CHINA
FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, FEBRUARY 18, 1938
IT was Alma who came to me,.
IT
is
white and frightened, asking
could me if 1
do something to straighten out her life story. Although my sister Alma almost my only relative, save for an aunt or two and a brace of cousins, I did not know her very well..
Our parents died when she was a baby of two, and I just sixteen, and mad keen to go to Scotland and live with a bachelor uncle a Professor and a sport-the most intriguing combination!
When the Professor died, leav- ing me his small fortune, I came South for several reasons.
I wanted to take a trip to In- dia; I wished to see my lawyer; and I felt I really ought to look up my only sister who had just become engaged to the only son of a country squire.
I found Alma quite charming, pretty as a picture, and remark- ably like the mother I had adored. I expected to find her radiant in the magic glamour of first love.
she
Instead, I found her in despair. Aunt Elinor looked mysterious and told me to ask no questions.
"Alma will tell you when feels it possible," she explained.
And at last Alma came. "When am I to see the hero?" I chaffed. ""Terry Calford, think you said his name is. Don't they own the jolly old place be- yond the village? Calford Manor?"
I
"Yes," said Alison, and her blue eyes began to fill with tears.
I felt irritated. I hate to see anyone cry.
"What's wrong now?" I asked. "Terry turned out to be a wrong 'un, eh?"
me.
I liked the way she rounded on It was good to find she was not one of the sob stuff sort; and, after giving me the benefit of a *and opinion, very unflattering accepting my apologies in a sport- ing way, she ended up by telling me the whole yarn.
I won't comment on what looks a trifle odd in black and white-- except to say I state facts-ac- cording to Alma.
"Of course, living in the wilds and never seeing a paper, you don't know how beastly those wret- ched dailies have been," she said, My "so, I'll have to tell Terry's mother died when he was a kiddy, but Sir Reynold marri- ed again. His second wife was terrible very lovely, but with a
you.
a
temper. She was really unbalanc- ed, and at last her mind gave way. Sir Reynold did all he could, but finally he left her in charge of the servants and a trained at-
About tendant at the Manor. year ago Terry went abroad with his father, but the latter sent for to come home about some legal business. He went down to the Manor and stayed there for two weeks, leaving in some haste, After he had gone, his wife was found murdered.
Sir Reynold meantime had gone back to France to his son, who had just become engaged to me. Aunt and I were at Cannes. She and I left for England a few hours before Sir Reynold's arrest. He
he is in prison now, arrested · on charge of murdering his wife. And of course, Terry says in any case it would be impossible for
"FOOTSTEPS"
him, with such a tàint, to marry
me.
"
It was ugly story-so ugly that I did not like to press for details, and waited for Alma to tell me how I was to help in the matter.
It was tragedy-and of course Terry Calford was right.
Alma could not marry the son of a man likely to hang for mur- der.
But I was geninely sorry for my sister and asked rather awkwardly at last, what I could do.
"Is Terry at the Manor ?”. I asked; but she shook her head.
"He is in London," she repli- ed, "doing all he can, and being allowed to see his father, since the latter is in the prison înfirm- ary, ill, with the shock of it all. The most awful bit is that. Sir Reynold has got it into his head that Terry killed his step-mother. He had once said what a pity the law could not authorise putting mad people to sleep."
'Again, there was fear in those blue eyes, and Alma, reading pity in mine, came nearer.
"You are the only one I can talk to, Jim," she whispered, "don't please don't call me quite crazy, but Lucy Ellett from the Manor bas been in to see me twice, and
Short Story
she says
she says the ser- vants are all scared because they hear footsteps all over the house at night, just at the suppose time of the murder. They are terrifi- ed, but though they have watch- ed, they can see no one. At first they hoped it might be the mur- derer returning, but they can't find him, nothing is stolen, though they have set traps for the mid- night visitor. Lucy says if it goes on they will all leave. If so, it will be worse for Terry, who may return home at any time, though he would hardly dare come and see me; my poor, poor Terry."
I didn't blame the kid for her tears now. She had excuse, for the whole show had smashed her love story and placed tragedy in its stead
But I'm not demonstrative, and` can't make pretty speeches, OF kiss and comfort any girl- -even a sister.
So, instead, I kicked savagely at a hassock, and said shortly:
"Dead end, eh? But -I tackle the ghost. Uncle was an expert in that sort of show, and I happen to be psychic.
"Suppose I toddle over to the Manor to-night and talk to
the lady?"
-ar
Alma's eyes dilated. Till then she must have thought me just a Scottish bear fresh from the wilds. Now I grew to the size of a full-blown champion.
But being a woman she had the wit not to offer any flatter- ies.
“I'd be grateful,” she said,
but
"terribly grateful. don't believe in ghosts, there is one it must have a rea- son for coming back."
"Wants to split on the bloke who laid her out," I joked, but Alma shut up like an oyster, and I went off whistling.
The respected aunt didn't come into the picture. It would have. been fatal. In fact we let her trot off at nine p.m. to her downy cot without knowing a word about my adventure in embryo.
There was no whisky going, so Alma fortified me with ginger wine and cake a combination to inspire
the nightmare after callow days of the teens and away I went.
I had stipulated that the ser- vants who remained in the Man- or-but were preparing to quit owing to the murder and the ghost!—should all be put up at the two lodges. I had no inten- tion of being the victim of practical joke.
a
However, a most respectable butler opened the door to me, and after hearing
my name, thanked me for my kindness with the air of a Prince, and ushered me into the library, where the right sort of liquid refreshment, plus sandwiches, awaited me:
By May Wynne
Hendrix, the butler, lingered to put me wise over certain de- tails. He knew who I was and
Alma appeared to regard
with: affection.
Both his masters, young and old, were his idols, and he re- ferred to the past and pending tragedy in horror.
"Sir Reynold never touched a hair of the poor Mistress's head," he vowed, "that I would -state my
She. dying oath on. hardly ever knew any one, least- of all him
and in her rages she was terrible.. The only one to understand her was Martha Mixton, the attendant, and she was away the night the mistresa died
The master left her ladyship's room at nine o'clock. and the house at ten. When Eucy went to see if Mixton was back. she found the mistress dead.”
I listened in some dismay. Hendrix refused to see that black *** was black,
and seemed quite ready to swear to it being white if that would save his mas- ter. But the case was ugly. The murdered woman had been grip- ped by the throat and must have fallen back on to the floor, strik- ing her head against a bed rail.
But that grip on her throat - had been fatal-and the hand had
been gloved.
Reynolds always wore
It was a clear case. And I went upstairs feeling both dis- gust and pity for the man who, in a moment of exasperation, had taken a life which, according to
the story, stood between him and the future happiness of a belov ed only child.
nervous.
I may be psychic, but I am not In fact my nature ар- pears to be a bit of a mix up. I viewed the room in which Lady Calford had met her end with more curiosity than awe.
that of The get up was not the ideal haunted chamber. Care had evidently been taken to make the room as cheerful and dainty as pictures, bright chintzes, and modern furniture could make it.
The only sinister notes were in the dark panelling, the polished boards, and the black framed lat- ticed windows.
A fire burned on the hearth. The servants had seen in every way to my comfort.
I had not come to the Manor to sit up and watch for the ghost.
I challenged sub-consciously- the ghost to wake me up if he or she had anything to say. As a rule I sleep well. But I did not even doze on that fateful night.
Inwardly furious at the rebel- lion of my nerves, I lay staring into a semi-darkness, relieved by the glow of a dying fire and the light of a rising moon.
The house was silent enough. Not so much as a mouse stirring. The bed was comfortable, the room warm.
And yet, in spite of the striv- ings of plain common sense, a strange atmosphere engulfed me.
I saw no vision
at first I heard no sound, and yet Fear had entered the room.
The strangest Fear I had ever experienced.
As I lay, sweating, in that bed, it seemed I was other than myself. That another entirely folded me around
some be- ing was close to me, convulsed with a bewildering storm of pas- sions in which rage and fear. combined. And I could see noth- ing, feel nothing. The room re- mained in the mystic glow of fire and moonlight.
Yet I was
convinced there were forces here striving, con- tending, in some terrible but silent battle.
Using all the moral courage I was possessed of, I tried to rise, but to shout a challenge
I was unable to move.
The mysterious atmosphere of the room throbbed with vitality. There was life here beside mine. Life and horror. And then it was I first heard the footsteps which were to remain through
the
life a haunting memory con-. vince me of occult forces. Where they came from I could not Bay. In what they differed from or- dinary footsteps. I not know.
All I can tell is that, as sound reached me, my whole faculties became centred on lis- tening, listening; dreading too, with a dread shared by some other in that room as the sound
came nearer.
Steady footsteps, not slow, not fast, not loud, not stealthy.
Deliberate footsteps, drawing near with definite purpose
And in that nameless purpose spelt one fearful word. Murder.
The
firelight Was growing (Continued on Page 7)