The Open Window

Framton Nuttel was staying in the country because he needed rest. His sister had given him letters for people she knew there. She thought meeting them would help him. One afternoon, he visited Mrs Sappleton. While he waited for her, her fifteen-year-old niece, Vera, talked to him.

Vera asked whether he knew her aunt. He only knew her name and address. Then Vera pointed to a large window. It opened onto the garden, and people could walk through it.

»My aunt's husband and her two brothers went hunting through that window three years ago,« she said. »The ground was very wet. They fell into deep mud and died. Their little brown dog died too. Nobody found them. My aunt still believes they will come back. She leaves the window open every evening.«

Vera added that the husband had carried a white coat. She said she sometimes felt afraid that the men really would return.

Mrs Sappleton came into the room. »My husband and brothers will soon be home from hunting,« she said cheerfully. »They always come through the window.«

Framton felt terrible. He tried to talk about his health, but Mrs Sappleton kept looking towards the garden.

»Here they are!« she cried suddenly.

Vera looked out with a frightened face. Framton turned round. Three men with guns were walking towards the house. One had a white coat, and a brown dog followed them. Framton took his hat and stick and ran out of the house. On the road, a man on a bicycle had to turn into some bushes to avoid him.

The hunters came through the window, alive and well. Mrs Sappleton’s husband asked about the visitor who had run away. Mrs Sappleton could not explain his strange behaviour.

»It was probably the dog,« Vera said calmly. »He told me he was afraid of dogs. Once, in India, some dogs chased him into a place where dead people are buried. He hid in a deep hole there all night.«

That story was another invention. Vera was very good at making up stories quickly.