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Page 29
During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not
hold priority in the conversation. In fact, this, for the most part,
consisted in light talk of books and theaters.
Greba Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess,
and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party.
No doubt the girl's presence, in part, at any rate, led us to refrain
from the subject uppermost in our minds.
These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of
the circumstances which were bearing my friend and me onward to unknown
issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections.
So I shall always remember, with pleasure, that dinner-party
at Redmoat, in the old-world dining-room; it was so very peaceful,
so almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it
to be the calm before the storm. When, later, we men passed
to the library, we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us.
"Redmoat," said the Rev. J. D. Eltham, "has latterly become the theater
of strange doings."
He stood on the hearth-rug. A shaded lamp upon the big table
and candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded
dim illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby,
lolled smoking on the window-seat, and I sat near to him.
Nayland Smith paced restlessly up and down the room.
"Some mouths ago, almost a year," continued the clergyman,
"a burglarious attempt was made upon the house. There was an arrest,
and the man confessed that he had been tempted by my collection."
He waved his hand vaguely towards the several cabinets about
the shadowed room.
"It was shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for--
playing at forts to run away with me." He smiled an apology.
"I virtually fortified Redmoat--against trespassers of any kind, I mean.
You have seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound.
This is artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork;
a portion of the ancient castrum." Again he waved indicatively,
this time toward the window.
"When it was a priory it was completely isolated and defended
by its environing moat. Today it is completely surrounded by
barbed-wire fencing. Below this fence, on the east, is a narrow stream,
a tributary of the Waverney; on the north and west, the high road,
but nearly twenty feet below, the banks being perpendicular.
On the south is the remaining part of the moat--now my kitchen garden;
but from there up to the level of the house is nearly twenty feet again,
and the barbed wire must also be counted with.
"The entrance, as you know, is by the way of a kind of cutting.
There is a gate at the foot of the steps (they are some of the original
steps of the priory, Dr. Petrie), and another gate at the head."
He paused, and smiled around upon us boyishly.
"My secret defenses remain to be mentioned," he resumed;
and, opening a cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries,
with a number of electric bells upon the wall behind.
"The more vulnerable spots are connected at night with these bells,"
he said triumphantly. "Any attempt to scale the barbed wire
or to force either gate would set two or more of these ringing.
A stray cow raised one false alarm," he added, "and a careless
rook threw us into a perfect panic on another occasion."
He was so boyish--so nervously brisk and acutely sensitive--
that it was difficult to see in him the hero of the Nan-Yang hospital.
I could only suppose that he had treated the Boxers' raid in the same spirit
wherein he met would-be trespassers within the precincts of Redmoat.
It had been an escapade, of which he was afterwards ashamed, as, faintly,
he was ashamed of his "fortifications." "But," rapped Smith, "it was not
the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate precautions."
Mr. Eltham coughed nervously.
"I am aware," he said, "that having invoked official aid, I must be
perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was responsible
for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but the electrical
contrivance followed, later, as a result of several disturbed nights.
My servants grew uneasy about someone who came, they said, after dusk.
No one could describe this nocturnal visitor, but certainly we found traces.
I must admit that.
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