“You haven’t passed your cup,” answered Lydia. “Thank you. Yes? When you left the train?”
“I’ve changed my mind,” he responded. “This isn’t the moment for ghost stories.”
“When is the moment?”
“Perhaps this evening, if we are still here, and if we are in the mood.”
The cockney rose abruptly.
“Well, I won’t be ’ere, and I ain’t in the mood,” he exclaimed. “So long, and thanks, miss, fer the tea.”
He walked to the front door.
“Just a moment,” Mr. Maltby called after him, “you’ve dropped your ticket.” Smith paused, as he held it out. “Euston to Manchester.”
“That ain’t mine,” growled the man.
He completed his way to the front door and pulled it open. Snow poured in on him from the choked dusk. Something else came in, too. The echo of a muffled shout.
“Hey! Help!”
The man darted out, with David after him.
CHAPTER V
NEWS FROM THE TRAIN
The first thing David did on emerging from the front door was to pitch head first into a mound of snow. For a moment or two he nearly suffocated, while countless soft, icy pellets invaded his back as though he were being bombarded by silent salvos from heaven. Then he scrambled out, and strained ears choked with snow for a repetition of the shout. Already he had lost his sense of direction, for all he could see was a bewildering succession of snowflake close-ups, almost blinding vision.
During the forty-five minutes he had been in the house the weather had travelled from bad to worse. Snow rushed at him unbelievably from nowhere caking him with white. He would have retreated promptly saving for the knowledge that somewhere in this whirling maelstrom was a man in a worse plight; but how to find the man, if his despairing cry was not repeated, seemed a stark impossibility.
He made a guess, plunged forward, and sank waist-deep. Some one helped him out. It was Thomson, trembling and gasping. They stared at each other, their faces close. And, as they stared, the voice that had brought them from the warmth of the fire summoned them again.
“Help! Some one! My God!”
The voice sounded a long way off, but actually it was close. Stumbling towards it, Thomson suddenly went flat. The mound he had fallen over writhed. Two rose where one had just fallen.
The addition was the elderly bore.
He was hatless, blue, and frozen. He tried to speak, and failed. The snow that melted round his staring eyes had a suspicious resemblance to tears. The man who had pooh-poohed English snow was receiving more than his deserts.
“Come on!” shouted David, flinging an arm round him.
Clinging to each other grotesquely, they swerved round and began stumbling back. The bore went down twice, the second time bringing his rescuers with him. When they were once more on their feet, they found a vague feminine form before them.
“Go back, you idiot!” croaked David. “Which way?”
“Not the way you’re going, idiot yourself!” retorted Lydia.
She directed them back. Inside the hall they sank down and gasped.
“Well, what about Dawson City now?” panted David.
The bore offered no reply. Even if he had been physically capable of speech, his bemused brain could not have directed his tongue. He lay in the large chair in which he had been deposited, his eyes fixed vacantly on the ceiling, his face a mess of melting snow. Not attractive at the best of times, he now presented a most unsavoury appearance, and was temporarily too distressed to worry about it.
“This house is becoming a hospital!” Lydia whispered to Mr. Maltby.
The old man did not hear her. He was gazing towards the closed front door. The wind was rising, sending doleful music round the house, and periodically rattling the windows as though trying to get in. Suddenly, unable to stand it, Lydia dived towards a lamp and lit it. The illumination glowed on a strange scene. Three exhausted men, recovering at various rates of progress, but none in a hurry; Jessie Noyes, with her bandaged foot, and struggling against a return of fear; Lydia herself, frowning and tense; and the old man still gazing at the closed door.
“What is it? Do you hear anything?” demanded Lydia.
“I hear a lot of things,” answered Mr. Maltby. “But not our friend Smith.”
“No, he’s gone, and good riddance,” said David.
“Very good riddance, if he’s gone,” replied Mr. Maltby. “We are to take it that he has succeeded where the rest of us would fail.” He gave a little shrug, and turned to the latest addition in the arm-chair. “When you have got your wind back we would like your story, sir. Meanwhile, to save your inevitable questions, here is ours. We all got lost. We all came upon this house. Necessity drove us in, and necessity retains us here. And apparently there is no one in the house excepting ourselves.”
“Then, how the devil did you get in?” the bore managed to gulp at last.
“The door was not locked.”
The bore gazed round, and began to take notice.
“Making yourselves at home, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Thoroughly,” agreed the old man. “Will you have a cup of tea?”
“My God! Will I?” Lydia poured him out a cup. He swallowed it too quickly and choked. “I don’t suppose anybody could rake up a towel?”
This time Thomson obliged, fetching one from the kitchen.
“And what time would you like your shaving-water in the morning?” inquired Lydia.
In the process of mopping his face, the bore paused and looked at her suspiciously.
“I’m glad you think it’s a joke,” he muttered.
“The thought, I’m sure, is entirely self-defensive,” interposed David. “You remember, Tommy made jokes in the trenches. Or—er—don’t you remember?”
“I expect I remember better than you do, young man,” retorted the bore, showing definite signs of recovery through the tea and the towel. He did not mention that his speciality during the war had been the making of munitions a long way from the sound of them. “But I am afraid my sense of humour isn’t any too bright at the moment. I’ve been through a hell of a time.”
He glanced at Jessie, as the only possible source of sympathy. Nice little thing, that blonde ... nice to get to know....
“Yes, will you tell us about the time?” asked Mr. Maltby. “We are curious to know why you left the train.”
“You left it,” answered the bore.
“And we were not thought highly of for doing so,” remarked David. “I seem to remember an uncomplimentary observation.”
“Are you trying to pick a quarrel, young man?”
“If you continue to call me ‘young man,’ I shall certainly pick a quarrel. Please remember that we’ve been through the hell of a time, too, and had the hell of a time lugging you out of a snowdrift.”
“All right, all right, I apologise,” grunted the bore. “We’ve all been through the hell of a time. And, if you want the truth, I left the train to escape