‘That’s what it is,’ said Anne.
While the children had been talking, the heavens had become quickly overcast with heavy black clouds; and now great, big, single drops were splashing all about them with a promise of a regular downpour soon to come.
‘Quick!’ said Anne. ‘Let’s run for that house down the road there. We can take shelter in the stable or something. We’ll be drenched if we’re caught in the open in a rain like this.’
So off they ran. And the rain seemed to run behind them, growing and growing. Presently, when they reached the house, the shower had become so heavy that they did not hesitate or bother about whose place it was. They ran straight up to the door and leapt through it into the hall.
They were so breathless from running that it was a moment or two before they began to look around them. In the doorway through which they had come the door hung on one hinge, half leaning against the wall. The walls were bare and had their plaster broken in many places. The floor, too, had holes in it and was littered with dust and dirt. It was a deserted house.
‘Giles,’ whispered Anne, ‘do you know where we’ve come to?’
Her brother nodded his head.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s the Haunted Inn.’
For another moment they were silent again while both, with some fear and hesitation, gazed backwards into the shadows at the end of the hall. The rain outside poured down into the yard and road with a steady hissing noise.
This house was one the children had often wished to visit, but had never quite had the courage to. It was a hostelry known in days gone by as the Golden Mitre. In those times it had been famous for its wines and cooking and for the good comfort travellers enjoyed there. But for years now it had lain empty and abandoned. No one knew why, but many said the place was haunted. Today Giles and Anne had blundered into it unknowingly, in their helter-skelter hurry to get shelter from the rain.
‘Let’s go, Giles,’ said Anne, clutching his hand and turning again to the door. But the curtain of falling water that barred the way out was almost as terrible as the house itself.
‘Well,’ laughed Giles, ‘we can’t very well leave now, anyhow. Here we are, both of us, after all our daring one another to come in.’
And then, suddenly, as is the way with summer storms, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The shadows at the end of the hall grew less black as the new light shone dimly down through dirty windows above. Anne, who had been staying right at the edge of the doorway, stepped out at once and called to her brother. But Giles shook his head.
‘No, wait a minute, Anne,’ said he. ‘Now we are in the Haunted Inn, let’s look around a little. After all, there’s nothing to be afraid of that I can see.’
‘I’m not afraid of what we can see,’ said Anne. ‘It’s what we can’t see that I’m afraid of. How about the ghosts, Giles?’
Her brother had now walked into one of the big rooms off the passage. It seemed to have been a dining-hall in its day. A long broken table stood in the middle of the room and there was an enormous fireplace in the centre of one wall.
‘Ghosts?’ said Giles as he strode across the floor. ‘What rubbish, Anne! I don’t believe anyone ever really saw a ghost. And even if there were some here, what harm would they want to do us? Ghosts indeed! Poof!—Oh, my gracious! What was that?’
A curious scratching sound had suddenly come from behind a cupboard door.
‘Giles, something tells me we should be going,’ said Anne.
‘No, now just a minute,’ said her brother. ‘We’ve been brave enough to get in here, even if we did come by accident. And we’ve been brave enough to stay here for a while. Now the question is: are we brave enough to open that cupboard door?’
‘Well, you can soon settle that,’ said Anne. ‘Go over and open it.’
‘Why shouldn’t you open it?’ asked Giles.
‘I don’t choose to,’ said his sister. ‘I would sooner go outside and enjoy the air.’
‘All right, then, I’ll open it,’ said Giles, putting on a very terrible and warlike face.
He went nearer to the cupboard, while Anne looked on with wide-open eyes at her brother’s daring. The noise had come from a closet door beside the fireplace. As Giles drew nearer, the scratching sound broke out again, but louder and stranger. He hesitated. Then he took hold of the handle. He wondered whether it would be wiser to open it just a crack and peep in, or to pull it open suddenly and wide. He made up his mind that the last would be the best. He gave a tremendous tug.
The handle came off in his hand and he sat down on the floor with a big bang.
11 At the Haunted Inn
‘Look!’ said Anne. ‘The door is locked with a key. That’s why the old handle broke off. You’ll have to turn the key to open the door.’
‘Well, if the key’s the right one I’ll open it this time and no mistake,’ said Giles. And without further ado he went up to the cupboard, turned the key and pulled the door wide open.
And a big black cat walked silently out into the room.
‘So much for your fears, Anne,’ laughed the boy. ‘We might have known that ghosts never scratch. First, we were afraid to come into the house, and then we were afraid to open the cupboard. That’s the way with most fears: they are always fears about what you don’t know. Now, let’s go all over the house and explore it from top to bottom. Then when we go back to the town we can tell the people we have made a good job of the Haunted Inn.’
‘Giles,’ said Anne, ‘that cat there—doesn’t he look like one of the cats that Agnes had?’
The big black animal seemed quite friendly; and after brushing himself against the children’s legs he walked slowly from the room.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Giles. ‘All black cats are alike to me. Let’s take a look around upstairs. Wait. Maybe I’d better close the cupboard again, first.’
As he went to fasten the door Giles noticed an old tinder-box and two stumps of candles on a shelf within.
Then the children went upstairs.
‘Be careful of the holes in the steps and the landings,’ said Giles, who was walking ahead. ‘Many of the boards are rotten. Tread lightly first before you trust your whole weight.’
The rooms upstairs they found pretty much like those below, only worse. There was more plaster fallen from the walls; and the holes in the roof had let the rain spoil the ceilings in many places. More dust, more cobwebs and more broken windows. Here, too, there was very little furniture. In the largest room, the one over the dining-hall, there was another fireplace and an old broken-down four-poster bed, leaning awry, with only two feet to stand on.
‘Now let’s go down into the cellar,’ said Giles.
‘Do you think that is necessary?’ asked Anne.
‘Quite,’ said her brother, ‘if we are going to explore the place properly. Come along.’
They found nothing very unusual in the cellar: shadows, a musty smell, barrels, more broken furniture, paint-pots, and an old lantern which they brought upstairs with them.
‘Well,’ said Giles, puffing out his chest, ‘the deed is done. It wasn’t so bad, was it? I wonder if there are any more haunted houses left in these parts. I am feeling pretty brave now—indeed, this is one of my bravest days. How do you feel, Anne?’
‘I’m doing nicely, thank you,’ said his sister. ‘But one haunted house a day for me will be enough. I was just thinking, Giles, as we were coming up those cellar-steps, the stone all worn into hollows by all the feet that must have trudged up and down them for hundreds of years ...’