CHAPTER V

A HAUNTED OFFICE IN DENVER

After leaving San Francisco, I visited Sacramento, where I bought a pair of braces, suspenders as they call them there, that lasted me for years. They were the very best half-dollar’s worth I ever had, and I still have the remains of them stowed away in a big trunk amongst other mementos of the long past.

I can’t imagine any city in America hotter than Sacramento in the summer, or more unpleasantly cold in the winter, apart from which there was nothing about the place that caused it to be very deeply impressed on my memory, saving that I met a man in one of the streets one day who was so exactly like an old Clifton College master called Tait that I believed it was he, and accosted him accordingly.

The man gasped at me in amazement. “Why, Jupp,” he said, “how on earth have you managed it. It’s only ten minutes since I left you eating your dinner in the Eagle Hotel on the other side of the town. Have you wings?”

The moment he spoke I knew he was not Tait, but it took me some time to convince him I was not Jupp; and when he introduced me to the latter half an hour or so later, I was not surprised, for I do not think there could have been a more striking likeness to myself, even in my own portrait.

The coincidence was all the more remarkable since there was at Clifton College, contemporary with Tait, a master named Jupp, of whose cane I had the most striking recollection. In appearance, however, the Clifton Jupp was not in the least bit like me.

This was the only adventure of note, if one may so designate it, I had during this visit to Sacramento. I went on from there to Denver, where I met one or two relatives of friends of mine in England, and did a little work as a “Free Lance” journalist. It was summer when I had last stayed in Denver, and then the intense heat, combined with an injudicious consumption of fruit and iced water, had brought on a mild attack of cholera, which left me with a none too favourable impression of the place.

But now all was changed. The weather was much cooler; I was growing acclimatised, and I did not feel altogether among strangers. Consequently my apathy vanished, and, despite the fact that my employment was anything but lucrative, I enjoyed this second stay in Denver immensely.

The town had not been built long. Indeed, ten years previously it had only one anything like orthodox street; so that it was the last place in the world where one would expect to come across a haunted house. Yet I heard of three haunted houses at least whilst I was there.

The one I think most likely to interest my readers I heard of in this way. I had been to the Zoological Gardens, and was returning by tram, when a journalist called Rouillac, with whom I had a very slight acquaintance, came running up to me in a great state of excitement. “O’Donnell,” he cried, “I have unearthed something that will interest you—the case of a haunting in an office in Race Street.” He then proceeded to give me an account of it.

The office was rented by a Mrs. Bell, a typist who employed two girls, Stella Dean and Hester Holt.

One day Hester Holt failed to put in an appearance.

“If she is ill,” Mrs. Bell said to Stella Dean, “she ought to have let me know. There was nothing wrong with her yesterday, was there?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Stella Dean replied. “When she parted from me, just across the way, she went off in the best of spirits. I expect she’ll turn up all right to-morrow.”

The morrow came, and Hester Holt not arriving, Stella Dean was despatched in the dinner-hour to find out what had become of her. She returned looking very white and scared.

“Why, Stella,” Mrs. Bell exclaimed. “What on earth’s the matter?”

“Hester’s gone away without telling anyone where she was going,” Stella Dean answered.

“You don’t say so,” Mrs. Bell cried. “What can have happened?”

“She never went to her lodgings after leaving here; at least, that’s what the landlady says,” Stella Dean replied. “And she hasn’t written, either—but I think you’d better call there yourself; I don’t like the woman.” And Stella burst out crying.

This was the beginning of the mystery. Mrs. Bell interviewed the landlady, who stuck to her statement that she had neither seen Hester Holt nor heard of her since she had left the house two days ago, presumably to attend business. There had been no words between them, she said, and Hester had seemed as usual, perfectly happy. She was a singularly reserved girl, and never mentioned her family excepting when she went away for her annual holiday. She then requested that all her letters should be forwarded to the address of her married sister.

The landlady, Mrs. Britton, gave this address to Mrs. Bell, and the latter, writing off at once, received an answer by return of post to say that Hester was not there and no tidings of her had been received for over a month. The married sister, however, made an important statement. She said that one person was sure to know of Hester’s whereabouts, and that was Pete Simpkins, the young man with whom she kept company, and was hoping eventually to marry. Mrs. Bell, now keenly interested, hastened off and interviewed Simpkins. To quote her own words, he seemed “a bright, intelligent young man,” and exhibited unfeigned astonishment and perturbation on learning of the disappearance of his sweetheart.

“When did you last see her?” Mrs. Bell enquired.

“The day she left you,” he responded. “I had been out in the country all day, superintending the building of a large farm some ten miles to the east of this city, and I was cycling home along a very unfrequented route, when I met a buggy. Two girls were in it, and to my amazement, they were Hester and Stella Dean.”

“What!” Mrs. Bell cried. “Stella Dean? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely!” Simpkins replied. “I can swear to it. It astonished me because I knew they had been on very bad terms. I was engaged to Stella before I met Hester, but I could not stand her temper. One day she was so enraged with my dog because it snarled at her, that she seized my walking-stick and beat it on the head till it was dead. I found her standing over it, white with fury; and feeling that after what I had witnessed I could never like her again, I broke off our engagement there and then. After that I met Hester Holt at the same house where I had first seen Stella, and we at once became friends. Stella Dean did not like it, but she took on more than was necessary; and Hester told me there had been several very painful scenes between them. Indeed, I understood that out of business hours they were not on speaking terms; hence you can judge of my astonishment when I saw them driving in the buggy side by side.”

“It’s all very mysterious,” Mrs. Bell observed. “If she does not turn up soon, I shall have to inform the police.”

The following day, Mrs. Bell asked Stella if she had gone for a drive with Hester Holt the evening of the latter’s disappearance, and Stella Dean promptly replied, “No; the last time I saw Hester was when she left here that afternoon. She said good-bye to me as usual on the other side of the road, and I have never set eyes on her since.”

She admitted she had once been engaged to Pete Simpkins, but emphatically denied that Hester’s keeping company with him had led to any rupture between them. “Hester and I were always on the very best of terms,” she said, “and it would be downright mean of anyone to allege otherwise. Besides, I can produce proofs to the contrary.”

The next day, as Hester was still missing, Mrs. Bell told the police. The affair was at once inquired into, and Pete Simpkins’ story about the buggy was corroborated. Someone else had seen the two girls driving towards the outskirts of the town that same evening; whilst a car proprietor also came forward and declared that he recollected Miss Holt hiring a buggy from him, but that she had driven off in it alone. When the buggy was brought back, he being out, his wife had taken the money for it. But as it was then dusk, she could not possibly swear to the identity of the lady who had paid her, especially as the latter had been so muffled up, presumably on account of the coldness of the night, that practically nothing of her face was visible. She could only say Miss Dean resembled her both in build and height.

Stella Dean was now asked if she could produce an alibi; and, accordingly, her mother, a very decrepit old lady, declared that Stella had come straight home from the office, and had remained indoors all that evening. To add to the complexity of the affair, someone else testified to having seen Hester Holt enter Mrs. Britton’s house with a latch key rather late on the night in question; and this of course made some people suspect Mrs. Britton, but the police could prove nothing, and the matter was eventually dropped.

All this happened about three months before I arrived in Denver.

A week after the disappearance of Hester Holt, Mrs. Bell had a new assistant called Vera Cummings, a very material, practical young lady, the daughter of a farmer somewhere near Omaha.

The day after her arrival, Miss Cummings was busy typewriting in the office with Mrs. Bell and Stella Dean, when she suddenly exclaimed, “How is it that I get convulsed with shivers whenever I sit next to you, Miss Dean? I don’t when I’m sitting next to Mrs. Bell. Eugh! I feel as if the icy east wind were blowing right through me.”

“What nonsense!” Stella Dean replied; “you imagine it.”

“No, I don’t,” Miss Cummings retorted; “I’m going to sit somewhere else,” and she moved to the other side of the table.

Mrs. Bell made no comment. An hour or so afterwards, Vera Cummings abruptly observed:

“My, Stella Dean, what long legs you have!”

“What in the world do you mean?” was the surprised and rather indignant retort.

“Why, there’s no one else on your side of the table, is there?” Vera Cummings responded; “and someone’s feet keep kicking mine.”

“You’re dreaming,” Stella Dean said, and Mrs. Bell noticed she turned very pale.

Two days now passed uneventfully, but on the third day after the above conversation, Mrs. Bell and the two girls were sitting talking—it was close on the interval for tea, and work was just then very slack—when Vera Cummings remarked, “Who is that tall, good-looking girl, Stella, that I’ve seen following you into the building on several occasions. I’ve watched her keeping close behind you till you get to the elevator, and then she disappears. Where she goes I can’t imagine.”

“A tall, good-looking girl following me to the elevator,” Stella Dean repeated, her cheeks ashy. “What do you mean? I’ve seen no one. You’ve dreamt it.”

“What was she like?” Mrs. Bell interrupted.

Vera Cummings gave a minute description of her.

“Are you sure, Stella, we don’t know anyone like her?” Mrs. Bell said quietly. “That description seems to tally exactly with someone we once knew. Someone who used to frequent this place. Can she have returned, do you think?”

“I don’t know who you mean,” Stella Dean said crossly. “I tell you, I’ve seen no one.”

The next morning they all three arrived simultaneously, and went up together in the elevator. On nearing the office, the sound of a typewriter was heard. They looked at one another in open-mouthed astonishment.

“It must be one of the other clerks in the building,” Vera Cummings said. “She’s mistaken our room for hers. She’s an early bird, anyway, for I reckon there’s no one else arrived yet.”

“But the door’s locked,” Mrs. Bell whispered. “See, here’s the key!” And she took it out of her pocket as she spoke.

“Well, there’s no mistaking the sound, is there?” Vera Cummings laughed. “Click, click, click—that’s a typewriter, sure enough. Someone must have got in through the window. My, Stella, how white you are!”

Mrs. Bell glanced sharply at Stella Dean—there was not an atom of colour in her cheeks, and the pupils of her eyes were dilating with terror.

Mrs. Bell then put the key in the lock and opened the door. The typewriter was working away furiously, but there was no one at it, the room was absolutely empty. It stopped the moment Mrs. Bell crossed the threshold.

That afternoon Stella Dean complained of a headache and went home early. She was in bed for several weeks, and during her absence from the office the strange phenomena there entirely ceased. The morning she returned, Pete Simpkins met her and Vera Cummings just outside the office building. He was bubbling over with excitement.

“She’s come back!” he cried. “Come back, and never sent me a word. I _am_ glad though.... Hoorah!”

“Come back!” Stella Dean said, drawing herself up stiffly and regarding him with an angry stare. “Who are you talking about?”

“Hester Holt!” Pete Simpkins ejaculated. “She’s just gone into your place. Didn’t you know?”

Miss Dean made no reply. She simply pushed past him and walked in. Vera Cummings, however, dawdled behind.

“What’s Miss Holt like?” she asked anxiously.

Simpkins described her.

“Why that’s the girl I used constantly to see following Stella,” she said. “Where she disappears to is a mystery, but it’s only one of the many funny things that have happened since I’ve been here.”

She then told him about the typewriter and the feet under the table. Pete Simpkins repeated the story to his friends. Rouillac got hold of it, and hence, as the reader already knows, it was handed on to me.

Rouillac was most anxious that I should go with him to the haunted office straightaway, but it so happened that I had work to finish in a given time, and it was therefore arranged that he should call for me one day the following week.

At the hour appointed, he came. “I fear it’s no use,” he said; “the office is closed, and it is impossible to get permission to go there. It’s come about like this. The day after Stella Dean returned to work, Mrs. Bell was away—ill—and the two girls were alone. Some time after they had started work, it might have been eleven o’clock or thereabouts, Vera Cummings got up to get a drink of water, and in passing chanced to look at Stella Dean. The latter was leaning forward in her chair and staring with an expression of the utmost horror in her eyes at a despatch case on the floor, which was oscillating violently to and fro. Vera noticed that the despatch case was marked on one side with the letters ‘H. H.’ ‘That’s odd,’ she cried. ‘What makes it do like that—it can’t be due to vibration, because there’s nothing going by outside. How do you account for it, Stella?’

“‘I don’t know,’ Stella Dean gasped, making a vigorous attempt to appear unconcerned; ‘perhaps they’re shunting something heavy downstairs.’

“‘But we should hear them,’ Vera Cummings replied. ‘I believe it’s Hester Holt; she’s dead, and for some mysterious reason her spirit haunts this room.’

“‘Nonsense,’ Stella Dean stammered. ‘How can you be so silly! There are no such things as ghosts.’

“After a while, the case stopped shaking, and the two girls went on with their work. Lunch time came and they both rose to get ready to go out. Vera Cummings had put on her hat, and was walking to the door, when she heard a sharp cry. She turned round, and there was Stella Dean standing in front of the looking glass and gazing at the reflection of a pale face, with two dark menacing eyes glaring fixedly at her from over her shoulder. Vera recognised the face at once. It was that of the girl she had so often seen following Stella, the girl Pete Simpkins had told her was Hester Holt.

“She was so frightened, for she knew for certain now that the thing she was looking at was nothing earthly, that she ran out of the room, and as she crossed the threshold, the door slammed behind her with a terrific crash. Ashamed of her cowardice, she tried the door-handle. It turned, but though she pressed her hardest, the door would not open. She called to Stella, there was no reply. Greatly alarmed, she ran to the elevator and fetched the man in charge of it. They both pushed the door, and still it would not open. They were deliberating what to do, when they saw the handle suddenly turn and the door gently swing back on its hinges. They peered in. Stella Dean was lying on the hearthrug in a dead faint. She died that same night.”

“Died!”

“Yes! Some people fancy she committed suicide, but her mother declares that her heart had long been affected and that she died from syncope. Anyhow, she’s dead, and the office is closed, as nothing will persuade Vera Cummings to work there till Mrs. Bell is well enough to return. I tried to get permission to spend a night there, but Mrs. Bell dare not give it. She says the landlord is furious with her for allowing the report to get abroad that the building is haunted, and threatens her with a libel action if he hears anything further.”

“That’s a great pity,” I said; “for few cases have interested me more.”

“What do you make of it?” Rouillac asked.

“Why,” I replied, “the same as you. There can only be one conclusion. Stella Dean was madly jealous of Hester Holt, and during that drive in the buggy she killed her. Whether the murder was premeditated or done in a sudden fit of blind passion—you tell me her temper at times was very uncontrollable—of course we cannot say. From your sketch of her, however, I am inclined to think she planned the whole thing.”

“But what could she have done with the body?” Rouillac said. “The police searched everywhere.”

“So they say,” I observed; “but the track Simpkins was on when he passed the buggy affords countless opportunities for concealing a body. It is full of deep ditches, creeks, and crevices, covered with a thick and rank vegetation, and the police would take at least a century to explore it. Besides, from what I know of the super-physical I do not think for one moment that Stella Dean was haunted without some poignant reason.”

“Was haunted!” Rouillac observed.

“You said she was dead, didn’t you?” I exclaimed.

“Yes,” Rouillac replied slowly, “there’s no doubt whatever on that point. She’s dead right enough. But when Vera Cummings passed by the office this morning, she saw Stella Dean enter it—Stella Dean just as she looked when alive, only very white and in abject terror. She passed right in through the half-open doorway, and, as usual, Hester Holt followed her.”