Tom Ossington's Ghost

Jack Martyn hammered his fist upon the table.

"Hear, hear! – bravo! – spoken like a man! 'Pon my word, I'm beginning to think that there is something in it after all. A conviction is creeping over me, slowly but surely, that in less time than no time I shall be filling my pockets with the contents of Aladdin's Cave-and as there is only a bent sixpence and two bad pennies in them at present, there's plenty of room for more."

"The point is," said Ella, "where are you going to begin to look?"

"I am going to do what Mr. Nicholls wanted to do," declared Madge-"tear the house to pieces."

"But, my dear, even if you set about the business in that drastic fashion, you'll require method. How are you going to begin to take the house to pieces-by taking the slates off the roof, and the chimney-pots down?"

"And by taking the windows out of their frames, and the doors off their hinges, and displaying the grates in the front garden! George! you'll be improving the property with a vengeance if you do."

"I propose to do nothing so absurd. I simply wish you to understand that before I give up the search the house will literally have been torn to pieces-though I assure you, Ella, that I do not intend to begin by taking off either the slates or the chimney-pots."

"Have you been able to make anything more of the writing which was left behind by your burglarious visitor?"

The inquiry came from Graham. Madge shook her head.

"Let me try my hand at it," cried Jack. "I have brains-I place them at your service. It is true I never have been able to solve a puzzle from my very earliest hours, but that is no reason why I should not begin by solving this."

The scrap of paper was given him. He spread it out on the table in front of him. Leaning his head upon his hands, he stared at it, the expression on his face scarcely promising a prompt elucidation.

"The first part is simple, extremely simple. Especially after Mr. Graham's last night's lucid exposition. Otherwise I should have described it as recondite. But the second part's a howler; yes, a howler! 'Right-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-left eye- push!' The conjunction is surprising. I can only remark that if that assorted collection of animals is bottled up somewhere in this house all together, that alone would be a find worth coming upon. There will be some lively moments when you let the collection out."

"Did you mention anything to Mr. Nicholls about the paper?" asked Madge of Graham.

"Not a syllable. I gathered from what he said that the house was done up before it was let-papered, painted, and so on, and that therefore any former landmarks to which it might have been alluding have probably disappeared."

"That's what I think, and that's what I mean by saying we shall have to pull the house to pieces."

"Even if that is the case, as Miss Duncan puts it, where are you going to begin? You must remember that you will have to continue living in the house while it is being dismantled, and that you must spare yourselves as much discomfort as possible."

"It seems that you have to begin by pushing the left eye," said Jack, who still was studying the paper. "Though whether it is the left eye of the entire assorted collection is not quite clear. If that is the case, and that remarkable optic has to be pushed with any degree of vigour, I can only say that I shall take up a position in the centre of the road till the proceedings are concluded."

"Why not commence," asked Madge, "with a thorough examination of the room which we're now in?"

"You yourself," said Ella, "admitted last night that it was hardly likely that the treasure would be hidden in the same room which contained the will."

Madge pursed her lips and frowned.

"I've been thinking about that since, and I don't at all see why we should take it for granted. One thing's certain, the room is honeycombed with possible hiding-places. There are hollows behind the wainscot, the walls themselves sound hollow. That unhappy man can hardly have found a part of the house better adapted to his purpose."

"See there-what's that?" Ella was pointing to a kind of plaster cornice which ran round the room. "What are those things which are cut or moulded on that strip of beading, if it is beading, under the ceiling?"

"They look to me like some sort of ornamental bosses," said Graham.

"They certainly are neither cats or dogs," decided Madge.

"I'm not so sure of that; you know what extraordinary things they tell you are intended to represent things which are not in the least bit like them. Where's that paper? Jack, give me that paper."

Jack gave it her. She glanced at it.

"'Right'-I'll take up a position like you did last night, Mr. Graham, to the right of the door; 'cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-' now-"

"Well?" queried Madge, for Ella had stopped. "Now what?"

"I think," continued Ella, with evident dubitation, "that I'll again do what you did last night, Mr. Graham, and cross right over; though it says nothing about it here, but perhaps that was omitted on purpose." She marched straight across the room. "Now we'll take the first thing upon the beading, or whatever it is, to be a cat, and we'll count them alternately-cat-dog-the fifth dog."

"Very good," said Graham, standing close up to the wall and pointing with his outstretched hand, "Cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-cat-dog-here you are."

"Now, 'left eye-push.'"

"Or shove," suggested Jack.

"But there is no eye-whether left or otherwise."

"That's a detail," murmured Jack.

"Let me see." Ella clambered on to a chair. From that position of vantage she examined the protuberances in question.

"There really does seem nothing which could represent an eye; the things look more like knuckle-bones than anything else."

"What's the odds? Let's all get hammers and whack the whole jolly lot of them in the eye, or where, if right is right, it ought to be. And then, if nothing happens-and we'll hope to goodness nothing will-we'll whack 'em again."

"I'm afraid, Ella," put in Madge, "that your cats and dogs are merely suppositions. I vote, by way of doing something practical, that we start stripping the wainscot. You'll find hiding-places enough' behind that, and it's quite on the cards, something in them."

"Certainly," assented Jack, "I am on. Bring out your hatchets, pickaxes, crowbars, and other weapons of war, and we'll turn up our shirt-sleeves, and shiver our timbers, and not leave one splinter of wood adhering to another. Buck up, Graham! Take off your coat, my boy! You're going to begin to enjoy yourself at last, I give you my word."

Ella, possibly slightly exacerbated by the failure of her little suggestion, endeavoured to snub the exuberant Mr. Martyn.

"I don't know if you think you're funny, Jack, because you're only silly. If you can't be serious, perhaps you'd better go; then, if we do find something, you'll have no share."

"Upon my Sam!" cried Jack, "if that ain't bitter hard. If there's any sharing going on, I don't care what it is, if there's any man who wants his bit of it more than I do, I should like you to point him out. Ella, my dearest Ella, I do assure you, by the token of those peerless charms-"

"Jack, don't be silly."

"I think," insinuated Madge, "that you and I, Mr. Graham, had better go and fetch a chisel and a hammer."

They went. When they returned, bearing those useful implements, however the discussion might have gone, Mr. Martyn showed no signs of being crushed.

"Give me that chisel," he exclaimed. "You never saw a man handle a tool like me-and to the last day of your life you'll never see another. I'm capable of committing suicide while hammering in a tack."

"Thank you, Jack," said Madge; "but I think carpentering may be within the range of Mr. Graham's capacity rather than yours."

At least Mr. Graham showed himself capable of stripping the wainscot, though with the tools at his command-those being limited to the hammer and the chisel, with occasional help from the poker-it was not so easy a business as it might have been. It took some time. And, as none of the hoped-for results ensued-nothing being revealed except the wall behind-it became a trifle tedious. Eleven o'clock struck, and still a considerable portion of the wainscot was as before.

"Might I ask," inquired Jack, "if this is going to be an all night job; because I have to be at the office in the morning, and I should like to have some sleep before I start."

Graham surveyed the work of devastation.

"I will finish this side, and then I think, Miss Brodie, we might leave the rest to another time-till to-morrow, say."

"I really don't see what's the use of doing it at all," said Ella. "I don't believe there's anything hidden in this room; and look at the mess, it will take hours to clear it up. And who wants to live in a place with bare brick walls? It gives me the horrors to look at them."

Madge looked at her, more in sorrow than in anger.

"I think, Mr. Graham, that perhaps you had better stop."

He detected the mournful intonation.

"At any rate, I'll finish this side."

He continued to add to the uncomfortable appearance of the room; for there certainly was something in what Ella said.

He had worked for another quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes, and had torn off three or four more strips of wood-for they had been firmly secured in their places, and took some tearing-and the others were gathered round them, assisting and looking on, momentarily expecting that something would come to light better worth having than dust and cobwebs, of which articles there were very much more than sufficient, when Ella gave a sudden exclamation.

"Madge! Jack!" she cried. "Who-who's this man?"

"What man?" asked Madge.

Turning, she saw.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CAUSE OF THE INTERRUPTION

What she saw, and what they saw, spoke eloquently of the engrossed attention with which they had watched the work of destruction being carried on. So absorbed had they been in Bruce Graham's proceedings that, actually without their knowledge, a burglarious entry had been all but effected into the very room in which they were.

There was the proof before them.

The window had been raised, the blind and curtains pushed away, and a man's head and shoulders thrust inside.

When Ella's exclamation called their attention to the intruder's presence, they stared at him, as well they might, for a moment or two with stupefied amazement; the impudence of the act seemed almost to surpass the bounds of credibility. He, on his part, met their gaze with a degree of fortitude, not to say assurance, which was more than a little surprising.

To the fellow's character his looks bore evidence. The buttoning of his coat up to his chin failed to conceal the fact that his neck was bare, while the crushing of a dilapidated billycock down over his eyes served to throw into clearer relief his unshaven cheeks and hungry-looking eyes.

For the space of perhaps thirty seconds they looked at him, and he at them, in silence. Then Jack moved hastily forward.

"You're a cool hand!" he cried.

But Madge caught him by the arm.

"Don't!" she said. "This is the man who stared through the window."

Jack turned to her, bewildered.

"The man who stared through the window? What on earth do you mean?"

"Don't!" she repeated. "I think that Mr. Graham knows this man."

The man himself endorsed her supposition.

"Yes, I'm rather inclined to think that Mr. Graham does."

His voice was not a disagreeable one; not at all the sort of voice which one would have expected from a person of his appearance. He spoke, too, like an educated man, with, however, a strenuous something in his tone which suggested, in some occult fashion, the bitterness of a wild despair.

Seeing that he remained unanswered, he spoke again.

"What's more, if there is a cool hand it's Mr. Graham, it isn't me. I am a poor, starving, police-ridden devil, being hounded to hell, full pelt, by a hundred other devils-but, Bruce Graham, what are you?"

They turned to the man who was thus addressed.

At the moment of interruption he had been levering a strip of wainscot from its place with the aid of the inserted chisel. He still kept one hand upon the handle, holding the hammer with the other, while he drew his body back against the wall as close as it would go, and, with pallid cheeks and startled eyes, he stared at the intruder as if he had been some straggler from the spiritual world. From between his lips, which seemed to tremble, there came a single word-

"Ballingall!"

"Yes, Ballingall! That's my name. And what's yours-cur, hound, thief? By God! there have been people I've used badly enough in my time, but none worse than you've used me."

"You are mistaken."

"Am I? It looks like it. What are you doing here?"

"You know what I'm doing."

"By God! I do-you're right there. And it's because you know I know, that, although you're twice my size, and have got all the respectability and law of England at your back, you stand there shivering and shaking, afraid for your life at the sight of me."

"I am not afraid of you. I repeat that you are mistaken."

"And I say you lie-you are afraid of me, penniless, shoeless, hungry beggar though I am. Your face betrays you; look at him! Isn't there cowardice writ large?"

The man stretched out his arm, pointing to Graham with a dramatic gesture, which certainly did not tend to increase that gentleman's appearance of ease.

"Do you think I didn't see you the other day, knowing that the time was due for me to come out of gaol, trying to screw your courage to the striking point to play the traitor; how at the sight of me the blood turned to water in your veins? Deny it-lie if you can."

"I do not wish to deny it, nor do I propose to lie. I repeat, for the third time, that in the conclusions you draw you are mistaken. Miss Brodie, this is the person of whom I was telling you-Charles Ballingall."

"So you have told them of me, have you? And a pretty yarn you've spun, I bet my boots. Yes, madam, I am Charles Ballingall, lately out of Wandsworth Prison, sent there for committing burglary at this very place. My God, yes! this house of haunting memories of a thousand ghosts! I only came out the day before yesterday, and that same night I committed burglary again-here! And now I'm at it for the third time, driven to it-by a ghost! And, my God! he's behind me now."

A sudden curious change took place in the expression of the fellow's countenance. Partially withdrawing his head, he turned and looked behind him-as if constrained to the action against his will. His voice shrank to a hoarse whisper.

"Is that you, Tom Ossington?"

None replied.

Madge moved forward, quite calm, and, in her own peculiar fashion, stately, though she was a little white about the lips, and there was an odd something in her eyes.

"I think you had better come inside-and, if convenient, please moderate your language."

At the sound of her voice the man turned again, and stared.

"I beg your pardon. Were you speaking to me?"

"I was, and am. Mr. Graham has spoken to me of you, and I am quite certain that in doing so he has told us nothing but the exact and literal truth. In the light of what he has said, I know that I am giving expression to our common feeling in saying that we shall feel obliged to you if you will come in."

The man hesitated, fumbling with his hands, as if nonplussed.

"It's a good many years since I was spoken to like that."

"Possibly it's a good many years since you deserved to be spoken to like that. As a rule, that sort of speech is addressed to us to which we are entitled."

"That's true. By God, it is!"

"I believe I asked you to moderate your language."

"I beg your pardon; but it's a habit-of some standing."

"Then if that is the case, probably the time is come that it should die. Please let it die-if for this occasion only. Must I repeat my invitation, and press you to enter, in face of the eagerness to effect an entrance which it seems that you have already shown?"

Mr. Ballingall continued to exhibit signs of indecision.

"This isn't a trap, or anything of that kind?"

"I am afraid I hardly understand you. What do you mean by a trap?"

"Well" – his lips were distorted by what was possibly meant for a grin-"it doesn't want much understanding, when you come to think of it."

"We ask you to come in. If you accept our invitation you will of course be at liberty to go again whenever you please. We certainly shall make no effort to detain you, for any cause whatever."

"Well, if that's the case, it's a queer start, by-" He seemed about to utter his accustomed imprecation; then, catching her eyes, refrained, adding, in a different tone, "I think I will."

He did, passing first one leg over the sill, and then the other. When the whole of his body was in the room he removed his hat, the action effecting a distinct improvement in his appearance. The departure of the disreputable billycock disclosed the fact that his head was not by any means ill-shaped. One perceived that this had once been an intelligent man, whose intelligence was very far from being altogether a thing of the past. More, it suggested the probability of his having been good-looking. Nor did it need a keen observer to suspect that if he was shaven and shorn, combed and groomed, and his rags were exchanged for decent raiment, that there was still enough of manliness about him to render him sufficiently presentable. He was not yet of the hopelessly submerged; although just then he could scarcely have appeared to greater disadvantage. His clothes were the scourings of the ragman's bag-ill-fitting, torn, muddy. His boots were odd ones, whose gaping apertures revealed the sockless feet within. In his whole bearing there was that indefinable, furtive something which is the hall-mark of the wretch who hopes for nothing but an opportunity to snatch the wherewithal to stay the cravings of his belly, and who sees an enemy even in the creature who flings to him a careless dole. This atmosphere which was about him, of the outcast and the pariah, was heightened by the obvious fact that, at that very moment, he was hungry, hideously hungry. His eyes, now that they were more clearly seen, were wolfish. In their haste to begin their treasure-hunting they had not even waited to take away the tea-things. The man's glances were fastened on the fragments of food which were on the table, as if it was only by an effort of will that he was able to keep himself from pouncing on them like some famished animal.

Madge perceived the looks of longing.

"We are just going to have supper. You must join us. Then we can talk while we are eating. Ella, help me to get it ready. Sit down, Mr. Ballingall, I daresay you are tired-and perhaps you had better close the window. Ella and I shall not be long."

They made a curious trio, the three men, while the two girls made ready. Ballingall closed the window, with an air half sheepish, half defiant. Then placed himself upon a seat, in bolt upright fashion, as if doubtful of the chair's solidity. Jack took up a position in the centre of the hearthrug, so evidently at a loss for something appropriate to say as to make his incapacity almost pathetic-apparently the unusual character of the situation had tied his tongue into a double knot. Graham's attitude was more complex. The portion of the wainscot which he had undertaken to displace not having been entirely removed, resuming his unfinished task, he continued to wrench the boards from their fastenings as if intentionally oblivious of the new arrival's presence.

Nor was the meal which followed of a familiar type. The resources of the larder were not manifold, but all that it contained was placed upon the table. The pièce de resistance consisted of six boiled eggs.

"If you boil all those eggs," Ella declared, when Madge laid on them a predatory hand, "there'll be nothing left in the house for breakfast."

"The man is famished," retorted Madge with some inconsequence. "What does breakfast matter to us if the man is starving." So the six were boiled. And he ate them all. Indeed he ate all there was to eat-devoured would have been the more appropriate word. For he attacked his food with a voracity which it was not nice to witness, bolting it with a complete disregard to rules which suggest the advisability of preliminary mastication.

It was not until his wolf-like appetite was, at least, somewhat appeased by the consumption of nearly all the food that was on the table, that Madge approached the subject which was uppermost in all their thoughts.

"As I was saying, Mr. Ballingall, Mr. Graham has told us of all that passed between you."

At the moment he had a piece of bread in one hand and some cheese in the other-all the cheese that was left. The satisfaction of his appetite seemed to have increased his ferocity. Cramming both morsels into his mouth at once, he turned on her with a sort of half-choked snarl.

"Then what right had he to do that?"

"It seems to me that he had a good deal of right."

"How? Who's he? A lawyer out of a job, who comes and offers me his services. I'm his client. As his client I give him my confidence. Looking at it from the professional point of view only, what right has he to pass my confidence on to any one? – any one! He's been guilty of a dirty and disgraceful action, and he knows it. You know it, you do." He snarled across the board at Graham. "If I were to report him to the Law Society they'd take him off the rolls."

"I question it."

Madge's tone was dry.

"You may question it-but I know what I'm talking about. What use does he make of the confidence which he worms out of me?"

"I wormed nothing out of you." The interruption was Graham's. "Whatever you said to me was said spontaneously, without the slightest prompting on my part."

"What difference does that make? – Then what use does he make of what I said spontaneously? He knows that I am a poor driven devil, charged with a crime which I never committed. I explain to him how it happened that that crime comes to be laid against me, how I've been told that there's money waiting for me in a certain place, which is mine for the fetching, and how, when I went to fetch it, I was snapped for burglary. I'm found guilty of what I never did, and I get twelve months. In this country law and justice are two different things. What does my lawyer-my own lawyer, who pressed on me his services, mind! – do, while I'm in prison for what I never did? He takes advantage of my confidence, and without a word to me, or a hint of any sort, he goes and looks for my money-my money, mind! – on his own account-and for all I know he's got it in his pocket now."

"That he certainly has not."

This was Madge.

"Then it isn't his fault if he hasn't. Can you think of anything dirtier? not to speak of more unprofessional? Why one thief wouldn't behave to another thief like that-not if he was a touch above the carrion. Here have I, an innocent man, been rotting in gaol, think, think, thinking of what I'd do with the money when I did come out, and here was the man who ought to have been above suspicion, and whom I thought was above suspicion, plotting and planning all the time how he could rob me of what he very well knew was the only thing which could save me from the outer darkness of hell and of despair."

Graham motioned Madge to silence.

"One moment, Miss Brodie. You must not suppose, Mr. Ballingall, that because I suffer you to make your sweeping charges against me without interruption, that I admit their truth, or the justice of the epithets which you permit yourself to apply to me. On the contrary, I assert that your statements are for the most part wholly unjustifiable, and that where they appear to have some measure of justification, they are easily capable of complete explanation. Whatever you may continue to say I shall decline to argue with you here. If you will come to my rooms I will give you every explanation you can possibly desire."

"Yes, I daresay, – and take the earliest opportunity of handing me over to the first convenient copper. Unless I'm mistaken, that's the kind of man you are."

Madge caught the speaker by the sleeve of his ragged coat, with a glance at Graham, whose countenance had grown ominously black.