"Not at all," said Peter. "It was our Mr. Flinders who thought he ought to be watched. All very providential."
"Well, if he discovers anything against the old boy, I'll eat my hat," the Colonel declared.
Shortly after eleven he took his leave of them, and in a little while the girls and Mrs. Bosanquet went up to bed. Having bolted the drawing-room windows, the men prepared to follow them, and in another hour the house was dark and silent.
Mrs. Bosanquet, who had been troubled lately with slight insomnia, was the only one of the party who failed to go to sleep. After lying awake for what seemed to her an interminable time she decided that the room was stuffy, and got up to open the window, which she still kept shut in case anyone should attempt to effect an entrance by that way. "But that is all put a stop to now," she told herself, as she climbed back into bed.
The opening of the window seemed to make matters worse. At the end of another twenty minutes sleep seemed farther off than ever. Mrs. Bosanquet felt for the matches on the table beside her bed, and lit her candle. She looked round for something to read, but since she was not in the habit of reading in bed there were no books in the room. It at once seemed to her imperative that she should read for a while, and she sat up, debating whether she should venture down to the library in search of a suitable book, or whether this simple act demanded more courage than she possessed. There was a tin of sweet biscuits in the library, she remembered, and the recollection made her realise that she was quite hungry. "Now I come to think of it," Mrs. Bosanquet informed the bedpost, "my dear mother used always to say that if one could not sleep it was a good plan to eat a biscuit. Though," she added conscientiously, "she did not in general approve of eating anything once one had brushed one's teeth for the night."
The tin of biscuits began to seem more and more desirable. Mrs. Bosanquet lay down again, sternly resolved to think of something else. But it was no use. Biscuits, very crisp and sweet, would not be banished from her mind, and at the end of another ten minutes Mrs. Bosanquet would have faced untold dangers to get one.
She got out of bed and put on her dressing-gown. It occurred to her that she might wake Peter, whose room was opposite hers, and ask him to go down to the library for her, but she dismissed this pusillanimous idea at once. Mrs. Bosanquet was a lady who prided herself upon her level-headedness; she did not believe in ghosts; and she would feel very much ashamed to think that anyone should suspect her of being too nervous to walk downstairs alone in the middle of the night.
"Nerves," Mrs. Bosanquet was in the habit of saying severely, "were never encouraged when I was young."
"I shall go quietly downstairs, get a biscuit to eat, and select a book from the shelves without disturbing anyone," she said firmly, and picked up her candle.
The lamp had been turned out in the passage, and since there was no moon the darkness seemed intense. Another woman might have paused, but Mrs. Bosanquet was not afraid of the dark. "What would alarm me," she reflected, "would be a light burning; for then I should know that someone was in the house."
But the ground-floor was as dark as the upper storey. Mrs. Bosanquet went cautiously downstairs with one hand on the baluster-rail, and the other holding her candle up. The stairs creaked annoyingly, and in the stillness each creak sounded abnormally loud. Mrs. Bosanquet murmured: 'Tut-tut!" to herself, and hoped that Celia would not be awakened by the noise.
The library door was ajar; she pushed it open, and went in. The biscuit-tin, she remembered, stood on a small table by the door, and she peered for it, blinking. Yes, there it was. She set the candle down and opened it, and slipped two of the biscuits into the pocket of her dressing-gown. She had quite recovered from her rather shame-faced feeling of trepidation, for no skulls had bounced at her feet, or anything else of such a disturbing nature. She picked up the candle again, and turned to the bookshelves that ran along the wall opposite the fireplace. It was very hard to see far by the light of one candle, and she knocked her shin on a chair as she moved across the room.
The difficulty was to find anything one wanted to read. She held the candle close up to the row of books, and slowly edged along in front of the shelves, surveying a most unpromising selection of titles. "Meditations on Mortality," read Mrs. Bosanquet. "Dear me, how gloomy. The Sermons of Dr Brimley. That might send me to sleep, but I really don't think… Tyndall on Light… Ah, this is better!" She came opposite a collection of novels, and reached up a hand to pull one down from the shelf. Then, just as her fingers had half-pulled the volume from its place an unaccountable feeling of dread seized her, and she stayed quite still, straining her ears to catch the least sound. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart, but it did not reassure her. Mrs. Bosanquet, who did not believe in nerves, knew that something was in the room with her.
"It's nonsense," she told herself. "Of course there isn't. Of course there isn't!" She forced herself to draw the book out from its place, but her unreasoning conviction grew. It seemed as though she dared not move or look round, but she knew that was absurd. "I've got to turn round," she thought. "It's all nonsense. There's nothing here. I can't stand like this all night. I must turn round."
Fearfully she began to edge towards the door. She found that it had become almost impossible to breathe, and realised that her terror was growing.
"It's always worse if one turns one's back on things," Mrs. Bosanquet thought. "Suppose it crept up behind me? Suppose I felt a hand touching me?"
The leap of her heart was choking her; she felt as though she might faint if she went on like this. She stopped, and very cautiously peered over her shoulder. There was nothing. Yet what was that vague, dark figure by the fireplace? Only the tall-backed arm-chair, of course. She was so sure of it that she took a step towards it, and lifted her candle to see more clearly.
The dark shape grew distinct in the tiny light. A cowled figure was standing motionless by the fireplace, and through the slits in the cowl two glittering eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Bosanquet. She stood as though paralysed, and even as she stared at it the figure moved, and glided towards her with one menacing hand stretched out like the talon of a bird of prey.
The spell broke. For the first time in her life Mrs. Bosanquet gave a wild, shrill scream, and crumpled up in a dead faint on the floor.
Chapter Six
Mrs. Bosanquet groped her way back to consciousness to find the room full of lamplight, and the rest of the family gathered solicitously about her. Someone had laid her upon the sofa, someone else was bathing her forehead with water, while a third held a bottle of smelling-salts to her nose. She opened her eyes, and looked up, blankly at first, into Celia's concerned face. She heard a voice saying: "It's all right: she's coming round," and by degrees her recollection came back to her. She opened her eyes again, and struggled up into a sitting posture, unceremoniously thrusting aside the smelling bottle and the brandy that Margaret was trying to give her. "Where is it?" she demanded, looking round her suspiciously.
"Where is what, Aunt Lilian?" Celia said soothingly. "Are you feeling better now?"
"I am perfectly well. No, my dear child, I never touch spirits. Where did it go? Did you see it?"
Celia patted her hand. "No, dear, we didn't see anything. I woke up, hearing you scream, and when we got downstairs we found you had fainted. Did you feel ill in the night, Aunt, or what?"
"I came to get a book and a biscuit," Mrs. Bosanquet replied. "Was there no one but myself in the room?"
"Why no, darling, how should there be? Did you think you saw someone?"
"Think!" said Mrs. Bosanquet indignantly. "Do you suppose I should scream for help merely because I thought I saw someone? I did see it, as plainly as I can see you."