The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

felt her hand turn cold, and tremble in his. “Hush! hush!” he said, “leave the talking to me.”

At the same moment Mrs. Pentreath pulled Mr. Munder warily by the coattail, and whispered to him to be careful. “Mrs. Frankland’s letter,” she said in his ear, “tells us particularly not to let it be suspected that we are acting under orders.”

“Don’t you fancy, Mrs. Pentreath, that I forget what I ought to remember,” rejoined Mr. Munder⁠—who had forgotten, nevertheless. “And don’t you imagine that I was going to commit myself” (the very thing which he had just been on the point of doing). “Leave this business in my hands, if you will be so good.⁠—What reasons did you say, ma’am?” he added aloud, addressing himself to Sarah. “Never you mind about reasons; we have not got to do with them now; we have got to do with facts, and circumstances, and events. I was observing, or remarking, that you, Sir, and you, ma’am, were shown over this mansion. You were conducted, and indeed led, up the west staircase⁠—the spacious west staircase, Sir! You were shown with politeness, and even with courtesy, through the breakfast-room, the library, and the drawing-room. In that drawing-room, you, Sir, indulge in outrageous, and, I will add, in violent language. In that drawing-room, you, ma’am, disappear, or, rather, go altogether out of sight. Such conduct as this, so highly unparalleled, so entirely unprecedented, and so very unusual, causes Mrs. Pentreath and myself to feel⁠—” Here Mr. Munder stopped, at a loss for a word for the first time.

“Astonished,” suggested Mrs. Pentreath after a long interval of silence.

“No, ma’am!” retorted Mr. Munder. “Nothing of the sort. We were not at all astonished; we were⁠—surprised. And what followed and succeeded that? What did you and I hear, Sir, on the first floor?” (looking sternly at Uncle Joseph). “And what did you hear, Mrs. Pentreath, while you were searching for the missing and absent party on the second floor? What?”

Thus personally appealed to, the housekeeper answered briefly⁠—“A scream.”

“No! no! no!” said Mr. Munder, fretfully tapping his hand on the table. “A screech, Mrs. Pentreath⁠—a screech. And what is the meaning, purport, and upshot of that screech?⁠—Young woman!” (here Mr. Munder turned suddenly on Betsey) “we have now traced these extraordinary facts and circumstances as far as you. Have the goodness to step forward, and tell us, in the presence of these two parties, how you came to utter, or give, what Mrs. Pentreath calls a scream, but what I call a screech. A plain statement will do, my good girl⁠—quite a plain statement, if you please. And, young woman, one word more⁠—speak up. You understand me? Speak up!”

Covered with confusion by the public and solemn nature of this appeal, Betsey, on starting with her statement, unconsciously followed the oratorical example of no less a person than Mr. Munder himself; that is to say, she spoke on the principle of drowning the smallest possible infusion of ideas in the largest possible dilution of words. Extricated from the mesh of verbal entanglement in which she contrived to involve it, her statement may be not unfairly represented as simply consisting of the following facts:

First, Betsey had to relate that she happened to be just taking the lid off a saucepan, on the kitchen fire, when she heard, in the neighborhood of the housekeeper’s room, a sound of hurried footsteps (vernacularly termed by the witness a “scurrying of somebody’s feet”). Secondly, Betsey, on leaving the kitchen to ascertain what the sound meant, heard the footsteps retreating rapidly along the passage which led to the north side of the house, and, stimulated by curiosity, followed the sound of them for a certain distance. Thirdly, at a sharp turn in the passage, Betsey stopped short, despairing of overtaking the person whose footsteps she heard, and feeling also a sense of dread (termed by the witness, “creeping of the flesh”) at the idea of venturing alone, even in broad daylight, into the ghostly quarter of the house. Fourthly, while still hesitating at the turn in the passage, Betsey heard “the lock of a door go,” and, stimulated afresh by curiosity, advanced a few steps farther⁠—then stopped again, debating within herself the difficult and dreadful question, whether it is the usual custom of ghosts, when passing from one place to another, to unlock any closed door which may happen to be in their way, or to save trouble by simply passing through it. Fifthly, after long deliberation, and many false starts⁠—forward toward the north hall and backward toward the kitchen⁠—Betsey decided that it was the immemorial custom of all ghosts to pass through doors, and not unlock them. Sixthly, fortified by this conviction, Betsey went on boldly close to the door, when she suddenly heard a loud report, as of some heavy body falling (graphically termed by the witness a “banging scrash”). Seventhly, the noise frightened Betsey out of her wits, brought her heart up into her mouth, and took away her breath. Eighthly, and lastly, on recovering breath enough to scream (or screech), Betsey did, with might and main, scream (or screech), running back toward the kitchen as fast as her legs would carry her, with all her hair “standing up on end,” and all her flesh “in a crawl” from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

“Just so! just so!” said Mr. Munder, when the statement came to a close⁠—as if the sight of a young woman with all her hair standing on end and all her flesh in a crawl were an ordinary result of his experience of female humanity⁠—“Just so! You may stand back, my good girl⁠—you may stand back.⁠—There is nothing to smile at, Sir,” he continued, sternly addressing Uncle Joseph, who had been excessively amused by Betsey’s manner of delivering her evidence. “You would be doing better to carry, or rather transport, your mind back to what followed and succeeded the young woman’s screech. What did we all do, Sir? We rushed to the spot, and we ran to the place. And what did