One of the things that used to make me the most nervous when we first took to hotel-keeping was not knowing what sort of people you’d got sleeping under your roof. Anybody that’s got a portmanteau can come and stay at an hotel or an inn, and how are you to know who and what they are? They may be murderers, hiding from justice; they may be thieves or burglars; and they may be very respectable people; but, unless they’re old customers, you must take them on trust. It’s not a bit of good saying you can judge by appearances, because you can’t. The most gentlemanly and good-natured-looking man that ever stopped at our house gave us a cheque for his bill, and the cheque was never paid, and turned out to be one he’d helped himself to out of somebody else’s cheque-book; and, worse than that, when he left he took a good deal more away in his portmanteau than he brought with him, and one thing was a beautiful new suit belonging to a young gentleman staying in the house, which we had to make good. It worried me terribly when we found out that we’d had a regular hotel thief stopping with us, I can tell you; and, after we found it out, I was all of a tremble for days, expecting every minute something more to be found missing. Fortunately, the suit, and a scarf-pin of Harry’s, and a silver-mounted walking-stick were all he went off with, so far as we ever discovered. Perhaps he didn’t have a chance of getting anything else, and was satisfied with what he did get, and letting us in for ￡7 15s. He wanted to draw{211} the cheque for ten pounds and have the change, I remember; but I said “No” to that, and very glad I was afterwards that I did. It was a lesson to us, not getting the cheque paid. And after that we had a notice printed across all our billheads, “No cheques taken,” like most hotel-keepers do now. Some of them have a very nice collection of unpaid cheques, which they keep as curiosities.
Having been “done,” as Harry calls it, once or twice, made us more careful, and so young fellows without much luggage that we didn’t know anything about, when they began to live extravagantly, having champagne, and all that sort of thing, and staying for more than a day, we generally kept an eye on.
When they were out, we used to go up to their rooms and just have a look round and see if they’d got much clothes with them, because the portmanteau is nothing to go by. It may be stuffed full of old books and newspapers.
It was just while we were extra suspicious through having been swindled and robbed by the man I’ve just told you about, that two gentlemen with two small portmanteaus came in one evening by the last train, and wanted two bedrooms and a sitting-room.
They were about thirty-five years old, I should say, by the look of them. One was tall and thin, and the other was short and stout. They certainly looked respectable, and were well dressed; but they talked in rather a curious way to each other, using words that neither Harry nor I could understand, and that made us a little suspicious, and so we kept a sort of watch on them, and kept our ears open, too, as, of course, we had a right to do, seeing we had not only the reputation of the house to look after, but also the comfort and the property of the other customers.
I showed them their bedrooms, and, as it was late, I said, “I suppose, gentlemen, you won’t want a fire lighted in the sitting-room this evening?”
What made me say that was, it was past eleven, and, of course, I expected they would take their candles and go to bed.
The tall one said, “Oh yes, we do; we’re rather late birds.{212}”
“That’s a nice thing,” I said to myself. “They’ll want the gas on half the night, and somebody will have to sit up and turn it off.”
However, I said nothing to them, but rang the bell, and had the fire lighted, and the gas lighted, and their portmanteaus carried upstairs.
They both pulled their chairs up to the fire, and the short gentleman lit a pipe.
“Aren’t you going to smoke?” he said to the tall gentleman.
“I don’t know,” said the tall gentleman; “a cigar always makes me queer.” Then he turned to me, and said, “Have you got any very mild cigars?”
“Yes, sir,” I said; “I think so. Is there anything else you want?”
“What shall I have?” said the stout gentleman. “Can I have a cup of tea?”
I looked at him. It was past eleven o’clock, and we were just on closing up everything, and the fire was out in the kitchen.
“Well, sir,” I said; “if you particularly wish it—but——”
“Oh, don’t trouble,” he said. “Of course, we’re in the country. I forgot. Bring me a whiskey-and-seltzer.”
“Yes, sir; and what will you have, sir?” I said, turning to the long gentleman.
The long gentleman, if he was a minute making up his mind he was ten. First he thought he’d have whiskey, and then he said whiskey made him bilious; then he thought he’d have a brandy-and-soda; and then he thought he’d have a plain lemonade.
“You couldn’t make my friend a basin of gruel, could you?” said the stout gentleman; “he’s very delicate.”
Of course I took him seriously, so I said, “Well, sir, the cook’s gone to bed; but——”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to what he says,” says the tall gentleman; “he’s a lunatic. Bring me—let’s see—lemonade’s such cold stuff this weather—I think I’ll have a port-wine negus.”
I was very glad to get the order and get out of the room, for I thought they were going to keep me there half an hour.{213}
When I got downstairs, I said to Harry, “I can’t make those two men out quite, and I’m not sure I like them.”
“Oh,” said Harry, “I dare say they’re all right. I’ll take their measure to-morrow.”
I took up the cigar, and the whiskey-and-seltzer, and the port-wine negus, and put them down, and was just saying good night when the tall gentleman called me back.
“You’ve put nutmeg in this wine?” he said.
“Yes, sir, it’s usual to put nutmeg in negus.”
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t take nutmeg—it makes me bilious. I think I’ll have a bottle of lemonade, after all.”
“Bring him six of cod-liver oil hot, and a mustard-plaster,” said the stout gentleman.
The tall gentleman certainly looked rather delicate. He had a very fair face, and a lot of very fair hair, and there was a generally languid appearance about him.
“I can make you a mustard-plaster, sir,” I said, “if you would really like one.”
“Don’t you mind him,” said the tall gentleman; “he’s only trying to be funny.”
All this time he was pinching the cigar, and looking at it as though it were some nasty medicine.
“I’m afraid this is too strong for me,” he said. “Haven’t you anything milder?”
“Bring him a halfpenny sweetstuff one,” said the stout gentleman.
I took the negus and the cigar downstairs, and I said to Harry, “I shan’t go up again. Those two men are lunatics, I believe. They want lemonade and a halfpenny sweetstuff cigar now.”
Harry laughed, and said, “Go on—they’re chaffing you.”
“Well, I’m not going to be chaffed,” I said. So I called Jane, the waitress, who was just going to bed, poor girl, having to be up at six in the morning, and I said, “Jane, you must wait on No. 16, please.” And I gave her the lemonade.
She went up, and she was gone quite ten minutes. When she came down, I said, “Jane, whatever made you so long?”
“Oh, ma’am,” she said, “they’ve been asking me such things!{214}”
“What have they been asking you, Jane?” I said, getting alarmed; for I was more than ever convinced the two men weren’t quite right.
“They’ve been asking me if ever there was a murder here, ma’am, and if there isn’t a silent pool in the wood where a body’s been found. And the stout gentleman says that the tall gentleman is mad, and he’s his keeper.”
“I knew it,” I screamed. And then I said, “Harry, I’m not going to bed to-night with a lunatic in the house. You must go upstairs and tell them to go. We are not licensed to receive lunatics, and I won’t have it.”
“Nonsense!” said Harry. “It’s only their nonsense. They’ve been chaffing Jane, that’s all. Don’t be a goose.”
“Well,” I said, “I shall ask them to-morrow to go somewhere else.”
“Let’s wait till to-morrow, then,” said Harry. “We’ve no reasonable excuse for turning them out at this hour of the night. Let’s go to bed.”
“Very well,” I said. “Jane, take the candles into No. 16, and turn out the gas.”
Jane took the candles, and presently she came down and said, “Please, ma’am, the gentlemen say they’ll turn out the gas themselves.”
“Very well,” I said. “Then, Harry, you’ll have to sit up, for I’m not going to leave the house at the mercy of these two fellows. They’ll go to bed and leave the gas full on, or turn it off and turn it on again, and there’ll be an escape, and we shall all be blown up, or some fine thing.”
“All right, my dear; anything to please you. I don’t mind sitting up,” said Harry; “only don’t fidget yourself so, for goodness’ sake, or you’ll be ill.”
I said I shouldn’t fidget if he sat up, and I went to bed; but I was awfully wild, because we didn’t want that sort of people at our quiet little place. It was very good of Harry to sit up, and he certainly is very kind and considerate, and I dare say I was fidgety and nervous; but I hadn’t been very well, and the least thing upset me. The doctor said it was “nerves,” and I suppose that was what it was. I had had a bad illness, and that had left me low, and the least thing upset me. I think I told you at the{215} time Harry wanted me to go away to the seaside and get better; but I wouldn’t do that, for I should have been fidgeting all day and all night, lest something should go wrong while I was away.
I went to bed, leaving Harry in the bar-parlour smoking his pipe, and reading the newspaper; and after a bit, I fell fast asleep.
When I woke up it was just getting light. I turned to look for Harry. He wasn’t in bed.
I went hot and cold all over.
“Harry!” I called out.
There was no answer.
I jumped out of bed and looked at my watch by the window. It was five o’clock in the morning.
“Oh,” I said, “this is wicked—this is infamous. The idea of those fellows sitting burning the gas till this time in the morning in a respectable house, and my great gaby of a husband not going up and telling them of it.”
I hurried on some of my things, and went down the stairs.
I had to pass No. 16. The door was wide open and the gas was out.
Whatever could it mean?
A terrible thought flashed through my brain.
They had murdered Harry, robbed the house, and decamped.
How I got down to the bar-parlour I don’t know. Terror gave me strength.
Directly I got to the door I saw the gas was still on there. I pushed the door open and ran in, and there was Harry fast asleep in the arm-chair, with the newspaper in his lap and his pipe dropped out of his mouth and lying on the hearthrug.
“Harry!” I said, seizing him by the arm—“Harry!”
He started and opened his eyes. “Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter!” I said. “Why, it’s five o’clock in the morning, and you’ve given me my death of fright.”
He was flabbergasted when he found out what time it was, and he said he supposed he must have dropped off sound asleep.{216}
There wasn’t much suppose about it!
A nice thing, wasn’t it, to leave him to look after those two fellows, and put the gas out for safety? and then for them to put their gas out themselves, and him to go to sleep with his burning, and drop his lighted pipe on the hearthrug.
It’s a mercy we weren’t all burned alive in our beds.
* * * * *
What with the fright and the broken rest, I wasn’t at all well next day, and I dare say I was a little disagreeable. I know I began at Harry about those two gentlemen, and what we were going to do.
They didn’t get up till nearly ten, and it was past eleven before they’d done breakfast. I went into the sitting-room to ask about dinner; but really to have another look at them.
They didn’t look anything very dreadful in the daylight, and they were certainly very pleasant with me, though a bit more jokey than I felt inclined for.
They said they’d have dinner at five o’clock; and then they asked me all about the village and the neighbourhood, and they were on again about that silent pool. There had been a murder committed there years and years ago, and they must have heard about it somehow, for they asked me all about it, and I told them the story as well as I could remember it.
There was a young woman, the daughter of a farmer, who l............