I felt like a new man, proud, satisfied, and most of all eager and ready to face and to tackle the worst that Mrs Drablow’s house and those sinister surrounding marshes might have in store for me. In short, I was defiant, defiant and cheerful, and so I spun arounda corner into thesquare and almost smack into a large motor car which was negotiating the narrow turn in the oncoming direction. As I swerved, braked and scrambled somehow off my machine, I saw that the car belonged to my railway travelling companion, the man who had been buying up farms at yesterday’s auction, Mr Samuel Daily. Now, he was bidding his driver slow down and leaning out of the windowto ask me how I did.
‘I’ve just had a good spin out into the countryside and I shall do justice to my dinner tonight,’ I said cheerfully.
Mr Daily raised his eyebrows. ‘And your business?’
‘Mrs Drablow’s estate? Oh, I shall soon have all that in order, though I confess there will be rather more to do than I had anticipated.’
‘You have been out to the house?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Ah.’
For a fewseconds we looked at each other, neither one apparently willing to press the subject a little further. Then, preparing to remount my bicycle once I was out of his way, I said breezily, ‘To tell the truth, I’m enjoying myself. I am finding the whole thing rather a challenge.’
Mr Daily continued to regard me steadily until I was forced to shift about and glance away, feeling like nothing so muchas a schoolboy caught out in blustering his way through a fabricated tale.
‘Mr Kipps,’ he said, ‘you are whistling in the dark. Let me give you that dinner you say you’ve such an appetite for. Seven o’clock. Your landlord will direct you to my house.’ Then he motioned to the driver, sat back and did not give me another glance.
Once back at the hotel, I began to make serious arrangements forthe next day or so for, although there had been a grain of truth in Mr Daily’s accusation, I was nonetheless in a firmly determined frame of mind and more than ready to go ahead with the business at Eel Marsh House. Accordingly, I asked for a hamper of provisions to be got ready and, in addition, went out myself into the town and bought some additional supplies – packets of tea and coffee and sugar,a couple of loaves of bread, a tin of biscuits, fresh pipe tobacco, matches and so forth. I also purchased a large torch lantern and a pair of wellington boots. Far at the back of my mind, I retained a vivid recollection of my walk on the marshes in the fog and rising tide. If that were ever to happen again – though I prayed fervently it would not – I determined to be as well prepared, at leastfor any physical eventuality, as I could be.
When I told the landlord of my plan – that I intended to spend tonight at his inn and then the next two over at Eel Marsh House – he said nothing at all but I knew full well that he was recalling at the samemoment as I was myself how I had arrived, banging violently on his door in the early hours of that morning, the shock from my experiences etchedupon my face. When I asked if I could again borrow the bicycle he merely nodded. I told him that I wanted to retain my room and that, depending on how speedily I got through the work on Mrs Drablow’s papers, I should be taking my final leave towards the end of the week.
I have often wondered since what the man actually thought of me and the enterprise I was blithely undertaking, for it was clearthat he knew as much as anyone not only of the stories and rumours attaching to Eel Marsh House but of the truth too. I suspect that he would have preferred me to be gone altogether but was making it his business neither to voice an opinion nor to give warning or advice. And my manner that day must have indicated clearly that I would brook no opposition, heed no warning, even from within myself.I was by now almost pigheadedly bent upon following my course.
That much Mr Samuel Daily
‘I’ve just had a good spin out into the countryside and I shall do justice to my dinner tonight,’ I said cheerfully.
Mr Daily raised his eyebrows. ‘And your business?’
‘Mrs Drablow’s estate? Oh, I shall soon have all that in order, though I confess there will be rather more to do than I had anticipated.’
‘You have been out to the house?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Ah.’
For a fewseconds we looked at each other, neither one apparently willing to press the subject a little further. Then, preparing to remount my bicycle once I was out of his way, I said breezily, ‘To tell the truth, I’m enjoying myself. I am finding the whole thing rather a challenge.’
Mr Daily continued to regard me steadily until I was forced to shift about and glance away, feeling like nothing so muchas a schoolboy caught out in blustering his way through a fabricated tale.
‘Mr Kipps,’ he said, ‘you are whistling in the dark. Let me give you that dinner you say you’ve such an appetite for. Seven o’clock. Your landlord will direct you to my house.’ Then he motioned to the driver, sat back and did not give me another glance.
Once back at the hotel, I began to make serious arrangements forthe next day or so for, although there had been a grain of truth in Mr Daily’s accusation, I was nonetheless in a firmly determined frame of mind and more than ready to go ahead with the business at Eel Marsh House. Accordingly, I asked for a hamper of provisions to be got ready and, in addition, went out myself into the town and bought some additional supplies – packets of tea and coffee and sugar,a couple of loaves of bread, a tin of biscuits, fresh pipe tobacco, matches and so forth. I also purchased a large torch lantern and a pair of wellington boots. Far at the back of my mind, I retained a vivid recollection of my walk on the marshes in the fog and rising tide. If that were ever to happen again – though I prayed fervently it would not – I determined to be as well prepared, at leastfor any physical eventuality, as I could be.
When I told the landlord of my plan – that I intended to spend tonight at his inn and then the next two over at Eel Marsh House – he said nothing at all but I knew full well that he was recalling at the samemoment as I was myself how I had arrived, banging violently on his door in the early hours of that morning, the shock from my experiences etchedupon my face. When I asked if I could again borrow the bicycle he merely nodded. I told him that I wanted to retain my room and that, depending on how speedily I got through the work on Mrs Drablow’s papers, I should be taking my final leave towards the end of the week.
I have often wondered since what the man actually thought of me and the enterprise I was blithely undertaking, for it was clearthat he knew as much as anyone not only of the stories and rumours attaching to Eel Marsh House but of the truth too. I suspect that he would have preferred me to be gone altogether but was making it his business neither to voice an opinion nor to give warning or advice. And my manner that day must have indicated clearly that I would brook no opposition, heed no warning, even from within myself.I was by now almost pigheadedly bent upon following my course.
That much Mr Samuel Daily
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