When Last I Died

The attics did not cover the whole of the floor beneath, but belonged, it seemed, to the older part of the present structure, for the rooms on the opposite side of the house had no attics built over them. The lower roofs could be seen from two of the attic windows. The courtyard could not be seen from any of the upstair windows except the shuttered window on the stairs.

She was about to descend the narrow stairs when she noticed what seemed to be ventilation holes in the partition wall at the top of the staircase. When the attic doors were shut this partition wall was in darkness. She looked back, and saw that one of the doors which she believed she had shut and locked was swinging slowly open.

With a feeling more of interest than of anything approaching alarm, she went back to find out what had happened. She had not anticipated anything in the way of a supernatural occurrence, but she was relieved, all the same, to discover that the trouble was due to a defective lock and did not emanate from the realm of the spirits.

She pushed the door wide open, and went back to examine the air-holes. It was now obvious that they ventilated a large cupboard, or small, unlighted room, on the opposite side of the passage. The door of it had been papered over to match the rest of the decorations of the attic corridor, and again, like the door into the dressing-room on the floor below, would, in the ordinary-way, pass unnoticed. She traced the outline of the door beneath the paper, closed the attic door again, and this time, fastened it securely, and then, with some part of her theory if not proved, at any rate capable of proof, she returned to the first floor and made an exhaustive search.

Nothing further was to be discovered there, however, and she spent the next three-quarters of an hour in checking the plan of the house which formed the only illustration to the little guidebook she had purchased on her previous visit, and in preparing a sketch-plan of her own on which she marked the door with the faulty lock, the position of the two attic cupboards, the blocked-up and papered-over communicating door between the largest bedroom, and the window with the inside shutters and the dressing-room at the top of the stairs.

Her next objective was the courtyard. This was a rectangular strip of garden which had been made almost into a quadrangle by the addition of the newest wing. It was overgrown with tall weeds, the willow-herb flourishing particularly. There was a well at one corner, close to the scullery door. A couple of boards formed the cover. She removed them, peered into the well and then replaced the boards.

Although it was broad daylight, the courtyard looked eerie and desolate. It was silent, too, and the surrounding buildings seemed to shut out the sun. It was curious, she thought, that none of the windows, even of the new buildings, overlooked it. It seemed chilly out there. Mrs. Bradley made a careful exploration, even parting continually the long weeds to make certain that the surface of the courtyard was everywhere the same. This examination yielded nothing.

She left the house before the caretaker returned to it. Then, later in the afternoon, she sought him out, and asked him one or two trivial questions before she put to him the important query suggested by her visit.

"What has become of the well-cover, I wonder?" she said, in the most casual tone she could command.

"Well-cover? It was covered with two planks last time I were here," he responded stupidly. "What do you mean about a well-cover?"

"I shouldn't have thought two planks would have been sufficient to cover so deep a well, and one which has the opening level with the ground," replied Mrs. Bradley. "But, of course, it's no business of mine. One thing, I see that you are able to keep the flap of the cellar staircase screwed down. That's something."

"If any of the visitors brings children, I keeps my eye on things," said the old man. "Anyway, this yere courtyard beant on the reg'lar routine. Nothing to see out here. I've give up most of the garden, too, I 'ave. Just keep the front a bit tidy. I thought maybe some of them it belonged to might pay a jobbing gardener to come in now and again. It's a mort of work for an old fellow like me, and I can't keep upsides with it nohow. Barring the little wife of that poor gentleman as was killed, and she only come the once, I don't believe anybody's took that much interest in doing a bit of spade-work. Seems a shame, like, don't it?"

Mrs. Bradley emphatically dissented from this view, but she did not say so. As soon as she left the haunted house this time she went back to Miss Biddle.

"I'm becoming a nuisance," she remarked, "but there is one thing I want to know, and I don't know of anybody else who can help me. These screamings and knockings that seem to have been heard before the death of Mr. Tom Turney ...?"