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Title: Number 17
Author: Nesbit, Edith ("E. Nesbit") [Bland, Edith] (1858-1924)
Date of first publication: June 1910 [The Strand Magazine]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   The Strand Magazine, Vol. XXXIX, June 1910, pages 673-78
   [London: George Newnes]
Date first posted: 26 December 2013
Date last updated: 26 December 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1142

This ebook was produced by
Sandra Lynne Janzen and Mark Bear Akrigg






Number 17.

By E. BLAND.




I yawned. I could not help it. But the flat, inexorable
voice went on.

"Speaking from the journalistic point of view--I may tell
you, gentlemen, that I once occupied the position of
advertisement editor to the _Bradford Woollen Goods
Journal_--and speaking from that point of view, I hold the
opinion that all the best ghost stories have been written
over and over again; and if I were to leave the road and
return to a literary career I should never be led away by
ghosts. Realism's what's wanted nowadays, if you want to be
up-to-date."

The large commercial paused for breath.

"You never can tell with the public," said the lean, elderly
traveller; "it's like in the fancy business. You never know
how it's going to be. Whether it's a clockwork ostrich or
Sometite silk or a particular shape of shaded glass novelty
or a tobacco-box got up to look like a raw chop, you never
know your luck."

"That depends on who you are," said the dapper man in the
corner by the fire. "If you've got the right push about you,
you can make a thing go, whether it's a clockwork kitten or
imitation meat, and with stories, I take it, it's just the
same--realism or ghost stories. But the best ghost story
would be the realest one, _I_ think."

The large commercial had got his breath.

"I don't believe in ghost stories, myself," he was saying
with earnest dullness; "but there was a rather a queer thing
happened to a second cousin of an aunt of mine by
marriage--a very sensible woman with no nonsense about her.
And the soul of truth and honour. I shouldn't have believed
it if she had been one of your flighty, fanciful sort."

"Don't tell us the story," said the melancholy man who
travelled in hardware; "you'll make us afraid to go to bed."

The well-meant effort failed. The large commercial went on,
as I had known he would; his words overflowed his mouth, as
his person overflowed his chair. I turned my mind to my own
affairs, coming back to the commercial room in time to hear
the summing up.

"The doors were all locked, and she was quite certain she
saw a tall, white figure glide past her and vanish. I
wouldn't have believed it if----" And so on _da capo_, from
"if she hadn't been the second cousin" to the "soul of truth
and honour."

I yawned again.

"Very good story," said the smart little man by the fire. He
was a traveller, as the rest of us were; his presence in the
room told us that much. He had been rather silent during
dinner, and afterwards, while the red curtains were being
drawn and the red and black cloth laid between the glasses
and the decanters and the mahogany, he had quietly taken the
best chair in the warmest corner. We had got our letters
written and the large traveller had been boring for some
time before I even noticed that there was a best chair and
that this silent, bright-eyed, dapper, fair man had secured
it.

"Very good story," he said; "but it's not what I call
realism. You don't tell us half enough, sir. You don't say
when it happened or where, or the time of year, or what
colour your aunt's second cousin's hair was. Nor yet you
don't tell us what it was she saw, nor what the room was
like where she saw it, nor why she saw it, nor what happened
afterwards. And I shouldn't like to breathe a word against
anybody's aunt by marriage's cousin, first or second, but I
must say I like a story about what a man's seen _himself_."

"So do I," the large commercial snorted, "when I hear it."

He blew his nose like a trumpet of defiance.

"But," said the rabbit-faced man, "we know nowadays, what
with the advance of science and all that sort of thing, we
know there aren't any such things as ghosts. They're
hallucinations; that's what they are--hallucinations."

"Don't seem to matter what you call them," the dapper one
urged. "If you see a thing that looks as real as you do
yourself, a thing that makes your blood run cold and turns
you sick and silly with fear--well, call it ghost, or call
it hallucination, or call it Tommy Dodd; it isn't the _name_
that matters."

The elderly commercial coughed and said, "You might call it
another name. You might call it----"

"No, you mightn't," said the little man, briskly; "not when
the man it happened to had been a teetotal Bond of Joy for
five years and is to this day."

"Why don't you tell us the story?" I asked.

"I might be willing," he said, "if the rest of the company
were agreeable. Only I warn you it's not that
sort-of-a-kind-of-a-somebody-fancied-they-saw-a-sort-of-a-ki
nd-of-a-something-sort of story. No, sir. Everything I'm
going to tell you is plain and straightforward and as clear
as a time-table--clearer than some. But I don't much like
telling it, especially to people who don't believe in
ghosts."

Several of us said we did believe in ghosts. The heavy man
snorted and looked at his watch. And the man in the best
chair began.

"Turn the gas down a bit, will you? Thanks. Did any of you
know Herbert Hatteras? He was on this road a good many
years. No? well, never mind. He was a good chap, I believe,
with good teeth and a black whisker. But I didn't know him
myself. He was before my time. Well, this that I'm going to
tell you about happened at a certain commercial hotel. I'm
not going to give it a name, because that sort of thing gets
about, and in every other respect it's a good house and
reasonable, and we all have our living to get. It was just a
good ordinary old-fashioned commercial hotel, as it might be
this. And I've often used it since, though they've never put
me in that room again. Perhaps they shut it up after what
happened.

"Well, the beginning of it was, I came across an old
schoolfellow; in Boulter's Lock one Sunday it was, I
remember. Jones was his name, Ted Jones. We both had canoes.
We had tea at Marlow, and we got talking about this and that
and old times and old mates; and do you remember Jim, and
what's become of Tom, and so on. Oh, you know. And I
happened to ask after his brother, Fred by name. And Ted
turned pale and almost dropped his cup, and he said, 'You
don't mean to say you haven't heard?' 'No,' says I, mopping
up the tea he'd slopped over with my handkerchief. 'No,
what?' I said.

"'It was horrible,' he said. 'They wired for me, and I saw
him afterwards. Whether he'd done it himself or not, nobody
knows; but they'd found him lying on the floor with his
throat cut.' No cause could be assigned for the rash act,
Ted told me. I asked him where it had happened, and he told
me the name of this hotel--I'm not going to name it. And
when I'd sympathised with him and drawn him out about old
times and poor old Fred being such a good old sort and all
that, I asked him what the room was like. I always like to
know what the places look like where things happen.

"No, there wasn't anything specially rum about the room,
only that it had a French bed with red curtains in a sort of
alcove; and a large mahogany wardrobe as big as a hearse,
with a glass door; and, instead of a swing-glass, a carved,
black-framed glass screwed up against the wall between the
windows, and a picture of 'Belshazzar's Feast' over the
mantelpiece. I beg your pardon?" He stopped, for the heavy
commercial had opened his mouth and shut it again.

"I thought you were going to say something," the dapper man
went on. "Well, we talked about other things and parted, and
I thought no more about it till business brought me to--but
I'd better not name the town either--and I found my firm had
marked this very hotel--where poor Fred had met his death,
you know--for me to put up at. And I had to put up there
too, because of their addressing everything to me there.
And, anyhow, I expect I should have gone there out of
curiosity.

"No. I didn't believe in ghosts in those days. I was like
you, sir." He nodded amiably to the large commercial.

"The house was very full, and we were quite a large party in
the room--very pleasant company, as it might be to-night;
and we got talking of ghosts--just as it might be us. And
there was a chap in glasses, sitting just over there, I
remember--an old hand on the road, he was; and he said, just
as it might be any of you, 'I don't believe in ghosts, but I
wouldn't care to sleep in Number Seventeen, for all that';
and, of course, we asked him why. 'Because,' said he, very
short, 'that's why.'

"But when we'd persuaded him a bit, he told us.

"'Because that's the room where chaps cut their throats,' he
said. "There was a chap called Bert Hatteras began it. They
found him weltering in his gore. And since that every man
that's slept there's been found with his throat cut.'

"I asked him how many had slept there. 'Well, only two
beside the first,' he said; 'they shut it up then.' 'Oh, did
they?' said I. 'Well, they've opened it again. Number
Seventeen's my room!'

"I tell you those chaps looked at me.

"'But you aren't going to _sleep_ in it?' one of them said.
And I explained that I didn't pay half a dollar for a
bedroom to keep awake in.

"'I suppose it's press of business has made them open it up
again,' the chap in spectacles said. 'It's a very mysterious
affair. There's some secret horror about that room that we
don't understand,' he said, 'and I'll tell you another queer
thing. Every one of those poor chaps was a commercial
gentleman. That's what I don't like about it. There was Bert
Hatteras--he was the first, and a chap called
Jones--Frederick Jones, and then Donald Overshaw--a
Scotchman he was, and travelled in children's
underclothing.'

"Well, we sat there and talked a bit, and if I hadn't been a
Bond of Joy, I don't know that I mightn't have exceeded,
gentlemen--yes, positively exceeded; for the more I thought
about it the less I liked the thought of Number Seventeen. I
hadn't noticed the room particularly, except to see that the
furniture had been changed since poor Fred's time. So I just
slipped out, by and by, and I went out to the little glass
case under the arch where the booking-clerk sits--just like
here, that hotel was--and I said:--

"'Look here, miss; haven't you got another room empty except
seventeen?'

"'No,' she said; 'I don't think so.'"

"'Then what's that?' I said, and pointed to a key hanging on
the board, the only one left.

"'Oh,' she said, 'that's sixteen.'

"'Anyone in sixteen?' I said. 'Is it a comfortable room?'

"'No,' said she. 'Yes; quite comfortable. It's next door to
yours--much the same class of room.'

"'Then I'll have sixteen, if you've no objection,' I said,
and went back to the others, feeling very clever.

"When I went up to bed I locked my door, and, though I
didn't believe in ghosts, I wished seventeen wasn't next
door to me, and I wished there wasn't a door between the two
rooms, though the door was locked right enough and the key
on my side. I'd only got the one candle besides the two on
the dressing-table, which I hadn't lighted; and I got my
collar and tie off before I noticed that the furniture in my
new room was the furniture out of Number Seventeen; French
bed with red curtains, mahogany wardrobe as big as a hearse,
and the carved mirror over the dressing-table between the
two windows, and 'Belshazzar's Feast' over the mantelpiece.
So that, though I'd not got the _room_ where the commercial
gentlemen had cut their throats, I'd got the _furniture_ out
of it. And for a moment I thought that was worse than the
other. When I thought of what that furniture could tell, if
it could speak----

"It was a silly thing to do--but we're all friends here and
I don't mind owning up--I looked under the bed and I looked
inside the hearse-wardrobe and I looked in a sort of narrow
cupboard there was, where a body could have stood
upright----"

"A body?" I repeated.

"A man, I mean. You see, it seemed to me that either these
poor chaps had been murdered by someone who hid himself in
Number Seventeen to do it, or else there was something there
that frightened them into cutting their throats; and upon my
soul, I can't tell you which idea I liked least!"

He paused, and filled his pipe very deliberately. "Go, on,"
someone said. And he went on.

"Now, you'll observe," he said, "that all I've told you up
to the time of my going to bed that night's just hearsay. So
I don't ask you to believe it--though the three coroners'
inquests would be enough to stagger most chaps, I should
say. Still, what I'm going to tell you now's _my_ part of
the story--what happened to me myself in that room."

He paused again, holding the pipe in his hand, unlighted.

There was a silence, which I broke.

"Well, what _did_ happen?" I asked.

"I had a bit of a struggle with myself," he said. "I
reminded myself it was not _that_ room, but the next one that
it had happened in. I smoked a pipe or two and read the
morning paper, advertisements and all. And at last I went to
bed. I left the candle burning, though, I own that."

"Did you sleep?" I asked.

"Yes. I slept. Sound as a top. I was awakened by a soft
tapping on my door. I sat up. I don't think I've ever been
so frightened in my life. But I made myself say, 'Who's
there?' in a whisper. Heaven knows I never expected any one
to answer. The candle had gone out and it was pitch-dark.
There was a quiet murmur and a shuffling sound outside. And
no one answered. I tell you I hadn't expected any one to.
But I cleared my throat and cried out, 'Who's there?' in a
real out-loud voice. And 'Me, sir,' said a voice.
'Shaving-water, sir; six o'clock, sir.'

"It was the chambermaid."

A movement of relief ran round our circle.

"I don't think much of your story," said the large
commercial.

"You haven't heard it yet," said the story-teller, dryly.
"It was six o'clock on a winter's morning, and pitch-dark.
My train went at seven. I got up and began to dress. My one
candle wasn't much use. I lighted the two on the
dressing-table to see to shave by. There wasn't any
shaving-water outside my door, after all. And the passage
was as black as a coal-hole. So I started to shave with cold
water; one has to sometimes, you know. I'd gone over my face
and I was just going lightly round under my chin, when I saw
something move in the looking-glass. I mean something that
moved was reflected in the looking-glass. The big door of
the wardrobe had swung open, and by a sort of double
reflection I could see the French bed with the red curtains.
On the edge of it sat a man in his shirt and trousers--a man
with black hair and whiskers, with the most awful look of
despair and fear on his face that I've ever seen or dreamt
of. I stood paralyzed, watching him in the mirror. I could
not have turned round to save my life. Suddenly he laughed.
It was a horrid, silent laugh, and showed all his teeth.
They were very white and even. And the next moment he had
cut his throat from ear to ear, there before my eyes. Did
you ever see a man cut his throat? The bed was all white
before."

The story-teller had laid down his pipe, and he passed his
hand over his face before he went on.

"When I could look around I did. There was no one in the
room. The bed was as white as ever. Well, that's all," he
said, abruptly, "except that now, of course, I understood
how these poor chaps had come by their deaths. They'd all
seen this horror--the ghost of the first poor chap, I
suppose--Bert Hatteras, you know; and with the shock their
hands must have slipped and their throats got cut before
they could stop themselves. Oh! by the way, when I looked at
my watch it was two o'clock; there hadn't been any
chambermaid at all. I must have dreamed that. But I didn't
dream the other. Oh! And one thing more. It was the same
room. They hadn't changed the room, they'd only changed the
number. _It was the same room!_"

"Look here," said the heavy man; "the room you've been
talking about. _My_ room's sixteen. And it's got that same
furniture in it as what you describe, and the same picture
and all."

"Oh, has it?" said the story-teller, a little uncomfortable,
it seemed. "I'm sorry. But the cat's out of the bag now, and
it can't be helped. Yes, it _was_ this house I was speaking
of. I suppose they've opened the room again. But you don't
believe in ghosts; _you'll_ be all right."

"Yes," said the heavy man, and presently got up and left the
room.

"He's gone to see if he can get his room changed. You see if
he hasn't," said the rabbit-faced man; "and I don't wonder."

The heavy man came back and settled into his chair.

"I could do with a drink," he said, reaching to the bell.

"I'll stand some punch, gentlemen, if you'll allow me," said
our dapper story-teller. "I rather pride myself on my punch.
I'll step out to the bar and get what I need for it."

"I thought he said he was a teetotaller," said the heavy
traveller when he had gone. And then our voices buzzed like
a hive of bees. When our story-teller came in again we
turned on him--half-a-dozen of us at once--and spoke.

"One at a time," he said, gently. "I didn't quite catch what
you said."

"We want to know," I said, "how it was--if seeing that ghost
made all those chaps cut their throats by startling them
when they were shaving--how was it _you_ didn't cut _your_
throat when you saw it?"

"I should have," he answered, gravely, "without the
slightest doubt--I should have cut my throat, only," he
glanced at our heavy friend, "I always shave with a safety
razor. I travel in them," he added, slowly, and bisected a
lemon.

"But--but," said the large man, when he could speak through
our uproar, "I've gone and given up my room."

"Yes," said the dapper man, squeezing the lemon; "I've just
had my things moved into it. It's the best room in the
house. I always think it worth while to take a little pains
to secure it."






[End of Number 17, by Edith Nesbit]
