Maxwell Grant
The Ghost Of The Manor
CHAPTER I
THE STROKE OF TWELVE
AN elderly, stoop-shouldered man was plodding his way along the sidewalk of a quiet avenue. The darkness of the cloudy night took on a sinister blackness beneath the heavy, creaking boughs of wind-swept trees that overspread the walk. Only the occasional lights that hung above the center of the street brought patches of yellow glow.
Off to the left were houses, set back from the avenue. The fronts of these large residences were obscured from the old man’s view by trees upon the lawns. Like the street lights, the windows of the houses sent occasional gleams that could be seen from the sidewalk; but the hour was late for this fashionable suburb in the city of Newbury.
Most of the residents here retired before midnight, and it was now half an hour past eleven. The lights from the houses were chiefly indications that certain members of Newbury’s younger set had not returned home from social functions.
The old man who plodded through the lonely silence had no interest whatever in these indications. As he hobbled rapidly along, aiding his progress with the taps of a heavy cane, his head was bowed in constant thought. One patch of light revealed him momentarily.
It showed a thin, expressionless face, a mass of gray hair brimming from beneath a derby hat, and long, thin hands — one gripping the handle of the cane, the other clutching a bulky portfolio beneath the arm above it.
The cane tip crunched as it encountered the gravel of a driveway. It tapped again as the sidewalk was resumed. No lights glimmered from the left, where a high stone wall blocked all view. The old man was passing the broad front of an old estate which broke the row of newer residences, built tightly for space.
As exactly as if he had counted the taps of the cane, the old man turned left after he had gone a hundred paces. Instead of encountering the solid wall, he passed directly through a stone archway and followed a flagstone walk. With head still bowed, he approached the front of a huge gray house that rose like a ghostly mountain in the darkness of the night.
DIMLY lighted windows showed. They only added to the gloominess of the antiquated structure. The old man reached steps that led him to the heavy front door. Without looking up, he grasped a huge brass knocker and pounded upon the barrier.
The door opened. A solemn-faced servant in time-worn livery stood aside and bowed as the old man entered. Glancing at the servant’s face, the visitor chuckled.
“You knew it was me, eh, Wellington?” questioned the old man.
“Yes, Mr. Farman,” replied the servant. “You always come by the front door, sir — and always the knocker — never the bell.”
The old man laughed and clapped the servant on the shoulder. There was a friendly gleam in his eyes.
“Years have brought changes to Delthern Manor,” he remarked, his voice taking on a sad tone, “but Horatio Farman still follows his original custom. You are a newcomer, Wellington, compared to me. You are still young, even with — how many years of service is it, Wellington?”
“Twelve, sir.”
“Ah, yes. A brief period, Wellington. Old Hiram served here thirty-five before he died. Ah, well! Time goes rapidly. I must think of the present — not the past. Is all ready in the reception hall?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wellington turned and conducted the visitor toward a pair of sliding doors at the right of the hallway. He drew one aside, and Horatio Farman hobbled into a huge room that seemed of mammoth proportions due to the dim illumination.
The vast apartment was a strange relic of the forgotten past. Unlike the hallway outside, it was not illuminated by electricity. Instead, candles provided the light.
Horatio Farman, with a sigh that resembled satisfaction, surveyed this scene that had withstood the inroads of modern invention.
The great height of the reception hall was due to a gallery that ran entirely around the room. This was reached by a circular staircase in the corner. The thick posts of the balcony railing were so close together that all was darkness between them.
The candles, too, added gloom to the gallery. The waxen tapers were set in brackets that protruded from the solid portion of the balcony beneath the rail posts.
A full hundred in number, these candles threw a weird light throughout the room. To offset the darkness in the center, a candelabrum had been placed upon a long table that was in the middle of the room.
Horatio Farman looked toward the table.
There were six chairs there; one at either end, two to each side. The elderly man approached the table and deposited his portfolio in front of one of the end chairs.
Forgetting his interest in the old room, Farman became suddenly businesslike, and turned to Wellington.
“Who has arrived?” he questioned.
“Mr. Winstead and Mr. Humphrey, sir.”
“Jasper?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Marcia is here?”
“In her room, sir.”
“Very well,” stated Farman. “I shall be ready to meet all of them at twelve o’clock. You may usher them here at that time.”
Wellington bowed and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Horatio Farman stood alone in the vast reception hall. With bowed head he gazed at the portfolio which he had brought with him. Suddenly, the old man’s eyes became quizzical. He had the strange sensation that someone was watching him.
SWINGING about, Horatio Farman stared toward the balcony. Its blackness was weird. Despite the fact that he had been in this room often, during his years as attorney for Caleb Delthern, now deceased, Farman had never overcome an uneasiness that gripped him here.
The flickering candlelight added to the mysterious gloom. At one spot on the balcony, Farman fancied that he saw a blot of extending blackness.
As he stared, the old attorney caught a momentary glimmer that gave the illusion of burning eyes gazing from Stygian depths. Those momentary spots disappeared. Farman repressed a shudder.
This room had been old Caleb Delthern’s pride. The dead owner of Delthern Manor had been a recluse, and he had spent many long hours in this gloomy apartment.
It had been said — and Caleb Delthern had believed it — that ancestral ghosts had chosen this hall as their abiding place; that all the meetings of the Deltherns held within this room were viewed by the shades of those who had passed before.
Horatio Farman had been too wise to laugh at this story when Caleb Delthern had presented it. The lawyer had privately classed it as a foolish tale; nevertheless, he was forced to admit that a creepy atmosphere clung to the place.
It was Caleb Delthern’s belief in the supernatural that had caused the old man to provide for the reading of his will within this hall. That was the business set for tonight.
Farman still stared suspiciously at the gallery. He considered that protruding passage as the strangest feature of the room. It was a whispering gallery, through which any sound would carry to a remarkable degree. Caleb Delthern had been proud of the balcony as a place of marvelous acoustic properties.
The old lawyer smiled. He wondered about this huge reception hall. He liked it because of its antiquity; he dreaded it because of its strangeness. In the past, he had been here only with Caleb Delthern. Now that his old client was dead, Farman, for the first time, felt a full sensation of foreboding gloom.
His mind reverting to Caleb Delthern’s theory of spectral visitants, Farman found himself half believing that the ghost of the last Delthern might, itself, be here! But as he blinked and saw no further sign of the glowing spots that he had detected in the darkness, Farman set the whole thought aside as mere fancy and seated himself at the end of the table. He adjusted a pair of spectacles to his nose.