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CHAPTER XVI - A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
Now all this time, while the tragi-comedy of life was being played in
these three suburban villas, while on a commonplace stage love and humor
and fears and lights and shadows were so swiftly succeeding each other,
and while these three families, drifted together by fate, were shaping
each other's destinies and working out in their own fashion the strange,
intricate ends of human life, there were human eyes which watched over
every stage of the performance, and which were keenly critical of every
actor on it. Across the road beyond the green palings and the close-
cropped lawn, behind the curtains of their creeper-framed windows, sat
the two old ladies, Miss Bertha and Miss Monica Williams, looking out as
from a private box at all that was being enacted before them. The
growing friendship of the three families, the engagement of Harold
Denver with Clara Walker, the engagement of Charles Westmacott with her
sister, the dangerous fascination which the widow exercised over the
Doctor, the preposterous behavior of the Walker girls and the
unhappiness which they had caused their father, not one of these
incidents escaped the notice of the two maiden ladies. Bertha the
younger had a smile or a sigh for the lovers, Monica the elder a frown
or a shrug for the elders. Every night they talked over what they had
seen, and their own dull, uneventful life took a warmth and a coloring
from their neighbors as a blank wall reflects a beacon fire.
And now it was destined that they should experience the one keen
sensation of their later years, the one memorable incident from which
all future incidents should be dated.
It was on the very night which succeeded the events which have just been
narrated, when suddenly into Monica William's head, as she tossed upon
her sleepless bed, there shot a thought which made her sit up with a
thrill and a gasp.
"Bertha," said she, plucking at the shoulder of her sister, "I have left
the front window open."
"No, Monica, surely not." Bertha sat up also, and thrilled in sympathy.
"I am sure of it. You remember I had forgotten to water the pots, and
then I opened the window, and Jane called me about the jam, and I have
never been in the room since."
"Good gracious, Monica, it is a mercy that we have not been murdered in
our beds. There was a house broken into at Forest Hill last week.
Shall we go down and shut it?"
"I dare not go down alone, dear, but if you will come with me. Put on
your slippers and dressing-gown. We do not need a candle. Now, Bertha,
we will go down together."
Two little white patches moved vaguely through the darkness, the stairs
creaked, the door whined, and they were at the front room window.
Monica closed it gently down, and fastened the snib.
"What a beautiful moon!" said she, looking out. "We can see as clearly
as if it were day. How peaceful and quiet the three houses are over
yonder! It seems quite sad to see that `To Let' card upon number one.
I wonder how number two will like their going. For my part I could
better spare that dreadful woman at number three with her short skirts
and her snake. But, oh, Bertha, look! look!! look!!!" Her voice had
fallen suddenly to a quivering whisper and she was pointing to the
Westmacotts' house. Her sister gave a gasp of horror, and stood with a
clutch at Monica's arm, staring in the same direction.
There was a light in the front room, a slight, wavering light such as
would be given by a small candle or taper. The blind was down, but the
light shone dimly through. Outside in the garden, with his figure
outlined against the luminous square, there stood a man, his back to the
road, his two hands upon the window ledge, and his body rather bent as
though he were trying to peep in past the blind. So absolutely still
and motionless was he that in spite of the moon they might well have
overlooked him were it not for that tell-tale light behind.
"Good heaven!" gasped Bertha, "it is a burglar."
But her sister set her mouth grimly and shook her head. "We shall see,"
she whispered. "It may be something worse."
Swiftly and furtively the man stood suddenly erect, and began to push
the window slowly up. Then he put one knee upon the sash, glanced round
to see that all was safe, and climbed over into the room. As he did so
he had to push the blind aside. Then the two spectators saw where the
light came from. Mrs. Westmacott was standing, as rigid as a statue, in
the center of the room, with a lighted taper in her right hand. For an
instant they caught a glimpse of her stern face and her white collar.
Then the blind fell back into position, and the two figures disappeared
from their view.
"Oh, that dreadful woman!" cried Monica. "That dreadful, dreadful
woman! She was waiting for him. You saw it with your own eyes, sister
Bertha!"
"Hush, dear, hush and listen!" said her more charitable companion. They
pushed their own window up once more, and watched from behind the
curtains.
For a long time all was silent within the house. The light still stood
motionless as though Mrs. Westmacott remained rigidly in the one
position, while from time to time a shadow passed in front of it to show
that her midnight visitor was pacing up and down in front of her. Once
they saw his outline clearly, with his hands outstretched as if in
appeal or entreaty. Then suddenly there was a dull sound, a cry, the
noise of a fall, the taper was extinguished, and a dark figure fled in
the moonlight, rushed across the garden, and vanished amid the shrubs at
the farther side.
Then only did the two old ladies understand that they had looked on
whilst a tragedy had been enacted. "Help!" they cried, and "Help!" in
their high, thin voices, timidly at first, but gathering volume as they
went on, until the Wilderness rang with their shrieks. Lights shone in
all the windows opposite, chains rattled, bars were unshot, doors
opened, and out rushed friends to the rescue. Harold, with a stick; the
Admiral, with his sword, his grey head and bare feet protruding from
either end of a long brown ulster; finally, Doctor Walker, with a poker,
all ran to the help of the Westmacotts. Their door had been already
opened, and they crowded tumultuously into the front room.
Charles Westmacott, white to his lips, was kneeling an the floor,
supporting his aunt's head upon his knee. She lay outstretched, dressed
in her ordinary clothes, the extinguished taper still grasped in her
hand, no mark or wound upon her--pale, placid, and senseless.
"Thank God you are come, Doctor," said Charles, looking up. "Do tell me
how she is, and what I should do."
Doctor Walker kneeled beside her, and passed his left hand over her
head, while he grasped her pulse with the right.
"She has had a terrible blow," said he. "It must have been with some
blunt weapon. Here is the place behind the ear. But she is a woman of
extraordinary physical powers. Her pulse is full and slow. There is no
stertor. It is my belief that she is merely stunned, and that she is in
no danger at all."
"Thank God for that!"
"We must get her to bed. We shall carry her upstairs, and then I shall
send my girls in to her. But who has done this?"
"Some robber" said Charles. "You see that the window is open. She must
have heard him and come down, for she was always perfectly fearless. I
wish to goodness she had called me."
"But she was dressed."
"Sometimes she sits up very late."
"I did sit up very late," said a voice. She had opened her eyes, and
was blinking at them in the lamplight. "A villain came in through the
window and struck me with a life-preserver. You can tell the police so
when they come. Also that it was a little fat man. Now, Charles, give
me your arm and I shall go upstairs."
But her spirit was greater than her strength, for, as she staggered to
her feet, her head swam round, and she would have fallen again had her
nephew not thrown his arms round her. They carried her upstairs among
them and laid her upon the bed, where the Doctor watched beside her,
while Charles went off to the police-station, and the Denvers mounted
guard over the frightened maids.
Content of CHAPTER XVI - A MIDNIGHT VISITOR [Arthur Conan Doyle's novel: Beyond the City]
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