"Eh! you"re talking nonsense, Styles."
"Maybe so, sir; but I heard it more"n once with my own ears."
"Rubbish, Styles."
"Very good, sir. You"ll ring the bell if you want me."
Abercrombie Smith gave little heed to the gossip of the old man-servant, but a small incident occurred a few days later which left an unpleasant effect upon his mind, and brought the words of Styles forcibly to his memory.
Bellingham had come up to see him late one night, and was entertaining him with an interesting account of the rock tombs of Beni Ha.s.san in Upper Egypt, when Smith, whose hearing was remarkably acute, distinctly heard the sound of a door opening on the landing below.
"There"s some fellow gone in or out of your room," he remarked.
Bellingham sprang up and stood helpless for a moment, with the expression of a man who is half incredulous and half afraid.
"I surely locked it. I am almost positive that I locked it," he stammered. "No one could have opened it."
"Why, I hear someone coming up the steps now," said Smith.
Bellingham rushed out through the door, slammed it loudly behind him, and hurried down the stairs. About half-way down Smith heard him stop, and thought he caught the sound of whispering. A moment later the door beneath him shut, a key creaked in a lock, and Bellingham, with beads of moisture upon his pale face, ascended the stairs once more, and re-entered the room.
"It"s all right," he said, throwing himself down in a chair. "It was that fool of a dog. He had pushed the door open. I don"t know how I came to forget to lock it."
"I didn"t know you kept a dog," said Smith, looking very thoughtfully at the disturbed face of his companion.
"Yes, I haven"t had him long. I must get rid of him. He"s a great nuisance."
"He must be, if you find it so hard to shut him up. I should have thought that shutting the door would have been enough, without locking it."
"I want to prevent old Styles from letting him out. He"s of some value, you know, and it would be awkward to lose him."
"I am a bit of a dog-fancier myself," said Smith, still gazing hard at his companion from the corner of his eyes. "Perhaps you"ll let me have a look at it."
"Certainly. But I am afraid it cannot be to-night; I have an appointment. Is that clock right? Then I am a quarter of an hour late already. You"ll excuse me, I am sure."
He picked up his cap and hurried from the room. In spite of his appointment, Smith heard him re-enter his own chamber and lock his door upon the inside.
This interview left a disagreeable impression upon the medical student"s mind. Bellingham had lied to him, and lied so clumsily that it looked as if he had desperate reasons for concealing the truth.
Smith knew that his neighbour had no dog. He knew, also, that the step which he had heard upon the stairs was not the step of an animal. But if it were not, then what could it be? There was old Styles"s statement about the something which used to pace the room at times when the owner was absent. Could it be a woman? Smith rather inclined to the view. If so, it would mean disgrace and expulsion to Bellingham if it were discovered by the authorities, so that his anxiety and falsehoods might be accounted for. And yet it was inconceivable that an undergraduate could keep a woman in his rooms without being instantly detected. Be the explanation what it might, there was something ugly about it, and Smith determined, as he turned to his books, to discourage all further attempts at intimacy on the part of his soft-spoken and ill-favoured neighbour.
But his work was destined to interruption that night. He had hardly caught tip the broken threads when a firm, heavy footfall came three steps at a time from below, and Hastie, in blazer and flannels, burst into the room.
"Still at it!" said he, plumping down into his wonted arm-chair. "What a chap you are to stew! I believe an earthquake might come and knock Oxford into a c.o.c.ked hat, and you would sit perfectly placid with your books among the rains. However, I won"t bore you long. Three whiffs of baccy, and I am off."
"What"s the news, then?" asked Smith, cramming a plug of bird"s-eye into his briar with his forefinger.
"Nothing very much. Wilson made 70 for the freshmen against the eleven. They say that they will play him instead of Buddicomb, for Buddicomb is clean off colour. He used to be able to bowl a little, but it"s nothing but half-vollies and long hops now."
"Medium right," suggested Smith, with the intense gravity which comes upon a "varsity man when he speaks of athletics.
"Inclining to fast, with a work from leg. Comes with the arm about three inches or so. He used to be nasty on a wet wicket. Oh, by-the-way, have you heard about Long Norton?"
"What"s that?"
"He"s been attacked."
"Attacked?"
"Yes, just as he was turning out of the High Street, and within a hundred yards of the gate of Old"s."
"But who----"
"Ah, that"s the rub! If you said "what," you would be more grammatical. Norton swears that it was not human, and, indeed, from the scratches on his throat, I should be inclined to agree with him."
"What, then? Have we come down to spooks?"
Abercrombie Smith puffed his scientific contempt.
"Well, no; I don"t think that is quite the idea, either. I am inclined to think that if any showman has lost a great ape lately, and the brute is in these parts, a jury would find a true bill against it. Norton pa.s.ses that way every night, you know, about the same hour. There"s a tree that hangs low over the path--the big elm from Rainy"s garden.
Norton thinks the thing dropped on him out of the tree. Anyhow, he was nearly strangled by two arms, which, he says, were as strong and as thin as steel bands. He saw nothing; only those beastly arms that tightened and tightened on him. He yelled his head nearly off, and a couple of chaps came running, and the thing went over the wall like a cat. He never got a fair sight of it the whole time. It gave Norton a shake up, I can tell you. I tell him it has been as good as a change at the sea-side for him."
"A garrotter, most likely," said Smith.
"Very possibly. Norton says not; but we don"t mind what he says. The garrotter had long nails, and was pretty smart at swinging himself over walls. By-the-way, your beautiful neighbour would be pleased if he heard about it. He had a grudge against Norton, and he"s not a man, from what I know of him, to forget his little debts. But hallo, old chap, what have you got in your noddle?"
"Nothing," Smith answered curtly.
He had started in his chair, and the look had flashed over his face which comes upon a man who is struck suddenly by some unpleasant idea.
"You looked as if something I had said had taken you on the raw.
By-the-way, you have made the acquaintance of Master B. since I looked in last, have you not? Young Monkhouse Lee told me something to that effect."
"Yes; I know him slightly. He has been up here once or twice."
"Well, you"re big enough and ugly enough to take care of yourself.
He"s not what I should call exactly a healthy sort of Johnny, though, no doubt, he"s very clever, and all that. But you"ll soon find out for yourself. Lee is all right; he"s a very decent little fellow. Well, so long, old chap! I row Mullins for the Vice-Chancellor"s pot on Wednesday week, so mind you come down, in case I don"t see you before."
Bovine Smith laid down his pipe and turned stolidly to his books once more. But with all the will in the world, he found it very hard to keep his mind upon his work. It would slip away to brood upon the man beneath him, and upon the little mystery which hung round his chambers.
Then his thoughts turned to this singular attack of which Hastie had spoken, and to the grudge which Bellingham was said to owe the object of it. The two ideas would persist in rising together in his mind, as though there were some close and intimate connection between them. And yet the suspicion was so dim and vague that it could not be put down in words.
"Confound the chap!" cried Smith, as he shied his book on pathology across the room. "He has spoiled my night"s reading, and that"s reason enough, if there were no other, why I should steer clear of him in the future."
For ten days the medical student confined himself so closely to his studies that he neither saw nor heard anything of either of the men beneath him. At the hours when Bellingham had been accustomed to visit him, he took care to sport his oak, and though he more than once heard a knocking at his outer door, he resolutely refused to answer it. One afternoon, however, he was descending the stairs when, just as he was pa.s.sing it, Bellingham"s door flew open, and young Monkhouse Lee came out with his eyes sparkling and a dark flush of anger upon his olive cheeks. Close at his heels followed Bellingham, his fat, unhealthy face all quivering with malignant pa.s.sion.
"You fool!" he hissed. "You"ll be sorry."
"Very likely," cried the other. "Mind what I say. It"s off! I won"t hear of it!"
"You"ve promised, anyhow."