"Won't be the first time there's been ghost-faking round this house," he observed, when Mrs. Bradley had rehearsed him in his duties. "But I've never heard tell before of having the bobbies out to arrest a ghost!"
By seven o'clock Mrs. Bradley was in her chosen position in the attic which commanded the approach to the house from the road. She had had the forethought to borrow a cushion or two from Miss Biddle's house, and had brought her knitting, so that she could recline in comfort and occupy herself during her vigil. She had no idea how long this would be likely to last. She had returned from Muriel's lodgings by car, driven very fast by George, who thus obtained one of his rare treats, for Mrs. Bradley's preference was usually for a more leisurely progress.
Muriel would probably come by train, and, at the earliest, could scarcely arrive at the haunted house before eight, for the railway journey was across country, and involved three changes. The connections, too, at the exchange stations were poor. Mrs. Bradley did not expect her to approach the house before dusk, even if she got to the village earlier than that.
It was dark, however, before Muriel came, and Mrs. Bradley had to retire to her vantage point, the attic cupboard in which she believed Cousin Tom used to lock up the boys when they were not wanted in the cellar.
At about half-past ten she heard the slam of the front door. She had heard no footsteps on the path, and no sound of a latch-key in the door. She listened intently, but Muriel must have gone straight into one of the downstair rooms, or remained in the hall, for she could not hear her walking about or mounting the stairs.
She had put away her knitting and had taken out of the capacious pocket of her skirt a small harmonica. Quietly she pushed back the door of the attic cupboard, and played a few soft notes.
Like faery music, they seemed to float all over the empty house. She stopped, and listened again. Nothing was to be heard for a full minute, and then a sound of footsteps below caused her to put the instrument again to her beaky little mouth and play another series of disconnected notes.
This time Muriel's reaction was more definite. She began to run up the stairs, and as she ran she called out :
"Are you there, Mrs. Bradley? Are you there?"
For answer, Mrs. Bradley blew a long discordant confusion of notes from the harmonica, a pre-arranged signal for her friends, the inspector and the sergeant, who had been in hiding in the scullery. Taking their cue, the police officers began to hurl furniture and pots and pans out of the kitchen into the hall.
Muriel ceased to run upstairs. She gave a strange, loud yelp of terror, and then shouted :
"Mrs. Bradley! Please don't do it! I'm frightened. And, listen! I want to speak to you."
Mrs. Bradley waited until the din below had ceased, and then blew on the harmonica again. The noises broke out worse than before; upon this, and, under cover of the really appalling sounds, she raced down the back staircase and then slipped out through the scullery as soon as it was safe to negotiate the array of furniture which was now piled up outside the kitchen.
She made her way to the front of the house, walking briskly on the gravel path, and opened the front door of the now almost eerily silent building. At that, Muriel came flying down the stairs to meet her.
"Oh!" she cried. "I'm glad to see you! Oh, I'm thankful to see you! This house! It's come awake at last!"
"Whatever do you mean?" asked Mrs. Bradley. Muriel did not answer until she had groped for and discovered the main switch. Then she put on the lights and both of them looked at the wreckage.
" Not the poltergeist?" said Mrs. Bradley incredulously.
" Unless it's someone playing the fool," said Muriel with weak annoyance.
"Bound to be," said Mrs. Bradley reassuringly. "If we look about we're almost bound to find them, unless they've cleared off by now, which I rather suspect they would do if they've been here on mischief bent."
"But they couldn't have known I was coming. I didn't even tell you I was coming. It was just—just a sudden fancy to see the place again. Of course, I'd never have dared to come alone, but as you said you would be here...."
How well she did it, thought Mrs. Bradley, dispassionately interested in such a convincing display of protective colouring; how extraordinarily well, the nervous, over-strained, weak and clinging little ... murderess. Her voice hardened.
"Yes, but I'm here with work to do. I don't require, or particularly desire, company."
"Oh, you won't mind me. I shan't interfere," said Muriel. "I expect, as you say, it was someone thinking to scare us. Ah, well, it all seems quiet enough now. But, you know, when I first heard that mouth-organ thing which seemed to come from the top of the house, I really thought for a minute that it was—that it was the fairies, or something."
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Bradley, "you did not. You thought it was those poor ..." She watched the razor coming slowly round from behind the murderess's back, and suddenly cried, "What's that?"
She cried it out so loudly that her voice rang through the house. At the same instant a shrill whistle came from the direction of the scullery, and, as Muriel's face grew pale, a sound stranger and more eerie than any that had so far been heard that night seemed to come from the courtyard outside. Part of it was homely enough—the steady clop, clop of a heavy horse, the sound of the hoofs muffled by the courtyard weeds—but, mingled with this was another sound, unusual to most men's ears, but apparently familiar, in some horrid and personal sense, to the wretched, guilty woman who had now dropped the razor on the floor.
"The cover of the well! They're here! They're here! They've come to be revenged on me! Go away! Go away! Go away! Leave me alone, you little fiends!" she shrieked at the top of her voice.
The sounds ceased. Mrs. Bradley picked up the razor.
"I think you dropped this," she said.
"I?" faltered Muriel, recoiling. "I don't know what it is! I never saw it! Didn't you hear what I heard?"
"I only heard someone screwing down a coffin lid," said Mrs. Bradley, quietly as before. "Or could it have been the trapdoor down to the cellar? Listen! Do you hear it too?"
She half-turned, and at that instant Muriel opened the razor and made a sudden slashing attack. Mrs. Bradley, who had been waiting to do so, side-stepped, and banged her on the elbow with a cosh which she had drawn from the deep pocket of her skirt when she had half-turned away.
"Listen!" she said again.
Muriel was moaning with the agony of the blow on the elbow, but her moans of pain changed suddenly to a dreadful cry of terror. From beneath their feet came the sound of someone digging. She was in a state of hysterical panic when the inspector stepped out of the kitchen to make the arrest. She made a full and babbled confession on the way to the station.
Chapter Eleven
THE DIARY
"Hark, now everything is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud!"
WEBSTER.
"THE thing is," said Ferdinand," when did you first suspect her, mother?"
"I don't know," replied Mrs. Bradley.
"Genius," said Caroline, without (her mother-in-law thought) much justification for the compliment.