Thomas Johnson came ambling up the drive about half-past six, and we
could hear him clattering around on the lower floor, opening shutters.
I had to take Liddy to her room up-stairs, however,--she was quite sure
she would find something uncanny. In fact, when she did not, having now
the courage of daylight, she was actually disappointed.
Well, we did not go back to town that day.
The discovery of a small picture fallen from the wall of the
drawing-room was quite sufficient to satisfy Liddy that the alarm had
been a false one, but I was anything but convinced. Allowing for my
nerves and the fact that small noises magnify themselves at night,
there was still no possibility that the picture had made the series of
sounds I heard. To prove it, however, I dropped it again. It fell
with a single muffled crash of its wooden frame, and incidentally
ruined itself beyond repair. I justified myself by reflecting that if
the Armstrongs chose to leave pictures in unsafe positions, and to rent
a house with a family ghost, the destruction of property was their
responsibility, not mine.
I warned Liddy not to mention what had happened to anybody, and
telephoned to town for servants. Then after a breakfast which did more
credit to Thomas' heart than his head, I went on a short tour of
investigation. The sounds had come from the east wing, and not without
some qualms I began there. At first I found nothing. Since then I
have developed my powers of observation, but at that time I was a
novice. The small card-room seemed undisturbed. I looked for
footprints, which is, I believe, the conventional thing to do, although
my experience has been that as clues both footprints and thumb-marks
are more useful in fiction than in fact. But the stairs in that wing
offered something.
At the top of the flight had been placed a tall wicker hamper, packed,
with linen that had come from town. It stood at the edge of the top
step, almost barring passage, and on the step below it was a long fresh
scratch. For three steps the scratch was repeated, gradually
diminishing, as if some object had fallen, striking each one. Then for
four steps nothing. On the fifth step below was a round dent in the
hard wood. That was all, and it seemed little enough, except that I
was positive the marks had not been there the day before.
It bore out my theory of the sound, which had been for all the world
like the bumping of a metallic object down a flight of steps. The four
steps had been skipped. I reasoned that an iron bar, for instance,
would do something of the sort,--strike two or three steps, end down,
then turn over, jumping a few stairs, and landing with a thud.