Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James, Darryl Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught; for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.
    The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very considerable—almost tremulous—excitement, he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture—still face downwards—ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.
    ‘Now,’ he said, ‘Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll tell you why afterwards.’
    ‘Well,’ said Nisbet, ‘I have here a view of a country-house—English, I presume—by moonlight.’
    ‘Moonlight? You’re sure of that?’
    ‘Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.’
    ‘All right. Go on. I’ll swear,’ added Williams in an aside, ‘there was no moon when I saw it first.’
    ‘Well, there’s not much more to be said,’ Nisbet continued. ‘The house has one—two—three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and——’
    ‘But what about figures?’ said Williams, with marked interest.
    ‘There aren’t any,’ said Nisbet; ‘but——’
    ‘What! No figure on the grass in front?’
    ‘Not a thing.’
    ‘You’ll swear to that?’
    ‘Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor—left of the door—is open.’
    ‘Is it really? My goodness! he must have got in,’ said Williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself.
    It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one—it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard—and then to read the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.
    ‘What can it all mean?’ said Nisbet.
    ‘Exactly,’ said Williams. ‘Well, one thing I must do—or three things, now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood’ *—this was his last night’s visitor—‘what he saw, and then I must get the thing photographed before it goes further, and then I must find out what the place is.’
    ‘I can do the photographing myself,’ said Nisbet, ‘and I will. But, you know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. The question is, Has it happened already, or is it going to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,’ he said, looking at the picture again, ‘I expect you’re right: he has got in. And if I don’t mistake there’ll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs.’
    ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Williams: ‘I’ll take the picture across to old Green’ (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been Bursar for many years). ‘It’s quite likely he’ll know it. We have property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in his time.’
    ‘Quite likely he will,’ said Nisbet; ‘but just let me take my photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green isn’t up to-day. He wasn’t in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the Sunday.’
    ‘That’s true, too,’ said Williams; ‘I know he’s gone to Brighton. Well, if you’ll photograph it now, I’ll go across to Garwood and get his statement, and you keep an eye on it while I’m gone. I’m beginning to think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.’
    In a short time he had returned, and brought