Chapter XXVI: Direct From Paradise

The sound was not like that of the walking of the human. Nor was it such as an animal would make. It was neither a thud nor a pattering, but more like a scratching shuffle, such as reminded me of nothing that I had ever heard before.

Next moment, however, there came another sort of sound, plainly audible above the footsteps. This was a thin, musical chuckle which ended in a deep, but faint, organ-like throb. It happened only once.

Immediately it was followed by a steady clicking, such as might be made by gently striking a stick against the pavement; only sharper. This lasted a minute, during which the other sounds ceased.

Once more the footsteps. They were not very loud, but in the stillness of that room they all but resounded.

Presently Charlotte could stand it no longer. She placed the ring on the table, where it continued to emit those unplaceable sounds.

“Well! Do--do you people,” stammered Dr. Malloy, “do you people all hear THAT?”

Miss Clarke’s face was rather pale. But her mouth was firm. “It is nothing,” said she, with theosophical positiveness. “You must not believe it--it is not the truth of--”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Sir Henry, “but this isn’t something to argue about! It is a reality; and the sooner we all admit it, the better. There is a living creature of some kind making that sound!”

“It is the spirit of some two-footed creature,” asserted Mme. Le Fabre, plainly at her ease. She was on familiar ground now. “If only we had a medium!”

Abruptly the sounds left the vicinity of the ring. At first we could not locate their new position. Then Herold declared that they came from under the table; and presently we were all gathered on the floor, listening to those odd little sounds, while the ring remained thirty inches above, on the top of the table!

It may be that the thing, whatever it was, did not care for such a crowd. For shortly the shuffling ceased. And for a while we stared and listened, scarcely breathing, trying to locate the new position.

Finally we went back to our chairs. We had heard nothing further. Nevertheless, we continued to keep silence, with our ears alert for anything more.

“Hush!” whispered Charlotte all of a sudden. “Did you hear that?” And she looked up toward the ceiling.

In a moment I caught the sound. It was exceedingly faint, like the distant thrumming of a zither. Only it was a single note, which did not rise and fall, although there seemed a continual variation in its volume.

Unexpectedly the other sounds came again, down under the table. This time we remained in our seats and simply listened. And presently Sir Henry, referring to the ring, made this suggestion:

“Suppose we seal it up, and see whether it inducts the sound then as well as when exposed.”

This appealed to Herold very strongly; the others were agreeable; so I ran upstairs to my room and secured a small screw-top metal canister, which I knew to be airtight. It was necessary to remove the stone from the ring, in order to get it into the opening in the can. Presently this was done; and while our invisible visitor continued his scratchy little walking as before, I screwed the top of the can down as tightly as I could.

Instantly the footsteps halted.

I unscrewed the top a trifle. As instantly the stepping was resumed.

“Ah!” cried Herold. “It’s a question of radioactivity, then! Remember Le Bon’s experiments, Sir Henry?”

But Miss Clarke was sorely mystified by this simple matter, and herself repeated the experiments. Equally puzzled was Mme. Le Fabre. According to her theory, a spirit wouldn’t mind a little thing like a metal box. Of them all, Dr. Malloy was the least disturbed; so decidedly so that General Hume eyed him quizzically.

“Fine bunch of hallucinations, doctor.”

“Almost commonplace,” retorted Malloy.

Presently I mentioned that the Rhamda had come from the basement on the night that Ariadne had materialised; and I showed that the only possible route into the cellar was through the locked door in the breakfast room, since the windows were all too small, and there was no other door. Query: How had the Rhamda got there? Immediately they all became alert. As Herold said:

“One thing or the other is true; either there is something downstairs which has escaped you, Fenton, or else Avec is able to materialise in any place he chooses. Let’s look!”

We all went down except Charlotte, who went upstairs to stay with Ariadne. By turns, each of us held the ring. And as we unlocked the basement door we noted that the invisible, walking creature had reached there before us.

Down the steps went those unseen little feet, jumping from one step to the next just ahead of us all the way. When within three or four steps of the bottom, the creature made one leap do for them all.