CHAPTER IV.

A LITTLE WHITE GHOST.

With the putting of that most awkward question as to what had become of Gregory Pennington, it may be said that a sort of bombsh.e.l.l fell into our midst. I leaned further back, determined to gain what respite I could in the shadows of the room before the inevitable discovery should fall upon me; and of the four of us only the girl, Debora Matchwick, leaned forward eagerly, peering round the lamp at the man who had asked the question.

"That's what we want to know," she said, in a quick, nervous voice.

"Gregory has disappeared."

"Nonsense!" It was the doctor who broke in testily, still keeping his face in shadow. "You mustn't get such ideas into your head, child. Young men, strong, and well, and healthy, don't disappear in that fashion. I ordered him away from the house, and he has respected my wishes. Don't let me hear such nonsensical talk again."

The girl drew back, with a little quick sigh, and for a moment or two there was an abashed silence on the part of Scoffold and myself. But Scoffold was never the man to be abashed long by anything; in a moment or two he leaned his big body forward over the table, so that I saw his face fully in the light of the shaded lamp, and glanced quickly from one to the other of us, and began to put questions. And with each question it seemed that he probed the matter more deeply.

"But tell me, what had my young friend done to be forbidden the house?"

he asked. Then, answered in a fashion by the silence about him, he shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his great hands deprecatingly.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" he went on. "I see that I'm prying into secrets, and that was never my way at all. Only I was interested in Gregory--a fine fellow, with a future before him. A little reckless, perhaps--a little given to the spending of money; but then, that is ever a fault of the young. If I did not wish to pry into secrets," he added a little maliciously, as he peered round the lamp at the girl, "I might suggest that perhaps his disappearance may have had something to do with Miss Debora here--eh? There are so many hearts to be broken in this world of pretty faces, Miss Debora."

The girl sat rigid and silent; presently the man leaned back in his chair again, with a little laugh, as the servants entered with the next course. I saw the woman Leach hovering about near the doorway; I wondered if we were to have another such scene as we had had that morning. But nothing happened until the servants had gone, with Leach following last. Then this unlucky guest had another word to say.

"I see you still keep your faithful retainer," said Harvey Scoffold, with a jerk of his great head towards the door. "Remarkable woman, that--and quite devoted to you, doctor."

"Servants are servants, and are kept in their places," retorted Bardolph Just coldly.

"But, my dear Just," broke in the irrepressible one again, "Leach is surely more than a servant. How many years has she been with you?"

"I haven't taken the trouble to count," replied the doctor. "Shall we change the conversation?"

Mr. Scoffold abruptly complied, by turning his attention to me, somewhat to my dismay. "Do you belong to these parts, Mr.--Mr. John New?" he asked.

I murmured in a low tone that I belonged to London, and as I spoke I saw him lean forward quickly, as if to get a better glimpse of me; but I obstinately kept my face in shadow.

"Ah!" he went on. "London's a fine place, but with temptations. I often think that it would be well if we could prevent young men from ever going to London at all--let 'em wait until they have reached years of discretion, and know what the world is like. I've seen so much in that direction--so many lives that have gone down into the shadows, and never emerged again. I could give you a case in point--rather an interesting story, if you would not be bored by it." He glanced round the table amid silence.

Now, I knew instinctively what story he was going to tell, before ever he said a word of it; I knew the story was my own. I sat there, spellbound; I strove to get a glimpse of Bardolph Just at the further end of the table, but he did not move, and the only face of the four of us that could be seen was the face, animated and smiling, of Harvey Scoffold.

"The story is a little sad--and I detest sad things," the man began, "but it has the merit of a moral. You are to imagine a young man, of good education, and with a credulous and doting old man--an uncle, in fact--as his sole guardian. He rewards the credulous old man by robbing him right and left, and he spends the proceeds of his robberies in vicious haunts in London."

I may here interpolate that the only vicious haunt I had known in London had been the house of Mr. Harvey Scoffold, and that most of the money I had stolen had gone, in one way and another, into his pockets--but this by the way.

"His name was Norton Hyde," went on Scoffold. "I beg your pardon--did you speak?" This last was to the doctor, who had leaned forward, so that I saw his face clearly, and had uttered an exclamation.

"No," he replied. "Pray proceed with your story." He leaned sideways, under pretence of filling his gla.s.s, and gave me a warning glance down the length of the table.

"Well, this Norton Hyde paid the penalty, in due course, of his crime,"

went on Scoffold, leaning back in his chair again. "He was sentenced to a certain term of penal servitude, served part of it, escaped from his prison----"

"The story is well known, and we need hear no more, my dear Scoffold,"

broke in the doctor. "I don't want to shock Miss Debora, nor to have her shocked."

"But I am interested," said the girl, leaning forward. "Please go on, Mr. Scoffold."

"You hear--she's interested," said the man with a smile, as he leaned forward again, and looked round the lamp at the girl. "It's very dreadful, but very fascinating. You must know, then, Miss Debora, that the fellow broke prison, and made a desperate attempt to get back to London; reached a house somewhere on its outskirts; and then, being evidently hard pressed, gave up the game in despair, and committed suicide."

"Poor, poor fellow!" commented the girl, in a low tone; and I felt my heart go out to her in grat.i.tude.

"And that was the end of him," went on Mr. Scoffold, with a snap of the fingers. "They carried him back--dead--to his prison; and they buried him within its walls. So much for Buckingham!"

"Now, perhaps, you can contrive to talk of something a little more pleasant," said the doctor testily. "You've given us all the horrors, with your talk of imprisonments, and suicides, and what not. You used to be pleasant company at one time, Harvey."

"And can be so still," exclaimed the other lightly. "But I'm afraid it's this dark room of yours that gave that turn to the conversation: one sits in shadow among shadows. May I move this lamp, or may I at least take the shade off?" He put a hand to it as he spoke.

If ever I had trembled in my life, I trembled then; but I sat rigid, and waited, trusting in that stronger man at the further end of the table.

Nor was my trust in him betrayed.

"Leave the lamp alone," he said sharply. "It's not safe to be moved; it's rather an old one, and shaky. Besides, I prefer this light."

"You always were a queer fellow," said Scoffold, dropping back into his seat again. "And to-night you're a dull one. I swear I couldn't endure your company," he proceeded with a laugh, "if it were not for the charming lady who faces me, and who is mostly hidden by your beast of a lamp. Even our friend, Mr. New here, hasn't a word to say for himself; but perhaps he'll come out stronger under the influence of one of your cigars presently."

I vowed in my heart that there should be no cigars for me that night in his company; my brain was active with the thought of how best I could escape. I was perplexed to know how it was that he had not remembered that it was in this very house, according to the tale, that Norton Hyde had committed suicide; but for that point, he had the whole thing in chapter and verse. I was comforted, however, by the thought that it was to the interests of Bardolph Just to help me out of the sc.r.a.pe; I saw that he was as much astonished to learn that Harvey Scoffold knew me as I was to find the man in that house.

But for my desperate strait, I must have been amused at the doctor's perplexity. I saw, just as surely as though he had stated it in words, that he was working hard at that puzzle: how to get Norton Hyde out of that room un.o.bserved. Fortunately for the solution of that problem, he must have known how eager I was to get away; and presently he contrived the business in the simplest fashion.

We had come near to the end of the dinner, and it was about time for Debora to leave us. I knew that he dreaded that if she got up it would mean a breaking-up of our relative positions at the table, and I must be discovered. I was dreading that, too, when relief came.

"I say, New," he called to me down the length of the table, "I know you have that business of which you spoke to clear up to-night. We're all friends here, and we'll excuse you."

I murmured my thanks, and got up, designing to pa.s.s behind Harvey Scoffold, and so escape observation. But, as ill luck would have it, Debora saw in the movement an opportunity for her own escape; she rose quickly, and the inevitable happened. Harvey Scoffold blundered to his feet to open the door.

And there we were in a moment, above the light of the lamp, and all making for the door together; for the doctor, in his consternation, had risen also. Scoffold got to the door before me, and held it open for the girl; and for one disastrous moment I hesitated. For there was a light outside in the hall, and I dared not face it. Properly, of course, I should have followed the girl with my face averted; but even in that I blundered, and so found myself suddenly looking into the eyes of Harvey Scoffold, as he stood there holding the door.

It was as though he had seen a ghost. He gasped, and took a step back; and the next moment I was out of the room, and had pulled the door close after me. Even as I did so, I heard his voice raised loudly and excitedly in the room, and heard the deeper tones of Bardolph Just.

There was no time to be lost, and I looked about me for the quickest way of escape. I was groping in the dark, as it were, because I did not even know whether the man was a chance visitor, and I might safely hide in some other room of the house, or whether he was staying there, and so could leave me no choice but to get away altogether. And while I hesitated, my mind was made up for me, as it has been so often in my life, in the most curious fashion.

I saw that Debora had stopped at the foot of the stairs, and was looking back at me; and in a moment, in the thought of her, I forgot my own peril. I took a step towards her, and she bent her head towards mine, as she stood a step or two above me on the stairs, and whispered--

"For the love of G.o.d, don't leave me alone in this house to-night!"

Then she was gone, before I could make reply, and I was left there, standing helplessly looking after her.

In that moment I lost my chance. The dining-room door was opened, and the two men came out quickly; it seemed to me that Harvey Scoffold was speaking excitedly, and that the doctor, who had a hand on his arm, was striving to soothe him. I made a dart for the stairs--too late, for the voice of Scoffold called me back.

"Here, don't run away; I want to talk to you!" he cried. "There's a mystery here----"

"Not so loud!" exclaimed the doctor sternly, in a low tone. "If you've anything to say, don't shout it in the hall in that fashion. I trust we're gentlemen; let us go and talk quietly in my study. John, you know the way--lead on."

So, knowing well what was to follow, I went on up the stairs, until I came to the door of that room that was half study and half surgery; I opened the door and went in. To gain time, I went to the further end of it, and stood looking out of the window into the darkness. I calculated that it might be a drop of twelve or fourteen feet, if he drove me too far and I had to take flight. I was prepared for everything, and had for the moment--G.o.d forgive me!--clean forgotten what the girl had said to me. The two other men came into the room, and the door was closed. I heard the doctor speak in his most genial tones.