happy New Year,’ Lady Laura was saying. ‘But the political situation seems to me to be fraught with grave uncertainty.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Mr Satterthwaite earnestly. ‘I’m sure it is.’
‘I only hope,’ continued Lady Laura, without the least change of manner, ‘that it will be a dark man who first crosses the threshold. You know that superstition, I suppose, Mr Satterthwaite? No? You surprise me. To bring luck to the house it must be a dark man who first steps over the door step on New Year’s Day. Dear me, I hope I shan’t find anything very unpleasant in my bed. I never trust the children. They have such very high spirits.’
Shaking her head in sad foreboding, Lady Laura moved majestically up the staircase.
With the departure of the women, chairs were pulled in closer round the blazing logs on the big open hearth.
‘Say when,’ said Evesham, hospitably, as he held up the whisky decanter.
When everybody had said when, the talk reverted to the subject which had been tabooed before.
‘You knew Derek Capel, didn’t you, Satterthwaite?’ asked Conway.
‘Slightly–yes.’
‘And you, Portal?’
‘No, I never met him.’
So fiercely and defensively did he say it, that Mr Satterthwaite looked up in surprise.
‘I always hate it when Laura brings up the subject,’ said Evesham slowly. ‘After the tragedy, you know, this place was sold to a big manufacturer fellow. He cleared out after a year–didn’t suit him or something. A lot of tommy rot was talked about the place being haunted of course, and it gave the house a bad name. Then, when Laura got me to stand for West Kidleby, of course it meant living up in these parts, and it wasn’t so easy to find a suitable house. Royston was going cheap, and–well, in the end I bought it. Ghosts are all tommy rot, but all the same one doesn’t exactly care to be reminded that you’re living in a house where one of your own friends shot himself. Poor old Derek–we shall never know why he did it.’
‘He won’t be the first or the last fellow who’s shot himself without being able to give a reason,’ said Alex Portal heavily.
He rose and poured himself out another drink, splashing the whisky in with a liberal hand.
‘There’s something very wrong with him,’ said Mr Satterthwaite, to himself. ‘Very wrong indeed. I wish I knew what it was all about.’
‘Gad!’ said Conway. ‘Listen to the wind. It’s a wild night.’
‘A good night for ghosts to walk,’ said Portal with a reckless laugh. ‘All the devils in Hell are abroad tonight.’
‘According to Lady Laura, even the blackest of them would bring us luck,’ observed Conway, with a laugh. ‘Hark to that!’
The wind rose in another terrific wail, and as it died away there came three loud knocks on the big nailed doorway.
Everyone started.
‘Who on earth can that be at this time of night?’ cried Evesham.
They stared at each other.
‘I will open it,’ said Evesham. ‘The servants have gone to bed.’
He strode across to the door, fumbled a little over the heavy bars, and finally flung it open. An icy blast of wind came sweeping into the hall.
Framed in the doorway stood a man’s figure, tall and slender. To Mr Satterthwaite, watching, he appeared by some curious effect of the stained glass above the door, to be dressed in every colour of the rainbow. Then, as he stepped forward, he showed himself to be a thin dark man dressed in motoring clothes.
‘I must really apologize for this intrusion,’ said the stranger, in a pleasant level voice. ‘But my car broke down. Nothing much, my chauffeur is putting it to rights, but it will take half an hour or so, and it is so confoundedly cold outside–’
He broke off, and Evesham took up the thread quickly.
‘I should think it was. Come in and have a drink. We can’t give you any assistance about the car, can we?’
‘No,