The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4711]
Nor was Beresford's arrival with the statement that the Unknown was moving through the house below particularly comforting.
"He may be dazed, or he may not," he said. "Personally, this is not a time to trust anybody."
Beresford knew nothing of what had just occurred, and now seeing Bailey he favored him with an ugly glance.
"In the absence of Anderson, Bailey," he added, "I don't propose to trust you too far. I'm making it my business from now on to see that you don't try to get away. Get that?"
But Bailey heard him without particular resentment.
"All right," he said. "But I'll tell you this. Anderson is here and has arrested the Doctor. Keep your eye on me, if you think it's your duty, but don't talk to me as if I were a criminal. You don't know that yet."
"The Doctor!" Beresford gasped.
But Miss Cornelia's keen ears had heard a sound outside and her eyes were focused on the door.
"That doorknob is moving," she said in a hushed voice.
Beresford moved to the door and jerked it violently open.
The butler, Billy, almost pitched into the room.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BAT STILL FLIES
He stepped back in the doorway, looked out, then turned to them again.
"I come in, please?" he said pathetically, his hands quivering. "I not like to stay in dark."
Miss Cornelia took pity on him.
"Come in, Billy, of course. What is it? Anything the matter?"
Billy glanced about nervously.
"Man with sore head."
"What about him?"
"Act very strange." Again Billy's slim hands trembled.
Beresford broke in. "The man who fell into the room downstairs?"
Billy nodded.
"Yes. On second floor, walking around."
Beresford smiled, a bit smugly.
"I told you!" he said to Miss Cornelia. "I didn't think he was as dazed as he pretended to be."
Miss Cornelia, too, had been pondering the problem of the Unknown. She reached a swift decision. If he were what he pretended to be-- a dazed wanderer, he could do them no harm. If he were not--a little strategy properly employed might unravel the whole mystery.
"Bring him up here, Billy," she said, turning to the butler.
Billy started to obey. But the darkness of the corridor seemed to appall him anew the moment he took a step toward it.
"You give candle, please?" he asked with a pleading expression. "Don't like dark."
Miss Cornelia handed him one of the two precious candles. Then his present terror reminded her of that one other occasion when she had seen him lose completely his stoic Oriental calm.
"Billy," she queried, "what did you see when you came running down the stairs before we were locked in, down below?"
The candle shook like a reed in Billy's grasp.
"Nothing!" he gasped with obvious untruth, though it did not seem so much as if he wished to conceal what he had seen as that he was trying to convince himself he had seen nothing.
"Nothing!" said Lizzie scornfully. "It was some nothing that would make him drop a bottle of whisky!"
But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling apologetically.
"Thought I saw ghost," he said, and went out and down the stairs, the candlelight flickering, growing fainter, and finally disappearing. Silence and eerie darkness enveloped them all as they waited. And suddenly out of the blackness came a sound.
Something was flapping and thumping around the room.
"That's damned odd." muttered Beresford uneasily. "There is something moving around the room."
"It's up near the ceiling!" cried Bailey as the sound began again.
Lizzie began a slow wail of doom and disaster.
"Oh--h--h--h--"
"Good God!" cried Beresford abruptly. "It hit me in the face!" He slapped his hands together in a vain attempt to capture the