The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

gathered at the old country seat at the invitation of the financier and his twin
daughters, and nothing had been left undone to make the guests’ visit an
outstanding experience. Canvasback ducks, killed in the Potomac marshes a
week before, and “gamed” to perfection, stewed green celery tops, quince jelly
after the recipe of a seventy-year-old colored cook, spoon bread as golden as
new coin from the mint and port as mellow as summer moonlight combined to
make dinner a Lucullian banquet, and ten o’clock had struck on the tall
mahogany clock in the hall and echoed by the library banjo clock and the ormolu
timepiece on the drawing room mantel before the long Madeira cloth was
cleared of gold plate and Wedgwood.
“Now, as a little surprise,” the host announced, gazing benevolently about the
company, “I propose giving you something you don’t often find these days.
Procter—” he turned to the solemn-faced Englishman who presided over the
household domestics, and tendered him a bunch of keys—“two bottles of the
Napoleon brandy.”
A hum of respectful, expectant voices went round the table as the butler
stalked majestically from the room. Napoleon brandy is a comparative luxury in
Europe. In prohibitionized America it is rarer than roast pork at a Jewish
wedding breakfast.
“Mr. Towneley, sir, if you please—” Procter returned to the dining room, his
florid face slightly paler than its wont, his long, smooth-shaven upper lip
trembling visibly, and no bottles in his hands—“may I speak with you a moment
in private, sir?”
“What’s the matter?”
“If you please, sir, I’d rather not enter the smoke house. I thought I saw—”
“Oh, good Lord! You, too? Take a couple of the stable boys—take half a
dozen, if two aren’t enough—and go get that brandy!”
“Yes, sir.” The servant bowed with frigid respect and departed.
“I hope the superstitious fools don’t get scared at their own shadows and drop
one of those bottles,” the host remarked as he cast a worried glance toward the
door through which the butler had vanished. “If anything more were required to
make me go mad—”
“Mr. Towneley!” The butler was once more in the dining room, his face
positively gray with fright.
“Well, what’s the matter now?”
“Oh, sir,” the servant interrupted, his thick, throaty voice gone high with terror,
“it’s Thomas, sir; Thomas, the ’ostler. ’E’s dead, sir!” Excitement had played