The Open Window

Hector Hugh Munro (Saki)

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a calm young lady of fifteen; "in

the meantime, you must try and put up wi th me."

Framton Nuttel tried to say some thing which would be polite. Privately, he doub ted

whether these formal visits on total strangers would do much towards helping the

nerve cure he was supposed to be undergoing.

"I know how it’ll be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this

rural re treat; "you’ll bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your

nerves will be even worse from loneliness. I shall give you letters o f introduction to
all the people I know there. Some of them were quite nice."

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, to whom he was presenting one o f the

letters of in troduction, was one of the nice people.

"Do you know many people round here? " asked the girl, when she judged tha t they

had had sufficient silen t communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here four years ago, and she

gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here," he added in a distinctly

regretful tone.

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the girl.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs.

Sappleton was married or widowed. Something about the room seemed to suggest

masculine habita tion.

"Her great tragedy happened just th ree years ago," the girl said in a serious tone.

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot, tragedies

seemed out of place. "You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an

October afternoon," said the girl, indicating a large French window that opened on to

a lawn.

"It's quite warm for the time o f the year," said Framton; "but has that window got

anything to do with the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago, her hu sband and her two young brothers

wen t off for their day's shooting one day, accompanied by a spaniel. They never
came back. In crossing the moor to their favou rite snipe-shooting ground, they were

all engulfed in a treacherous marsh. It was dreadfully wet tha t summer, and places

that were safe in o ther years gave way suddenly wi thout warning. Their bodies were

never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the girl's voice lost its calm

note and became painfully human. "Poor aunt always thinks they'll come back some

day and walk in th rough tha t window just as they used to do. That is why the

window is kept open every evening till it's quite dusk."

The girl continued, "My aunt has often told me how they went out, her husband with

his white waterproof coat over his arm, and her youngest brother singing 'Bertie, why

do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her

nerves. Sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that

they'll walk in through that window ..."

She broke o ff with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when Mrs. Sappleton

bustled into the room with a stream of apologies for being late in making her

appearance.

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

"She has been very interesting," said Framton.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sapple ton briskly; "my husband

and brothers will be home from hunting, and they always come in this way. They've

been ou t for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor

carpets."

She rattled on cheerfully about the hunting and the scarcity of birds. To Framton, it

was all purely horrible. He made a desperate effort to turn the talk on to a less

ghastly topic; he was conscious that her eyes were constantly straying past him to

the open window and the lawn beyond.

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement,

and avoidance of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who mistakenly

believed that strangers are eager to know every li ttle detail about one's health issues,

including their origins and remedies. "On the matter of diet, they're not so much in

agreement," he continued.

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a seemingly indifferent voice. Then she suddenly

brightened into alert attention — but not to what Framton was saying.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea!"
 Framton shivered sligh tly and turned towards the girl with a puzzled look. She was

staring out through the window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of

nameless fear, Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight, three figures were walking across the lawn towards the

window; they all carried guns under their arms, and a tired brown spaniel kept close

at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a rough young voice

chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the

fron t gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along

the road had to run in to the fence to avoid an imminent crash.

"Here we are, my dear," said Mr. Sappleton, coming in through the window. "Who

was that who ran out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about

his illnesses and dashed off withou t a word of good-bye or apology when you

arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the girl calmly; "he told me he had a horror of

dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges

by a pack of wild dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the

creatures barking fiercely and jumping wildly just above him."

Romance at short notice was the girl's specialty.