The Haunted Hotel

Did the lady in the consulting-room suspect him? or did Thomas’s shoes creak, and was her sense of hearing unusually keen? Whatever the explanation may be, the event that actually happened was beyond all doubt. Exactly as Doctor Wybrow passed his consulting-room, the door opened⁠—the lady appeared on the threshold⁠—and laid her hand on his arm.

“I entreat you, sir, not to go away without letting me speak to you first.”

The accent was foreign; the tone was low and firm. Her fingers closed gently, and yet resolutely, on the doctor’s arm.

Neither her language nor her action had the slightest effect in inclining him to grant her request. The influence that instantly stopped him, on the way to his carriage, was the silent influence of her face. The startling contrast between the corpse-like pallor of her complexion and the overpowering life and light, the glittering metallic brightness in her large black eyes, held him literally spellbound. She was dressed in dark colours, with perfect taste; she was of middle height, and (apparently) of middle age⁠—say a year or two over thirty. Her lower features⁠—the nose, mouth, and chin⁠—possessed the fineness and delicacy of form which is oftener seen among women of foreign races than among women of English birth. She was unquestionably a handsome person⁠—with the one serious drawback of her ghastly complexion, and with the less noticeable defect of a total want of tenderness in the expression of her eyes.

Before she could add another word, Lady Montbarry sprang from the sofa with the stealthy suddenness of a cat⁠—seized her by both shoulders⁠—and shook her with the strength and frenzy of a madwoman. “You lie! you lie! you lie!” She dropped her hold at the third repetition of the accusation, and threw up her hands wildly with a gesture of despair. “Oh, Jesu Maria! is it possible?” she cried. “Can the courier have come to me through that woman?” She turned like lightning on Mrs. Ferrari, and stopped her as she was escaping from the room. “Stay here, you fool⁠—stay here, and answer me! If you cry out, as sure as the heavens are above you, I’ll strangle you with my own hands. Sit down again⁠—and fear nothing. Wretch! It is I who am frightened⁠—frightened out of my senses. Confess that you lied, when you used Miss Lockwood’s name just now! No! I don’t believe you on your oath; I will believe nobody but Miss Lockwood herself. Where does she live? Tell me that, you noxious stinging little insect⁠—and you may go.” Terrified as she was, Mrs. Ferrari hesitated. Lady Montbarry lifted her hands threateningly, with the long, lean, yellow-white fingers outspread and crooked at the tips. Mrs. Ferrari shrank at the sight of them, and gave the address. Lady Montbarry pointed contemptuously to the door⁠—then changed her mind. “No! not yet! you will tell Miss Lockwood what has happened, and she may refuse to see me. I will go there at once, and you shall go with me. As far as the house⁠—not inside of it. Sit down again. I am going to ring for my maid. Turn your back to the door⁠—your cowardly face is not fit to be seen!”

Francis entered the room alone. There were the decorations on the walls and the ceiling, exactly as they had been described to him! He had just time to perceive this at a glance, before his attention was diverted to himself and his own sensations, by a grotesquely disagreeable occurrence which took him completely by surprise.

He became conscious of a mysteriously offensive odour in the room, entirely new in his experience of revolting smells. It was composed (if such a thing could be) of two mingling exhalations, which were separately-discoverable exhalations nevertheless. This strange blending of odours consisted of something faintly and unpleasantly aromatic, mixed with another underlying smell, so unutterably sickening that he threw open the window, and put his head out into the fresh air, unable to endure the horribly infected atmosphere for a moment longer.

The French proprietor joined his English friend, with his cigar already lit. He started back in dismay at a sight terrible to his countrymen in general⁠—the sight of an open window. “You English people are perfectly mad on the subject of fresh air!” he exclaimed. “We shall catch our deaths of cold.”

Francis turned, and looked at him in astonishment. “Are you really not aware of the smell there is in the room?” he asked.

“Smell!” repeated his brother-manager. “I smell my own good cigar. Try one yourself. And for Heaven’s sake shut the window!”

If I realise it on the stage, I shall drive the audience out of the theatre.”

As his strong common sense arrived at this facetious conclusion, he became aware of a lady, dressed entirely in black, who was observing him with marked attention. “Am I right in supposing you to be Mr. Francis Westwick?” the lady asked, at the moment when he looked at her.

“That is my name, madam. May I inquire to whom I have the honour of speaking?”

“We have only met once,” she answered a little evasively, “when your late brother introduced me to the members of his family. I wonder if you have quite forgotten my big black eyes and my hideous complexion?” She lifted her veil as she spoke, and turned so that the moonlight rested on her face.

Francis recognised at a glance the woman of all others whom he most cordially disliked⁠—the widow of his dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. He frowned as he looked at her. His experience on the stage, gathered at innumerable rehearsals with actresses who had sorely tried his temper, had accustomed him to speak roughly to women who were distasteful to him. “I remember you,” he said. “I thought you were in America!”

She took no notice of his ungracious tone and manner; she simply stopped him when he lifted his hat, and turned to leave her.

“Let me walk with you for a few minutes,” she quietly replied. “I have something to say to you.”

He showed her his cigar. “I am smoking,” he said.

“I don’t mind smoking.”

How long that first sleep lasted, she never knew. She could only remember, in the after-time, that she woke instantly.

Every faculty and perception in her passed the boundary line between insensibility and consciousness, so to speak, at a leap. Without knowing why, she sat up suddenly in the bed, listening for she knew not what. Her head was in a whirl; her heart beat furiously, without any assignable cause. But one trivial event had happened during the interval while she had been asleep. The night-light had gone out; and the room, as a matter of course, was in total darkness.

She felt for the matchbox, and paused after finding it. A vague sense of confusion was still in her mind. She was in no hurry to light the match. The pause in the darkness was, for the moment, agreeable to her.

In the quieter flow of her thoughts during this interval, she could ask herself the natural question:⁠—What cause had awakened her so suddenly, and had so strangely shaken her nerves? Had it been the influence of a dream? She had not dreamed at all⁠—or, to speak more correctly, she had no waking remembrance of having dreamed. The mystery was beyond her fathoming: the darkness began to oppress her. She struck the match on the box, and lit her candle.

As the welcome light diffused itself over the room, she turned from the table and looked towards the other side of the bed.

In the moment when she turned, the chill of a sudden terror gripped her round the heart, as with the clasp of an icy hand.

She was not alone in her room!