Powers of Darkness - Fred M. White

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there were frequent intervals when he suffered from ‘nervous headaches’ in the seclusion of his room! Draycott suffered from ‘muscular neuralgia,’ accompanied by intense pain. He also had to lie up from time to time, at tended by Moler. For the first occasion it flashed across Alice’s mind that these periods of suffering coincided as to their intervals with the bouts that Faber had indulged in. She wondered this had not struck her before. Was it possible, that Draycott was a relative of Faber’s—a relationship kept in the background for prudent reasons? A brother perhaps——

      “I am trying a new remedy,” Draycott said, as if reading the girl’s thoughts. “I am afraid another of my attacks is coming on. Moler permits me a glass of champagne.”

      The German said nothing, though Alice imagined there was something sinister in his smile. How dark and mysterious he looked, in keeping with the fog and the gloom and the air of mystery that always seemed to brood over the old house now! The dinner dragged on with frequent pauses, and little or nothing in the way of conversation for Alice. She dreaded this long ceremonious hour, and looked forward eagerly to the moment when she could escape. She sat with downcast eyes, taking little besides fish and fruit. She slowly peeled and ate a peach. Draycott was talking faster than usual, and said something presently that attracted Alice’s attention.

      She looked up quietly. The servants had gone. Draycott was pouring out the last glass of champagne. Obviously he had finished the bottle. It must have been so, for Moler never touched anything. Draycott tossed off the glass and reached for the liqueur brandy. There was a peculiar, uneasy gleam behind his spectacles.

      “How long is it since old Toolman met with that fatal accident?” he asked. “I mean——”

      “That was before your time,” Alice said. “It must have been four years ago.”

      Moler rose to his feet. The smile was no longer on his face; obviously something had happened to disturb him. He crept quietly behind Draycott’s chair and gripped him by the shoulders.

      “You are overdoing my instructions,” he said. “It is time to take your medicine. You will come with me to your room at once, if you please.”

      It was not a polite request, so much as an imperative order. Just for the moment the wild murderous expression that Alice had seen before crossed Draycott’s face. She could see his hand gripping the dessert knife till the knuckles stood out white and hard.

      “Perhaps you are right,” he stammered. “I have had one or two of those infernal twinges during dinner. I’ll ask you to excuse me, my dear. Excellent fellow, Moler. A little too arbitrary for my taste, but very anxious for his patient. When you are married to him, you will learn to appreciate his good qualities.”

      Alice flushed scarlet. This was by no means the first time this hateful topic had been mentioned. As she stood in her turn she noticed that Draycott lurched as he moved towards the door. He burst into song as he staggered into the hall—the same song that Faber had indulged in on many a similar occasion. It was as if Martin Faber had come back from the dead—the ghastliness of the idea made Alice shudder. A sudden fear set her trembling from head to foot. She seemed to see the whole mystery laid bare as one sees things in a dream, only to lose sight of them again. Yet Martin Faber was in his grave. It was impossible in the circumstances——

      Jane Mason was standing there, white and horrified as was Alice herself.

      “Did you hear that?” the girl demanded. “It is like a voice from the dead. But you heard it, Jane, or you would not tremble like that. I believe you could tell me what it all means.”

      Jane shook her head sorrowfully.

      “Don’t ask me, miss,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

      II. — THE UNEXPECTED

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      “You always put me off like that,” Alice replied. “At any rate, I don’t see what you have to fear. I am sure you could tell me a great deal if you chose. Who is this man that has all the habits and mannerisms of Mr. Faber, who speaks like him, and who has to hide himself from everybody for a few days every six weeks or so? You may say that it is Mr. Raymond Draycott, who came into the property under Mr. Faber’s will, but——”

      “Is there any resemblance between them, Miss Alice?” Jane interrupted.

      “Oh, I admit the difficulty. One is dark and the other fair. Mr. Faber had a blunt nose, and Mr. Draycott has a regular one. Their mouths and teeth are different, and Mr. Draycott is shorter than my late guardian was. Yet they speak alike, and have the same gestures and the same weaknesses.”

      “My present master has a painful form of neuralgia,” Jane suggested.

      “So he says,” Alice replied scornfully. “I refuse to believe it. He had too much wine to-night. It was just like Mr. Faber before his attacks began, and these come to the same regular intervals. Mr. Draycott sang the same song. Though he is a stranger here, he knows of things that happened in the house years ago. Moler watches him as a cat watches a mouse. I cannot make out this bewildering mystery. Did Mr. Faber have a brother who disgraced the family? I am sure Mr. Draycott is a relative. If we did not know that Mr. Faber was in his grave, I should be inclined to imagine—but that is absurd.”

      “I can tell you nothing whatever about it, miss,” Jane Mason said.

      Alice turned away, baffled and disappointed. Mason’s words carried no conviction to her. She did not for a moment believe what the woman was saying, and longed for some friend in whom she could confide. She had but one in the world, and she could think of him only with tears in her eyes. She passed the drawing-room door on the way to her own room. She had no heart for the music that was her one comfort and consolation.

      She heard the clicking of the switches presently as the lights downstairs were extinguished, and threw open her window and looked out. The white mist had lifted and a silver moon was hanging in the blue sky. There were lights dotted over the wide stretch of country, and a row of pin-points of flame was visible to the left. By their means Alice made out the outline of Dartdale convict prison.

      She crept on to the balcony that ran along the whole of that side of the house, moved by an impulse of curiosity that it was impossible to resist. A light burned dully, as if from behind drawn curtains at the end of the balcony, picking out a bush of crimson roses on the lawn below. The gleam came from Draycott’s window, as Alice knew quite well. It would be no hazardous matter to go along the balcony and ascertain what was taking place inside. It seemed to the girl that she was justified. The dark mystery involved her future happiness, and possibly even more than that. A glimpse of the pin-points of flame from the windows of the prison decided her. She would find out what was passing in the room at the end of the balcony. Snatching up a long black cloak and extinguishing the light in her room, a moment later she was listening to the sound of voices in Draycott’s room. The window was closed and the blind drawn. All Alice could hear was a confused murmur. The two men were disputing over something, and a violent quarrel seemed to be in progress. There was a noise presently, as if a chair had been overturned, then a shadow pantomime on the blind indicated a struggle. Somebody suddenly burst out into a peal of laughter.

      “Grenfell!” a voice cried. “Go and ask Hugh Grenfell! He’s the man to tell you all about it. He stood in this very room and told me to my face that I was a scoundrel. I told him he should pay for that, and by heavens, he has. Ask Hugh Grenfell!”

      It was Draycott who spoke. He shouted the name again and again at the top of his voice, till the room rang with it—the mere mention of it filled him with drunken amusement.

      “You fool,” Moler hissed. “You thrice-besotted fool, be silent. Do you want the whole world to hear that story? If any of the servants are listening——”

      “Let ‘em listen,” Draycott chuckled. “You’re too cautious, Moler—that’s what’s the

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