Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty - Link to Video Clip

Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer who was nicknamed the "Master of Suspense".  Besides directing over 50 movies he also had a TV show which ran for ten years and featured many creepy tales.  Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty was adapted into one such story.  There is a link below for those who wish to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrpoSSgPatU

While watching, think about how they've had to adapt the story to make it work as a TV show.  What do you think of the changes they've made?  Does Miss Bracegirdle look the same as you imagined her while reading?

Miss Bracegirlde Does her Duty - Simplified

Miss Bracegirlde Does Her Duty - Simplified

This was Miss Bracegirdle's first visit to France.  She did not usually take holidays from home. Luckily she spoke a little French. 'It is not so difficult to live in France,' she thought. 'The thing to understand is that it is quite different from Easingstoke.' She took her things one by one out of her bag and put them away carefully. She thought about her home in Easingstoke, with flowers in all the rooms and photographs of the family. She thought about her poor brother, working so hard. She felt a little sad, but only for a minute. Her time in France was to be quite short. She was going to be home again soon. Now she must get a good night's sleep. But first that hot bath... She took off her day things and put on her nightdress. Then she picked up her washing things and went to the bathroom, closing her bedroom door quietly. She lay in the hot water and thought about the nice young girl in the hotel getting her bath ready. People in this hotel were very friendly – always ready to help. There was so much she wanted to tell her brother when she got home. She got out of the bath and put on her nightdress again. She cleaned the bath very carefully. She did not want French people to think that the English were dirty. Then she left the bathroom and went back to her bedroom. She went in quickly, put on the light and shut the door. Then, one of those unlucky things happened: the door-handle came off in her hand. She tried to put the handle back on the door but she could not. 'How do I do it?' she thought. 'It is going to be very difficult to open the door now. Do I ask that nice girl to come and help me? Perhaps by now she is in bed.' She turned away from the door, and suddenly, she saw something much, much worse than the door-handle. There was a man in her bed! She took one look at his thick black hair and his big black moustache and immediately felt quite ill with fear. For a minute or two, she could not think. Then her first thought was: 'I must not scream!' She stood there but she could not move. She just looked at the man's dark head and the big line of his back under the bedthings. She began to think very quickly. Her next thought was: 'I am in the wrong room. It is the man's room.' She could see his jacket and trousers lying on a chair and his big black shoes on the floor. She must get out quickly. But how? She tried again to open the door with her fingers but she could not. Here she was, shut in a hotel room with an unknown man – a Frenchman! She must think, she must think! She turned off the light. 'Perhaps with the light off, he is not going to wake up,' she thought. 'That gives me more time to do something. But if he does wake up, what do I do? He is not going to believe my story. Nobody is going to believe me. In England perhaps but not here. How can they understand? So, I must get out of this room. By waking him? By screaming? By calling the young girl? No, it is no good. If I scream or call out, people are going to come running immediately. And what do they find? Miss Bracegirdle from Easingstoke in a man's bedroom after twelve o'clock at night. Just think of all the talk back home when my friends hear about that! And if I climb out of the window?' She thought of the big hairy man pulling her back by the legs as she tried to get out. He could wake up at any minute. She thought that she heard somebody going past outside the door. But it was too late to scream now. Suddenly, she had an idea. It was now nearly one o'clock in the morning. Perhaps the sleeping man was not dangerous. At seven or eight o'clock, he must get up and go out to work. 'I can get under the bed and wait there until he goes. Men never look under the bed. When he sees the door-handle on the floor, he is going to open the door with something or call the girl to come. Later, I can come out from under the bed and go quietly back to my room. Nobody is going to know.' She lay down on the floor and got under the bed. No sound came from the man above her, but from down here it was difficult to hear anything. She tried to think of her nice little bedroom in Easingstoke with its nice white bed but the floor was getting harder every minute. She tried to think what her room number was. One hundred and fifteen? Or was it one hundred and sixteen? She was always bad at remembering numbers. She began to think of her schooldays and the interesting things she learned then. Suddenly, she felt that she was going to sneeze. She could not stop it. The sneezecame – a long, hard one. 'This is the end of me,' Miss Bracegirdle thought. 'Now this Frenchman is going to jump out of bed and turn on the light. Then he is going to look under the bed and pull me out. And then...And then? What can I do then? I can scream if he puts his hands on me. Perhaps it is better to scream first, before that happens. If not, he can put his hand over my mouth and stop me from screaming.' But no shout came out of her mouth. Her fear was much too strong. She stayed very quiet and listened. Was he going to hit her – with one of those heavy shoes, perhaps? But nothing happened. Miss Bracegirdle suddenly knew that she could not stay under that bed a minute longer. It was better to come out, wake up the man and tell him everything. With difficulty she got out from under the bed and stood up. She went over to the door and put on on the light. She turned to the bed and said, as strongly as she could, 'Monsieur!' Nothing happened. She looked at the man and said again, 'Monsieur! Monsieur!' But again there was no answer. She went closer to the bed. His hair and moustache were very black but his face had no colour in it. His mouth was open but his eyes were shut. Then for the third time that night, Miss Bracegirdle nearly died of fear. Suddenly, her legs felt as weak as water. She nearly fell down. Because the man in the bed wasdead! It was the first time that she stood face to face with a dead person, but there was no mistake. The man was dead. Miss Bracegirdle could only say, 'He's dead! He's dead!' Her difficulties now were not important. She began to feel sorry for him, lying here dead in a hotel room. But a sudden sound broke into her thoughts. Somebody outside the door put down some shoes: the shoe-cleaning boy. She heard the sound of his feet dieaway and remembered where she was. To be in an unknown man's bedroom was bad, but to be in a room with a dead man was much, much worse! If they found her here, people were going to think she killed him! A picture came into her head: the police taking her off to the police station, asking her questions, shutting her away... And her sister arriving in just a few hours' time too! She must get out of the room immediately. 'I cannot call for help now,' she thought,fighting back her fear. 'Do something, Millicent. It is now or never!' But what? She went round the room, looking for something to open the door with. She could find nothing. Finally, she picked up the man's jacket. Inside it she found a small knife. She took the knife and put it in the side of the door. Very slowly she turned the knife and the door opened. She wanted to run out of the room immediately but she stopped first and listened. Nobody was there. Feeling very afraid, Miss Bracegirdle shut the door quickly behind her and ran as fast as she could to her bedroom. She lay down on the bed and the fear slowly began to leave her. All was well! But then she had another unhappy thought. The living fear came back. Her washing things were in there. They were lying there in the dead man's room! And her name was on them. To go back again now was far worse than the first time butshe had no choice. She could not leave her things lying there. 'If they find them, they are going to ask me how they got there,' she thought. She had to go back. She went. She did not look at the bed. She quickly took her washing things and ran back again to her bedroom. Now that the danger was over, she suddenly felt very, very tired. She got into bed and put out the light. She lay in the dark, trying to forget her fears. Finally, she went to sleep. It was eleven o'clock when she woke up. The sun was high in the sky and the fears of the night were far away. In the light of the day, it was all very difficult to believe. Miss Bracegirdle tried to think about other things. Finally, the young girl arrived to wake her up. Her eyes showed that she was excited. 'Oh madame!' she said, 'a very bad thing happened here last night. The man in room one hundred and seventeen – he is dead! Please do not say that I told you but the police were here, the doctor, everybody.' Miss Bracegirdle said nothing. There was nothing to say. But the young woman was too excited to stop. 'And do you know who this dead man was, madame? They say that he was Boldhu, the famous killer, wanted by the police. Last year, he killed a woman and cut her up and threw her into the river. And last night, he died here in our hotel – in the room next door! We do not know how. Did you say coffee, madame?' 'No thank you, just a cup of tea – strong tea, please.' 'Very well, madame.

Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty Discussion Questions

Brainstorm with a partner or in small groups and come up with some answers for the following questions.


How does Miss Bracegirdle feel when she discovers the man in the bed?
Who do you think the man in the bed is?
What will happen if he wakes up?

Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty Follow Up Activity.

1. What happens to Miss Bracegirdle first? What happens next? Write the numbers 1–13.


A     She finds a knife in the man’s pocket.
B     She gets under the bed.
C     She goes to a hotel and a girl shows her her room.
D     She goes to bed.
E     She goes to meet her sister from the boat.
F     She arrives in Bordeaux.
G    She knows that she is in the wrong room.
H    She realises the man is dead.
I     She sees a man in her bed.
J     She sneezes.
K   She takes a hot bath.
L    The handle of the door comes off in her hand.
M   The maid tells her the man is dead.

2. Imagine Miss Bracegirdle wrote a letter to her brother telling what really happened.  Use the words below to fill in the blanks.

wrong      bath     dead     under     believe
immediately     scream     strange     handle

My Dear Brother,
a I am going to tell you a story that you will
not ……… .

b Are you sitting down? I spent last night
……… the bed of a Frenchman!

c He was ……… !

d I came back to my room after a ……… ,

e but then I saw a ……… man in the bed.

f I knew I was in the ……… room.

g I ……… tried to leave the room,

h but then the door ……… came off in my hand!

i ‘What can I do?’ I thought. ‘I mustn’t ……… .’

3. Match a word or phrase from List A with a word or phrase from List B.

a wake                                                                                       1 station
b cup of                                                                                      2 table
c writing                                                                                      3 box
d door                                                                                        4 tea
e police                                                                                      5 night’s sleep
f letter                                                                                        6 handle
g a good                                                                                    7 up

4.  Complete the following sentences with expressions from Question 3.

a Miss Bracegirdle couldn’t get out of the room because the ………… came off in her hand.

b She finally returned to her room and had ………… .

c In the morning, she asked the girl for a strong ………… .

d She sat at the ………… and wrote a letter to her brother.

e Then she walked quickly to the ………… to send her letter.

Reading - Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty.

Our story this week is about an innocent abroad. A quiet Englishwoman, unmarried and middle-aged, finds herself in a small hotel in south-west France. After taking a nice hot bath, she goes into the wrong hotel bedroom and gets locked in. She realises there is no escape from the room. At that moment, she sees a man lying in the bed asleep. She does not know how to behave in a situation like this. She becomes very worried. If she wakes the man, people will know she has been in a room with a strange man. What will people think of her? What will the man do to her?

Click on the link below to read this weeks story.

http://www.hillsdalesites.org/personal/hstewart/Mystery/Aumonier%20(1916)%20Miss%20Bracegirdle%20Does%20Her%20Duty.pdf

Stacey Aumonier was born in England in 1887. He wrote many short stories. Miss Bracegirdle Does her Duty is about Englishness and how English people of a certain class cope with unexpected events. Aumonier died very young at the age of 41 in 1928. He is little known today.

The Return of Imray/Imray Came Back - Thinking Creatively

Imagine you are one of the other characters in the story.  Strickland, Tietjens the Dog, or Bahadur Khan.  Retell the story from their point of view.

The Return of Imray/Imray Came Back Discussion Question

Discuss the following questions with a partner of in a small group.  Don;t forget to write down your responses!

Look at the picture to the left.  What section of the story is it illustrating?

Can you think of any other stories about missing persons (either real or fictional?  

Which version of the story do you prefer?  The original The Return of Imray or the adapted Imray Came Back?  What makes you prefer the version you like better?

 What are 5 differences or extra details between the two versions of the story?

The Return of Imray/Imray Came Back Follow-Up Activity

After Reading, complete the following questions:

Are these sentences right or wrong? If they are

wrong, make them right.

a Imray went back to England.

………………………………………………

b Strickland is a businessman.

………………………………………………

c The narrator is a friend of Strickland.

………………………………………………

d Tietjens is Imray’s dog.

………………………………………………

e Bahadur Khan is Strickland’s servant.

………………………………………………

f People were afraid of Tietjens.

………………………………………………

g The narrator sleeps well.

………………………………………………

h Tietjens sleeps in the kitchen.

………………………………………………

i The narrator stays in Strickland’s house.

………………………………………………

j Strickland’s house has eight rooms.

………………………………………………

Complete the summary. Put the letters in the

right place.

There was something very RENGAST …………  about the house at night. The narrator was not

getting any ESELP ………… and he wanted to go to a hotel. His friend asked him to YAST

………… and to wait and see what PENPHEAD ………… .

After dinner, Strickland saw a RENUDAGOS ………… brown snake in the corner. He tried

to catch the snake but it disappeared OBEAV ………… the ceiling. Strickland DELBMIC

………… up after it and looked through the small door in the ceiling. Suddenly there was a

loud SONIE ………… and something heavy OBREK ………… through the ceiling and

landed on the table. It was Imray’s dead DOYB ………… .

Are these sentences right or wrong? If they are

wrong, make them right.

a Strickland killed the snake by shooting it with

his gun.

…………………………………………… .

b Tietjens didn’t like sleeping in the house

because it was cold.

…………………………………………… .

c Imray died of an illness.

…………………………………………… .

d All the servants said that Imray suddenly went

away to Europe.

…………………………………………… .

e Bahadur Khan thinks that Imray was a bad

man.

…………………………………………… .

f Bahadur Khan killed Imray.

…………………………………………… .

g Bahadur Khan put his foot on the snake by

mistake.

……………………………………………

Reading Suspense Story Number 2 - The Return of Imray/Imray Came Back

The Return of Imray or Imray Came Back is a story of a missing person.  The Return of Imray was written by Rudyard Kipling, one of the most famous writers of his time.  Imray Came Back is an adapted version of the story with simpler vocabulary and a more streamlined story style.  As with The Lady or the Tiger? I would suggest reading the simpler version first and then tackle the original version.

When you finish reading, think about the following questions.  They will help in our discussions of the story back in class.

1.  Which version do you prefer?  The original The Return of Imray or the adapted Imray Came Back?  What makes you prefer the version you like better?

2.  What are 5 differences or extra details between the two versions of the story?

3.  Rudyard Kipling was born in India, but came from a British family.  Research some facts about Kipling.  Have you read or heard of any of his other works?  Hint: Disney made a cartoon from one of his most well known books.  

Reading - Imray Came Back

Imray Came Back

(Based on The Return of Imray by Rudyard Kipling)

One day Imray was there, in the little town in the north of India where he lived and worked, and the next day he was not.  He disappeared.  One day he was with his friends, having a drink at the bar, laughing with them, friendly, happy and then the next morning he was not at his office, his house was quiet, and nobody could find him.

‘Where did he go?’ his friends asked each other at the bar.  ‘And why so suddenly? Why did he say nothing to us?’

They looked in the river near the town, and along the roads, but they found nothing.  They telephoned all the hotels in the nearest big city, but nobody knew anything about Imray.  Days went by and Imray did not come back.  His friends in the town slowly stopped talking about him at the bar and at the office; they began to forget about him.  They sold his old car, his guns and all this other things, and his boss wrote a letter to Imray’s mother, back in England, and told her that her son was dead.  Disappeared.

Imray’s house stood unlived-in and quiet for three or four long, hot summer months.  The hottest weather was finished when my friend Strickland, a policeman, moved to live in it.  People said that Strickland was a very strange man but I always went to see him and have dinner with him when I was in the town working for a day or two.  He was one or two other friends too; he liked his guns, he liked fishing and he liked his dog – a very big dog, called Tietjens.  Tietjens always went to work with Strickland and often helped him in his police work, so the people of the town were quite afraid of her.  Tietjens moved into the house with Strickland and she took the room next to Strickland’s, where she had her food and where she slept.

One day, some weeks after Strickland went to live in Imray’s house, I arrived in the town at about five o’clock one afternoon and found that there were no rooms at the hotel, so I went round to Strickland’s place.  Tietjens met me at the door showing her teeth, not moving.  She knew me quite well by this time but she did not want me to go in.  She waited for Strickland to come and say a friendly ‘Hello’ to me before she moved away.  Strickland was happy to give me a room for two or three days, and I went to get my bag from my car.

It was a nice house, with a big garden.  Inside, there were eight rooms, all white and clean.  Strickland gave me a good room and at six o’clock his Indian servant Bahadur Khan, brought us an early dinner.

‘I must go back to the police station for an hour or two after dinner, I’m afraid,’ Strickland said.  ‘My men are questioning a man down there and I want to know what answers they’re getting.’

He left me at the house with a good cigar, and with Tietjens, the dog.  It was a very hot, late-summer evening.  Soon after the sun went down, the rain came. I sat near the window of the living-room, watched the rain and thought about my family and friends back home in England.  Tietjens came and sat next to me and her head on my leg, looking sad.  The room was dark behind me and the only noise was the noise of the rain driving down out of the night sky.

Suddenly, without a sound, Strickland’s servant was there, standing next to me.  His coat and shirt were wet from the rain.

‘Sorry, sir.  There’s a man here, sir.  He’s asking to see somebody,’ the servant said.

I asked him to bring a light and I went to the front door, but when the light came, there was nobody there.  When I turned, I thought I saw a face looking in through one of the windows from the garden.  It disappeared quickly.

‘Perhaps he went round to the back door,’ I said to the servant, so we went through the living-room and the quiet, dark kitchen to the back door.  But there was nobody there. I went back to my chair and my thoughts by the window, not very happy with Strickland’s servant and not very happy about the face at the window, the strange visitor in the rain. I took some sugar with me to give to Tietjens, but she was out in the garden, standing in the rain, and did not want to come inside.  She looked frightened, I thought.

Sometime later Strickland arrived home, very wet, and the first thing he asked was: ‘Any visitors?’

I told him about the disappearing visitor in the rain.  ‘I thought perhaps he had something important to tell you,’ I said, ‘but then he ran away without giving his name.’

Strickland said nothing and his face showed nothing.  At nine o’clock he said he was tired.  I was tired too, so we got up to go to bed.  Tietjens was outside in the rain, very wet.  Strickland called her again and again, but she did not want to come into the house.

‘She does this every evening now,’ he said sadly.  ‘I can’t understand it.  She’s got a good, warm room in here, but she doesn’t come inside and sleep in it.  She started doing this soon after we came to live in the place.  Let’s leave her.  She can sleep out there is she wants to.’  But I knew he was not happy to leave her outside in the rain.

The rain started and stopped all night, but Tietjens stayed outside.  She slept near my bedroom window and I heard her moving about.  I slept very lightly and I had bad dreams.  In my half-sleep I dreamt that somebody was calling to me in the night, asking me to come to them, to help them.  Then I woke up, cold with fear, and found there was nobody there.  Once in the night I looked out of the window and saw the big dog out there in the rain with the hair on her neck and back standing up and a frightened, angry look on her face.  I slept again but woke up suddenly when somebody tried to open the door of my room.  They did not come in but walked on through the house.  Later, I thought I heard the sound of someone crying.  I ran through to Strickland’s room, thinking he was ill or that he wanted my help, but he laughed at my fears and told me to go back to bed.  I did not sleep again after that.  I listened to the rain and waited for the first light of morning.

I stayed in the house with Strickland and his dog for two more days.  Tietjens was quite happy inside the house all day, but as soon as night came she moved out into the garden and stayed there.  I understood.  I was very happy in the house in daytime too, but in the evening and night I did not like it.  There was something very strange about the place.  I heard the noise of feet on the floor, but there was nobody there, I heard doors open and close, I heard chairs move and I thought somebody watched me from the darkest corners of the room when I walked round the house.

At dinner on the third evening I talked to Strickland. ‘I’m going to the hotel tomorrow – they’ve got a room there now.  I’m very sorry but I can’t stay here.  It’s the noises in the house, you see.  I’m not getting any sleep at night and I can’t work well in the day because I’m too tired.’

He listened carefully and I knew he understood.  Strickland is a very understanding man.  ‘Stay with me for another day or two, my friend,’ he said.  ‘Please don’t go.  Wait and see what happens.  I know what you’re talking about.  I know there’s something very strange about this house, and I want to know what it is.  I think Tietjens knows – she doesn’t like coming inside after dark…’

Suddenly he stopped talking, his eyes on one corner of the ceiling, above my chair.

‘Well, look at that!’ he said quietly.

I turned and looked up.  There was the head of a very dangerous brown snake, called a “karait” in India.  It was looking at us with its cold little eyes from a small door in that corner of the ceiling.  I stood up quickly and moved away from that corner of the room – I do not like snakes, I am afraid of them, and the “karait” is one of the most dangerous and frightening snakes.  It kills so easily and so quickly.

‘Let’s get it down and break its back,’ I said.

‘It’s very hard to catch those brown snakes, you know,’ Strickland answered.  ‘They move so fast.  But let’s try.  Bring that light over.’

I carried the light across to the corner of the room where the snake was, watching it carefully all the time.  It did not move.  Strickland carried his chair over to the corner, took one of his guns from a cupboard near the door and climbed up on the chair.  But the snake saw him coming.  Its head suddenly disappeared and we heard it move away across the ceiling above our heads.

‘Snakes like it up there in the ceiling – it’s nice and warm,’ said Strickland.  ‘But I don’t like having them there.  I’m going to catch it.’

He pushed open the small door in the ceiling and put his head and arms through.  He had the gun on one hand, ready to hit the snake with it and break its back.  I watched from below.

I heard Strickland say: ‘I can’t see that snake, but…Hello!  What’s this?  There’s something up here…’ and I saw him pushing at something with the gun.  ‘I can’t quite get it,’ he said, and then suddenly: ‘It’s coming down!  Be careful down there!  Stand back!’

I jumped back.  Something hit the centre of the ceiling hard from above, broke noisily though into the room and hit the dinner table.  It broke some glasses and plates on the table.  There was water all over the floor.  I went over with the light and looked down at the thing on the table.  Strickland climbed quickly off the chair and stood next to me.

It was a man, a dead man.

‘I think,’ Strickland said slowly, ‘that our friend Imray is back.’

Suddenly something moved out from under one leg of the thing on the table.  It was a brown snake, the “karait”, trying to get away.

‘So the snake came down with our dead friend, I see,’ Strickland said and he pushed the snake off the table onto the floor, hit it with his gun and broke its back.  I looked at the dying snake on the floor and said nothing.

‘Is it Imray?’ I asked.

‘Yes.  That’s Imray,’ he answered. ‘And somebody killed him.’

Now we knew why there were noises round the house at night, and why Tietjens did not like sleeping inside the house.  She knew that Imray was up there dead.  She knew that Imray’s ghost walked through the house at night, trying to find somebody to help him.

A minute later we heard Tietjens outside.  She pushed open the door with her nose and came in.  She looked at the dead man on the table and sat down on the floor next to Strickland, looking up at him.

‘You know Imray was up there all the time, over our heads,’ Strickland said to the dog, looking down at her.  ‘Somebody killed him and perhaps you know who did it, too.  Dead men do not climb up into ceilings of houses and close the ceiling door behind them.  So the question is who put him there and closed the ceiling door? And who killed him? Let’s think about it.’

‘Let’s think about it in the other room,’ I said.  ‘Not here.’

‘You’re right,’ said Strickland, with a smile.  ‘Let’s go into the living-room.’

We went through to the living-room and sat there. Strickland said nothing, but sat quietly and thought for a minute or two.  His gun was on the floor next to his chair.

‘So Imray is back,’ he said again, slowly.  ‘You know, when I took this house, I took Imray’s three servants too.  They stayed here to work for me.  Did one of them kill him?  I was not quite happy about that when I questioned them at the time Imray disappeared, you know.’

‘Why not call them in, one at a time, and questions them again?’ I said.  ‘See what they have to say.’

There was a noise at the back door, from the kitchen.  It was Bahadur Khan, Strickland’s servant, coming in to take the dinner things away.  Strickland called him and the man came into the living-room without any noise.  He wore no shoes.  He was a tall and strong-looking man.  He stood quietly near the door and waited.

‘It’s a warm night, Bahadur Khan.  Do you think more rain is coming?’ Strickland began.

‘Yes sir.  I think it is,’ the servant answered.

‘When did you first start to work for me?’

‘When you came to live in this house sir.  You know that.  After Mr Imray suddenly went away to Europe sir.’

‘He went away to Europe, you say?  Why do you say that?’

‘All the servants say he went to Europe sir.’

‘Do they? That’s strange Bahadur Khan.  I asked them before, but they didn’t know.  You said it to me, Bahadur Khan – but they didn’t know.  And Mr Imray went to Europe, you say, but he never said a word about it to his friends or to his other servants before he went.  He only told you, Bahadur Khan.  Do you not think that is strange?’

‘It is strange sir’ the man answered quietly.

‘And why do you say it? Why do you want us to think Mr Imray went to Europe?’

The tall man did not answer.  He looked very frightened now; his eyes were white in the dark.  He moved nearer the door, but Strickland went on.

‘But now, suddenly, Mr Imray is back again, Bahadur Khan!  He’s back in this house.  Come and see him.  He’s waiting for his old servant.’  Strickland took his gun off the floor and stood up quickly.  He pushed the gun into Bahadur Khan’s face.

‘Sir!’ The tall Indian moved back, very frightened now, and put up his hands.

‘Go and look at the thing on the table in the next room, Bahadur Khan,’ Strickland said.  ‘Go on.  Take the light.  Go and see Mr Imray.  He’s waiting for you.’

Slowly the man took the light and walked to the door.  Strickland was behind him, pushing the gun into his back.  The tall Indian stopped near the table and looked down at the dead man.  His face was yellow with fear.

‘You see?’ asked Strickland coldly.  ‘Mr Imray is back.’

‘I see sir.’

‘And now I know: you killed him, Bahadur Khan.  Why?’

‘I killed him, sir, yes. He was not a good man, sir.  He put his hand on my child’s head one day…the next day my child was very ill…and the next day he died.  He was my oldest son, sir.  Mr Imray killed my son.  He was a bad man.  So I killed Mr Imray in the evening of the same day when he came back from the office.  Then I put him up above the ceiling and closed the door.’

Strickland turned to me.  ‘You hear that? He killed Imray,’ he said.  Then he went on.  ‘You were clever, Bahadur Khan, but Mr Imray came back.  And now I’m taking you to the police station…’

‘But no, sir,’ Bahadur Khan said with a sad smile.  ‘We are going to the police station.  Look, sir.’

He moved back from the table and showed us his foot.  There was the head of the brown snake, the deadly “karait”, with its teeth in his foot.

‘You see, sir, I killed Mr Imray but I do not want to die at the hands of the police.  So I am dying now, here.  This snake is killing me.’

An hour later Bahadur Khan was dead.  Strickland called some of his policemen to take the two dead men, Imray and his killer, away to the town.  And the ghost of Imray did not walk at night in the house again.

That night Tietjens came back inside the house and slept happily in her room.

Reading - The Return of Imray

The Return of Imray

By

Rudyard Kipling

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith,
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver---
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,
He roved the castle to seek his kin.
And oh,'twas a piteous thing to see
The dumb ghost follow his enemy!
THE BARON.

Imray achieved the impossible. Without warning, for no conceivable motive, in his youth, at the threshold of his career he chose to disappear from the world---which is to say, the little Indian station where he lived.

Upon a day he was alive, well, happy, and in great evidence among the billiard-tables at his Club. Upon a morning, he was not, and no manner of search could make sure where he might be. He had stepped out of his place; he had not appeared at his office at the proper time, and his dogcart was not upon the public roads. For these reasons, and because he was hampering, in a microscopical degree, the administration of the Indian Empire, that Empire paused for one microscopical moment to make inquiry into the fate of Imray. Ponds were dragged, wells were plumbed, telegrams were despatched down the lines of railways and to the nearest seaport town-twelve hundred miles away; but Imray was not at the end of the drag-ropes nor the telegraph wires. He was gone, and his place knew him no more.

Then the work of the great Indian Empire swept forward, because it could not be delayed, and Imray from being a man became a mystery--such a thing as men talk over at their tables in the Club for a month, and then forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold to the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an altogether absurd letter to his mother, saying that Imray had unaccountably disappeared, and his bungalow stood empty.

After three or four months of the scorching hot weather had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the Police, saw fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord. This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghal--an affair which has been described in another place--and while he was pursuing his investigations into native life. His own life was sufficiently peculiar, and men complained of his manners and customs. There was always food in his house, but there were no regular times for meals. He ate, standing up and walking about, whatever he might find at the sideboard, and this is not good for human beings. His domestic equipment was limited to six rifles, three shot-guns, five saddles, and a collection of stiff-jointed mahseer-rods, bigger and stronger than the largest salmon-rods. These occupied one-half of his bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland and his dog Tietjens--an enormous Rampur mutt who devoured daily the rations of two men. She spoke to Strickland in a language of her own; and whenever, walking abroad, she saw things calculated to destroy the peace of Her Majesty the Queen- Empress, she returned to her master and laid information. Strickland would take steps at once, and the end of his labours was trouble and fine and imprisonment for other people. The natives believed that Tietjens was a familiar spirit, and treated her with the great reverence that is born of hate and fear. One room in the bungalow was set apart for her special use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a drinking- trough, and if any one came into Strickland's room at night her custom was to knock down the invader and give tongue till someone came with a light. Strickland owed his life to her, when he was on the Frontier, in search of a local murderer, who came in the grey dawn to send Strickland much farther than the Andaman Islands. Tietjens caught the man as he was crawling into Strickland's tent with a dagger between his teeth; and after his record of iniquity was established in the eyes of the law he was hanged. From that date Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver, and employed a monogram on her night-blanket; and the blanket was of double woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog.

Under no circumstances would she be separated from Strickland; and once, when he was ill with fever, made great trouble for the doctors, because she did not know how to help her master and would not allow another creature to attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian Medical Service, beat her over her head with a gun-butt before she could understand that she must give room for those who could give quinine.

A short time after Strickland had taken Imray's bungalow, my business took me through that Station, and naturally, the Club quarters being full, I quartered myself upon Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow, eight-roomed and heavily thatched against any chance of leakage from rain. Under the pitch of the roof ran a ceiling-cloth which looked just as neat as a white-washed ceiling. The landlord had repainted it when Strickland took the bungalow. Unless you knew how Indian bungalows were built you would never have suspected that above the cloth lay the dark three-cornered cavern of the roof, where the beams and the underside of the thatch harboured all manner of rats, bats, ants, and foul things.

Tietjens met me in the verandah with a bay like the boom of the bell of St. Paul's, putting her paws on my shoulder to show she was glad to see me. Strickland had contrived to claw together a sort of meal which he called lunch, and immediately after it was finished went out about his business. I was left alone with Tietjens and my own affairs. The heat of the summer had broken up and turned to the warm damp of the rains. There was no motion in the heated air, but the rain fell like ramrods on the earth, and flung up a blue mist when it splashed back. The bamboos, and the custard-apples, the poinsettias, and the mango-trees in the garden stood still while the warm water lashed through them, and the frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little before the light failed, and when the rain was at its worst, I sat in the back verandah and heard the water roar from the eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered with the thing called prickly-heat. Tietjens came out with me and put her head in my lap and was very sorrowful; so I gave her biscuits when tea was ready, and I took tea in the back verandah on account of the little coolness found there. The rooms of the house were dark behind me. I could smell Strickland's saddlery and the oil on his guns, and I had no desire to sit among these things. My own servant came to me in the twilight, the muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished to see someone. Very much against my will, but only because of the darkness of the rooms, I went into the naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights. There might or might not have been a caller waiting---it seemed to me that I saw a figure by one of the windows---but when the lights came there was nothing save the spikes of the rain without, and the smell of the drinking earth in my nostrils. I explained to my servant that he was no wiser than he ought to be, and went back to the verandah to talk to Tietjens. She had gone out into the wet, and I could hardly coax her back to me; even with biscuits with sugar tops. Strickland came home, dripping wet, just before dinner, and the first thing he said was.

'Has any one called?'

I explained, with apologies, that my servant had summoned me into the drawing-room on a false alarm; or that some loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and thinking better of it had fled after giving his name. Strickland ordered dinner, without comment, and since it was a real dinner with a white tablecloth attached, we sat down.

At nine o'clock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and I was tired too. Tietjens, who had been lying underneath the table, rose up, and swung into the least exposed verandah as soon as her master moved to his own room, which was next to the stately chamber set apart for Tietjens. If a mere wife had wished to sleep out of doors in that pelting rain it would not have mattered; but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the better animal. I looked at Strickland, expecting to see him flay her with a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would smile after telling some unpleasant domestic tragedy. 'She has done this ever since I moved in here,' said he. 'Let her go.'

The dog was Strickland's dog, so I said nothing, but I felt all that Strickland felt in being thus made light of. Tietjens encamped outside my bedroom window, and storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch, and died away. The lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spatters a barn-door, but the light was pale blue, not yellow; and, looking through my split bamboo blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, in the verandah, the hackles alift on her back and her feet anchored as tensely as the drawn wire-rope of a suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that someone wanted me very urgently. He, whoever he was, was trying to call me by name, but his voice was no more than a husky whisper. The thunder ceased, and Tietjens went into the garden and howled at the low moon. Somebody tried to open my door, walked about and about through the house and stood breathing heavily in the verandahs, and just when I was falling asleep I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamouring above my head or on the door.

I ran into Strickland's room and asked him whether he was ill, and had been calling for me. He was lying on his bed half dressed, a pipe in his mouth. 'I thought you'd come,' he said. 'Have I been walking round the house recently?'

I explained that he had been tramping in the dining-room and the smoking-room and two or three other places, and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I went back to bed and slept till the morning, but through all my mixed dreams I was sure I was doing some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What those wants were I could not tell; but a fluttering, whispering, bolt-fumbling, lurking, loitering Someone was reproaching me for my slackness, and, half awake, I heard the howling of Tietjens in the garden and the threshing of the rain.

I lived in that house for two days. Strickland went to his office daily, leaving me alone for eight or ten hours with Tietjens for my only companion. As long as the full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was Tietjens; but in the twilight she and I moved into the back verandah and cuddled each other for company. We were alone in the house, but none the less it was much too fully occupied by a tenant with whom I did not wish to interfere. I never saw him, but I could see the curtains between the rooms quivering where he had just passed through; I could hear the chairs creaking as the bamboos sprung under a weight that had just quitted them; and I could feel when I went to get a book from the dining-room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of the front verandah till I should have gone away. Tietjens made the twilight more interesting by glaring into the darkened rooms with every hair erect, and following the motions of something that I could not see. She never entered the rooms, but her eyes moved interestedly: that was quite sufficient. Only when my servant came to trim the lamps and make all light and habitable she would come in with me and spend her time sitting on her haunches, watching an invisible extra man as he moved about behind my shoulder. Dogs are cheerful companions.

I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I would go over to the Club and find for myself quarters there. I admired his hospitality, was pleased with his guns and rods, but I did not much care for his house and its atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and then smiled very wearily, but without contempt, for he is a man who understands things. 'Stay on,' he said, 'and see what this thing means. All you have talked about I have known since I took the bungalow. Stay on and wait. Tietjens has left me. Are you going too?'

I had seen him through one little affair, connected with a heathen idol, that had brought me to the doors of a lunatic asylum, and I had no desire to help him through further experiences. He was a man to whom unpleasantnesses arrived as do dinners to ordinary people.

Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that I liked him immensely, and would be happy to see him in the daytime; but that I did not care to sleep under his roof. This was after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out to lie in the verandah.

''Upon my soul, I don't wonder,' said Strickland, with his eyes on the ceiling-cloth. 'Look at that!'

The tails of two brown snakes were hanging between the cloth and the cornice of the wall. They threw long shadows in the lamplight.

'If you are afraid of snakes of course--' said Strickland.

I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, and it twists up trouser legs.

'You ought to get your thatch overhauled,' I said.

'Give me a mahseer-rod, and we'll poke 'em down.'

'They'll hide among the roof-beams,' said Strickland. 'I can't stand snakes overhead. I'm going up into the roof. If I shake 'em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod and break their backs.'

I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, but I took the cleaning-rod and waited in the dining-room, while Strickland brought a gardener's ladder from the verandah, and set it against the side of the room.

The snake-tails drew themselves up and disappeared. We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy ceiling-cloth. Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear to him the danger of hunting roof-snakes between a ceiling-cloth and a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by ripping out ceiling- cloths.

'Nonsense!' said Strickland. 'They're sure to hide near the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for 'em, and the heat of the room is just what they like.' He put his hand to the corner of the stuff and ripped it from the cornice. It gave with a great sound of tearing, and Strickland put his head through the opening into the dark of the angle of the roof-beams. I set my teeth and lifted the rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what might descend.

'Humph!' said Strickland and his voice rolled and rumbled in the roof. 'There's room for another set of rooms up here, and, by Jove, someone is occupying 'em!'

'Snakes?' I said from below.

'No. It's a buffalo. Hand me up the two last joints of a mahseer-rod, and I'll prod it. It's lying on the main roof-beam.'

I handed up the rod.

'What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder the snakes live here,' said Strickland, climbing farther into the roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the rod. 'Come out of that, whoever you are! Heads below there! It's falling.'

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the room bag with a shape that was pressing it downwards and downwards towards the lighted lamp on the table. I snatched the lamp out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed, and shot down upon the table something that I dared not look at, till Strickland had slid down the ladder and was standing by my side.

He did not say much, being a man of few words; but he picked up the loose end of the tablecloth and threw it over the remnants on the table.

'It strikes me,' said he, putting down the lamp, 'our friend Imray has come back. Oh! You would, would you?'

There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the mahseer-rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth recording.

Strickland meditated, and helped himself to drinks. The arrangement under the cloth made no more signs of life.

'Is it Imray?' I said.

Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment, and looked.

'It is Imray,' he said.

Then we spoke, both together and to ourselves: 'That's why he whispered about the house.'

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose heaved open the dining-room door.

She sniffed and was still. The tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from the discovery.

Tietjens came in and sat down; her teeth bared under her lip and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strickland.

'It's a bad business, old lady,' said he. 'Men don't climb up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and they don't fasten up the ceiling cloth behind 'em. Let's think it out.'

'Let's think it out somewhere else,' I said.

'Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We'll get into my room.'

I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland's room first, and allowed him to make the darkness. Then he followed me, and we lit tobacco and thought. Strickland thought. I smoked furiously, because I was afraid.

'Imray is back,' said Strickland. 'The question is---who killed Imray? Don't talk; I've a notion of my own. When I took this bungalow I took over most of Imray's servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn't he?'

I agreed; though the heap under the cloth had looked neither one thing nor the other.

'If I call in all the servants they will stand fast in a crowd and lie like Aryans. What do you suggest?'

'Call 'em in one by one,' I said.

'They'll run away and give the news to all their fellows,' said Strickland. 'We must segregate 'em. Do you suppose your servant knows anything about it?'

'He may, for aught I know; but I don't think it's likely. He has only been here two or three days,' I answered. 'What's your notion?'

'I can't quite tell. How the dickens did the man get the wrong side of the ceiling-cloth?'

There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland's bedroom door. This showed that Bahadur Khan, his body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to put Strickland to bed.

'Come in,' said Strickland. 'It's a very warm night, isn't it?'

Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot man said that it was a very warm night; but that there was more rain pending, which, by his Honour's favour, would bring relief to the country.

'It will be so, if God pleases,' said Strickland, tugging off his boots. 'It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I have worked thee remorselessly for many days---ever since that time when thou first earnest into my service. What time was that?'

'Has the Heaven-born forgotten? It was when Imray Sahib went secretly to Europe without warning given; and I-even I-came into the honoured service of the protector of the poor.'

'And Imray Sahib went to Europe?'

'It is so said among those who were his servants.'

'And thou wilt take service with him when he returns?'

'Assuredly, Sahib. He was a good master, and cherished his dependants.'

'That is true. I am very tired, but I go buck-shooting to-morrow. Give me the little sharp rifle that I use for black-buck; it is in the case yonder.'

The man stooped over the case; handed barrels, stock, and fore-end to Strickland, who fitted all together, yawning dolefully. Then he reached down to the gun-case, took a solid-drawn cartridge, and slipped it into the breech of the '360 Express.

'And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly! That is very strange, Bahadur Khan, is it not?'

'What do I know of the ways of the white man? Heaven-born?'

'Very little, truly. But thou shalt know more anon. It has reached me that Imray Sahib has returned from his so long journeyings, and that even now he lies in the next room, waiting his servant.'

'Sahib!'

The lamplight slid along the barrels of the rifle as they levelled themselves at Bahadur Khan's broad breast.

'Go and look!' said Strickland. 'Take a lamp. Thy master is tired, and he waits thee. Go!'

The man picked up a lamp, and went into the dining-room, Strickland following, and almost pushing him with the muzzle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the black depths behind the ceiling-cloth; at the writhing snake under foot; and last, a grey glaze settling on his face, at the thing under the tablecloth.

'Hast thou seen?' said Strickland after a pause.

'I have seen. I am clay in the white man's hands. What does the Presence do?'

'Hang thee within the month. What else?'

'For killing him? Nay, Sahib, consider. Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child, who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the fever--my child!'

'What said Imray Sahib?'

'He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on the head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he had come back from office, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up into the roof-beams and made all fast behind him. The Heaven-born knows all things. I am the servant of the Heaven-born.'

Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in the vernacular, 'Thou art witness to this saying? He has killed.'

Bahadur Khan stood ashen grey in the light of the one lamp. The need for justification came upon him very swiftly. 'I am trapped,' he said, 'but the offence was that man's. He cast an evil eye upon my child, and I killed and hid him. Only such as are served by devils,' he glared at Tietjens, couched stolidly before him, 'only such could know what I did.'

'It was clever. But thou should have lashed him to the beam with a rope. Now, thou thyself wilt hang by a rope. Orderly!'

A drowsy policeman answered Strickland's call. He was followed by another, and Tietjens sat wondrous still.

'Take him to the police-station,' said Strickland. 'There is a case toward.'

'Do I hang, then?' said Bahadur Khan, making no attempt to escape, and keeping his eyes on the ground.

'If the sun shines or the water runs-yes!' said Strickland.

Bahadur Khan stepped back one long pace, quivered, and stood still. The two policemen waited further orders.

'Go!' said Strickland.

'Nay; but I go very swiftly,' said Bahadur Khan. 'Look! I am even now a dead man.'

He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there clung the head of the half-killed snake, firm fixed in the agony of death.

'I come of land-holding stock,' said Bahadur Khan, rocking where he stood. 'It were a disgrace to me to go to the public scaffold: therefore I take this way. Be it remembered that the Sahib's shirts are correctly enumerated, and that there is an extra piece of soap in his washbasin. My child was bewitched, and I slew the wizard. Why should you seek to slay me with the rope? My honour is saved, and-and-I die.'

At the end of an hour he died, as they die who are bitten by the little brown karait, and the policemen bore him and the thing under the tablecloth to their appointed places. All were needed to make clear the disappearance of Imray.

'This,' said Strickland, very calmly, as he climbed into bed, 'is called the nineteenth century. Did you hear what that man said?'

'I heard,' I answered. 'Imray made a mistake.'

'Simply and solely through not knowing the nature of the Oriental, and the coincidence of a little seasonal fever. Bahadur Khan had been with him for four years.'

I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for exactly that length of time. When I went over to my own room I found my man waiting, impassive as the copper head on a penny, to pull off my boots.

'What has befallen Bahadur Khan?' said I.

'He was bitten by a snake and died. The rest the Sahib knows,' was the answer.

'And how much of this matter hast thou known?'

'As much as might be gathered from One coming in in the twilight to seek satisfaction. Gently, Sahib. Let me pull off those boots.'

I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I heard Strickland shouting from his side of the house--

'Tietjens has come back to her place!'

And so she had. The great deerhound was couched on her own bedstead on her own blanket, while, in the next room, the idle, empty, ceiling-cloth waggled as it trailed on the table.