It was after ten o’clock. A furious gust of wind rattled the windows as though to hurry him up, and he thought with pity of the poor Londoners whose Christmas would be spent in such a climate, while he was skimming over snowy slopes in bright sunshine and dancing in the evening with rosy-
cheeked girls—ah! That reminded him; he must put in his dancing pumps and evening socks. He crossed over from his sitting room to the cupboard on the landing where he kept his linen.
And as he did so, he heard someone coming softly up the stairs.
He stood still a moment on the landing to listen. It was Mrs. Monks’s step, he thought; she must be coming up with the last mail. But then the steps ceased suddenly, and he heard no more. They were at least two flights down, and he came to the conclusion that they were too heavy to be those of his bibulous landlady. No doubt they belonged to a late lodger who had mistaken his floor. He went into his bedroom and packed his pumps and dress shirts as best he could.
The kit bag by this time was two thirds full and stood upright on its own base like a sack of flour. For the first time he noticed that it was old and dirty, the canvas faded and worn, and that it had obviously been subjected to rather rough treatment. It was not a very nice bag to have sent him—certainly not a new one or one that his chief valued. He gave the matter a passing thought and went on with his packing. Once or twice, however, he caught himself wondering who it could have been wandering down below, for Mrs. Monks had not come up with letters, and the floor was empty and unfurnished. From time to time, moreover, he was almost certain that he heard a soft tread of someone padding around over the bare boards—cautiously, stealthily, as silently as possible—and, further, that the sounds had been lately coming distinctly closer.
For the first time in his life he began to feel a little creepy. Then, as though to emphasize this feeling, an odd thing happened: as he left the bedroom, having just packed his recalcitrant white shirts, he noticed that the top of the kit bag lopped over toward him with an extraordinary resemblance to a human face. the canvas fell into a fold like a nose and forehead, and the brass rings for the padlock just filled the position of the eyes. A shadow—or was it a travel stain? for he could not tell exactly—looked like hair. It gave him rather a shock, for it was so absurdly, so outrageously, like the face of John Turk, the murderer.
He laughed and went into the front room, where the light was stronger.
That horrid case has gotten on my mind, he thought; I shall be glad of a change of scene and air. In the sitting room, however, he was not pleased to hear again that stealthy tread upon the stairs and to realize that it was much closer than before, as well as unmistakably real. And this time he got up and went out to see who it could be creeping around on the upper staircase at so late an hour.
But the sound ceased; there was no one visible on the stairs. He went to the floor below, not without trepidation, and turned on the electric light to make sure that no one was hiding in the empty rooms of the unoccupied suite. There was not a stick of furniture large enough to hide a dog. Then he called over the banisters to Mrs. Monks, but there was no answer, and his voice echoed down into the dark vault of the house and was lost in the roar of the gale that howled outside. Everyone was in bed and asleep—everyone except himself and the owner of this soft and stealthy tread.
My absurd imagination, I suppose, he thought. It must have been the wind after all, although—it seemed so very real and close, I thought. He went back to his packing. It was by this time getting on toward midnight. He drank his coffee and lit another pipe—the last before turning in.
It is difficult to say exactly at what point fear begins, when the causes of that fear are not plainly before the eyes. Impressions gather on the surface of the mind, film by film, as ice gathers on the surface of still water, but often so lightly that they claim no definite recognition from the consciousness. Then a point is reached where the accumulated impressions become a definite emotion, and the mind realizes that something has happened. With something of a start, Johnson suddenly recognized that he felt nervous—
oddly nervous; also, that for some time past the causes of this feeling had been gathering slowly in his mind, but that he had only just reached the point where he was forced to acknowledge them.
It was a singular and curious malaise that had come over him, and he hardly knew what to make of it. He felt as though he was doing something that was strongly objected to by another person, another person, moreover, who had some right to object. It was a most disturbing and disagreeable feeling, not unlike the persistent promptings of conscience: almost, in fact, as if he was doing something that he knew to be wrong. Yet, though he searched vigorously and honestly in his mind, he could nowhere lay his finger upon the secret of this growing uneasiness, and it perplexed him. More, it distressed and frightened him.
“Pure nerves, I suppose,” he said aloud with a forced laugh. “Mountain air will cure all that! Ah,” he added, still speaking to himself, “and that reminds me—
my snow glasses.”
He was standing by the door of the bedroom during this brief soliloquy, and as he passed quickly toward the sitting room to fetch them from the cupboard, he saw out of the corner of his eye the indistinct outline of a figure standing on the stairs, a few feet from the top. It was someone in a stooping position, with one hand on the banister and the face peering up toward the landing. And at the same moment he heard a shuffling footstep. the person who had been creeping around below all this time had at last come up to his own floor. Who in the world could it be? And what in the name of heaven did he want?
Johnson caught his breath sharply and stood stock-still. Then, after a few seconds hesitation, he found his courage and turned to investigate. the stairs, he saw to his utter amazement, were empty; there was no one. He felt a series of cold shivers run over him, and something around the muscles of his legs gave a little and grew weak. For the space of several minutes he peered steadily into the shadows that congregated around the top of the staircase where he had seen the figure, and then he walked fast—almost ran, in fact—into the light of the front room; but hardly had he passed inside the doorway when he heard someone come up the stairs behind him with a quick bound and go swiftly into his bedroom. It was a heavy, but at the same time a stealthy, footstep—the tread of somebody who did not wish to be seen. And it was at this precise moment that the nervousness he had hitherto experienced leaped the boundary line and entered the state of fear, almost of acute, unreasoning fear. Before it turned into terror there was a further boundary to cross, and beyond that again lay the region of pure horror. Johnson’s position was an unenviable one.
“By Jove! That was someone on the stairs, then,” he muttered, his flesh crawling all over; “and whoever it was has now gone into my bedroom.” His delicate, pale face turned absolutely white, and for some minutes he hardly knew what to think or do. Then he realized intuitively that delay only set a premium upon fear; and he crossed the landing boldly and went straight into the other room, where, a few seconds before, the steps had disappeared.
“Who’s there? Is that you, Mrs. Monks?” he called aloud as he went, and he heard the first half of his words echo down the empty stairs, while the second half fell dead against the curtains in a room that apparently held no other human figure than his own.
“Who’s there?” he called again in a voice unnecessarily loud and that only just held firm. “What do you want here?”
The curtains swayed very slightly, and, as he saw it, his heart felt as if it almost missed a beat; yet he dashed forward and drew them aside with a rush. A window, streaming with rain, was all that met his gaze. He continued his search, but in vain; the cupboards held nothing but rows of clothes, hanging motionless; and under the bed there was no sign of anyone hiding. He stepped backward into the middle of the room, and,