The Butler's Revenge.

Evening Post, Volume XLVI, Issue 97, 21 October 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Butler's Revenge.

We were lolling iv a couple nf easy chairs on the verandah one evening after dinner, Stanfield and I, when my friend sent the glowing stump of his cheroot pirouetting down the steps, and, turning in his chair, said abruptly — "Do you know, Dick, a man was shot once just where you're sitting f" Naturally I was startled, and instead ot replying to Stanfield's remark glanced uneasily down the long, ghostly verandah, of which the outer edge lay in bright moonlight, while the inner portion was wrapped in the dense shadow of the partly-drawn bamboo jalousies. "I know the feeling," said Stanfield, noting my uneasiness. -"I nover sit here of an evening without getting a creepy sensation all over me. The servants say the old bungalow is haunted, and I should not wonder if they are right. Anyhow, if it isn't, it ought to be ; for the story connected with it is an uncanny one altogether. See that hob in the jalousies there on the " Do you mean the oblong slit just above the balustrade ? 'Pon my word, against the moonlight it looks for all the world like a malignant eye!" • "So it is," said Stanfield, with a slight shiver. "It was through that hole Judge Robertson, my predecessor, was shot." " All ! I'TO neard there was a strange story connected with bis death, but I know nona of th« particulars. Suppose you light another weed and talk me out of this creepy fit?" „, .. - •' Talk you into a worse one, more like, retorted Stanfield, striking a fusee. "I'll wavror you never heard a weirder story, but" you shall havo the facts and then judge for yourself." . With that he settled himself in his chair, and after puffing reflectively at his cheroot for some seconds, went on to tell me the story of the shot through the jalousies. " Robertson, you must know, was an Eton boy. We" were chums in the old days, and that is how I came to knnw of a peculiar tradition that is said to have been in his family for centuries. " It seems that for hundreds of years no Robertson has ever died without having a distinct premonition of his approaching end, and, what is more remarkable still, the warning always comes in the form of an odeur— au earthly smell— the smell of a new-dug grave. "Well, about a week before his death, when he was on his way to take up hid appointment here, in faot, Robertson passed through Mnlatiabad, where I was at that time ntatioued as colleotor, and, of course, 1 put him up for the night. After dinner we were sitting smoking just as you and I are how, when presently he says— " ' Stanfield,' says he, ' there's a devilish queer smell about. Been having any digging done on the premises?' " « No,' said I, ' I haven't, and for the life of me I can't smell anything except these Dindiguls we're smoking.' '"Perhaps that's what it is, then,' said he, doubtfully. "Just as we were malting a move tor bed, however, he suddenly grips my hand, and 'Stanfield,' says he, hoarsely, 'for God's sake tell me that your people have been digging somewhere near, or that there's been a Bhower! I can't get that earthy smell out of my nostrils ; it's like standing over a. new-made grave.' " Well, all of a sudden it flashed upon me what the poor fellow was driving at, and, just to reassure him, I said X thought there must have been a shower somewhere to windward, and probably it was that he smelled. "Just a week later to a day I was at work in my office one morning, when a peon brought in a telegram. Dick, that telegram brought the news that Robertson had been shot dead by his own butler at eight o'clock the evening before !" "By his own butler!" I exclaimed, horrified, for while Stanfield was relating this tragio tale, I heard the voioe of his butler giving orders to the table boys in the dining-room at our backs. "Yes, by his own butler," resumed Stanfield, " and on the very spot where you bit. Indeed," consulting his watch, "it happened just at this time, for it's now eight o'clook to the minute." "But," I cried, "why by his butler? For Heaven's sake, oxplam !" t'l will," continued Staufield, "but first I must hark back a bit, and tell you that the telegram ordered me at once to proceed to this station, as Robertson's »uc- I cessor. Well, I did so, and almost my first duty as judge was to try the poor fellow a murderer." "The butler?" " The butler ; and that brings me to the explanation. Robertson, it appears, had had a case before him in which a native was charged*»th maltreating his wife in such a brutal manner as to caw** her death. Robertson did what almost any other English judge would have done under the circumstances— gave the scamp his deserts and sentenced him to death. i " Now, this occurred only a few hours before he was murdered. In passing sentence of death upou the brutal native, he virtually passed sooteuce upon himself. "Robertson had in his service at the time a butler who waa related to the man he had just condemned. Whether he was aware of the exact relationship existing between the two I don't know, but I «m inclined to think not. Ab a matter of faot, when Robertson sat down to dinner that night, after sentencing tho native to death, he w«a waited upon by the convict s own brother. "You observed » rifle on the diningroom wall, I have no doubt, jnst oppo?^ your pl*ce at table. It was from that nne the fatal shot was fired. " Not while Robertson was at dinner, though. The butler bided his time until his master bad seated himself here on the verandah, taken his oofiee, and smoked his cheroot. - Then, when these had, begun to make him drowsy, the fellow took the rifle from the wall— it waa always kept loaded —and crept through the bedrooms to the far end of the verandah, where, as you see, the shadow lies so deep. " Sitting as we are now, you observe that the steps between the far end of the verandah and the jalousie with the hole in it are concealed by a row of pillars ; and you will readily understand how a barefooted native might creep along those stems under cover of the pillars and apply his eye to the hole without b.nng either seen or heard. Well, that is josl what the butler did. Only ho did something more. ' l After applying his eye to the hole he noiselessly inserted the muzzle of the rifle iv the aperture, took deliberate aim at Mb master's heart, and fired. Poor Robertson ! He never knew what hurt him." Staufield ceased speaking, and a painful silence fell upon us both. So awfully real was my conception of the whole evening and at the very hour when I spoke, and so broke the Bpell. " Hadn't Robertson a wifo ?'{ "He had, and speaking of her reminds me that my story is still unfinished. "About a year before her husband's death Mrs. R. went home to. England for her health, and when I last saw Robertson alive— the night he had that strange premonition—he was daily expecting her back. Well, it is a singular coincidence that the steamer she was a passenger on entered Bombay Harbour on the very evening and at the very hour when Robertson was shot. "Mrs. R. had gathered all her traps together, intending to disembark that night, and as soon as she heard the anohor drop she left her cabin to go on deck. Just as she reached the foot of the companionstairs she saw that the hour was exactly 8 o'clock. At the same moment an indescribable terror seized her; she looked up quickly, and there, on the steps above her, stood her husband. "She sm-ang up the steps to meet him, but he suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. At the top of the steps she ran against the purser. " 'There is no hurry, madam, said he, ' the tender's not alongside yet.' " ' gut my husband ! ' oned Mrs. K. < I saw him here just now. How did nt come aboard?" «< Madam,' replied the purser, 'yoi must be mistaken ; not a. living soul has boarded the ship to-night.' "And he was right, for if Mrs R. saw anything, as' she declared she did, it musl have, been the spirit of her dying husband. "Let us go in," said I, rising hastily i " this night air has given me a ohill."