initial commit of ebook 10832HEADmain

11 files changed, 28650 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/10832-0.txt b/10832-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e50d4a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10832-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5154 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10832 ***
+
+CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER
+
+By William Hope Hodgson
+
+1910, 1912
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+No. 1--THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+
+
+In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and
+listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the
+three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there
+before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I
+were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining.
+
+"You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my
+soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to
+skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he
+would not stint words.
+
+"That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject,
+remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he
+gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely
+good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.
+
+Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably
+down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with
+very little circumlocution:--
+
+"As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and
+for a very good reason too--I've only been away a short distance. The
+exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than
+twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't
+spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary
+things ever I have run against.
+
+"I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson,
+asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found
+that he wished me to investigate and see whether I could not clear up a
+long-standing and well--too well--authenticated case of what he termed
+'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
+seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.
+
+"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
+very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had
+left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
+and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
+butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
+thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
+old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
+detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
+Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
+door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
+slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
+key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
+always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
+
+"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
+and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
+with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
+after time--thud! thud! thud!--so that sleep was impossible.
+
+"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
+over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it--an
+ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
+very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
+feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
+dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
+
+"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
+me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
+one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
+fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
+and then he could accompany me himself.
+
+"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
+explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
+affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
+But he shook his head when I said that.
+
+"'There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful
+pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.
+
+"I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.
+He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently
+in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my
+examination until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told
+him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.
+
+"'It never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn
+manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have
+the 'creeps' right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.
+
+"I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well
+furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with
+its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and
+two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and
+after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind
+you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.
+
+"After I had taken a good look 'round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon
+across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the
+fireplace and the wall closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler
+stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter;
+though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here
+and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say:--'You'll
+excuse me, I'm sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair
+in a quake for you.'
+
+"I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what
+he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all
+alone there. He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize
+the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a
+pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I
+should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother
+me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on
+my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it
+any nastier.
+
+"For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and
+sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were
+anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of
+playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had
+anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken
+off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had
+practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to
+the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when
+the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came
+sharp and frightened:--'Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to
+happen!' Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the
+candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind,
+or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to
+make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before
+I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing
+there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein'
+brave, y'know.' So I just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles
+off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I
+saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to
+those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door,
+the old man called again:--'Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!'
+
+"'All right, Peter,' I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as
+I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work not to
+start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine.
+Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the
+room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little.
+I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of
+instinctive way. 'Collar the candles, Peter!' I said, pretty sharply,
+and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and
+slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so,
+I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only
+fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the
+door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I
+put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I
+pocketed the key, and went downstairs--with Peter; who was nervous and
+silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until
+that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the
+last two or three hours.
+
+"About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor
+upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between
+it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can
+understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to
+undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and
+sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I
+should know just which one.
+
+"I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked
+suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage.
+I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I
+was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door
+being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got
+my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding
+my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing
+happened. I could not go a step toward the Grey Room. You all know I am
+not really a cowardly chap. I've gone into too many cases connected with
+ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply
+funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy
+in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked
+the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal
+thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all
+the house.
+
+"Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not
+slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt
+ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're
+meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes.
+And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight.
+Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it
+is something warning you, and fighting _for_ you. But, all the same, I
+always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.
+
+"When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver
+handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the
+stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old
+butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt
+into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.
+
+"'Hullo, Peter!' I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as
+any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'Where are you off
+to with the refreshments?'
+
+"The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up
+at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up
+the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'I'm very thankful
+indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'I feared, one time, you
+might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I've lain awake all night, with
+the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I'd make you a
+cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it
+seems safer if there's two, sir.'
+
+"'Peter,' I said, 'you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.' And I
+drank the coffee. 'Come along,' I told him, and handed him back the tray.
+'I'm going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply
+hadn't the pluck to in the night.'
+
+"'I'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'Flesh and blood can do nothing,
+sir, against devils; and that's what's in the Grey Room after dark.'
+
+"I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them
+right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the
+card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the
+door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole
+room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light.
+I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old
+butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:--'The
+bedclothes, sir!'
+
+"I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in
+the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I
+felt. Something _had_ been in the room. I stared for a while, from the
+bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to
+touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He
+went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as,
+doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped
+him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This,
+I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up
+the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was
+getting on my nerves.
+
+"I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own
+man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of
+the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed--even
+the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with
+probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I
+can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible
+thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up
+everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.
+
+"After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my
+camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a
+string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if
+the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there
+would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The
+last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I
+went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight;
+and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my
+candle burning.
+
+"The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and
+slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my
+door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it
+would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty
+feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so
+that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark
+passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my
+revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where I knew my
+camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.
+
+"I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when,
+suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately
+conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and
+my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of
+the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight.
+There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the
+corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint
+glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with
+the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped
+forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door
+of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
+corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
+horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
+stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and
+then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
+kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
+corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a
+yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
+thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I _thought_ I
+heard a sound in the passage, and quite _near_ me. I made one backward
+spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed,
+and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
+abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
+of that door. For some unknown reason I _knew_ it was pressed up against
+the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
+extraordinary thing to think.
+
+"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
+hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it
+almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of
+the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a
+miserable, brutal night.
+
+"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to
+an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
+corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you,
+it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
+been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
+room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had
+been sitting.
+
+"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
+coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we
+went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
+untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was
+the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
+keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
+unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
+the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
+left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very
+queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that
+not one had been broken.
+
+"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me,
+nodding his head.
+
+"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
+enter, without proper protection.'
+
+"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
+
+"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
+of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
+certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
+to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.
+
+"I got back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
+Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
+the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat
+which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward the
+bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, 'Yes,
+sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which
+was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me
+and himself, if he had known what I intended.
+
+"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried
+back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work,
+for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
+
+"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried
+the cat--still fastened in its basket--over toward the far wall, and left
+it. I returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
+twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a 'broom of hyssop.'
+About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the
+circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right
+around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among
+my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the
+parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in
+the little jar, I went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor,
+just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can
+tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle'
+complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and
+placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each Crescent. After that, I
+drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star
+touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five
+portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,'
+five opened jars of the water I had used to make the 'water circle.' And
+now I had my first protective barrier complete.
+
+"Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of
+investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish
+superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I
+believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst
+Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea
+from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th
+century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of
+the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it
+occurred to me to test his 'Defense,' which I did, as I've just said, in
+that horrible Black Veil business. You know how _that_ turned out. Later,
+I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that
+Moving Fur case. It was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and I nearly
+died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's
+'Experiments with a Medium.' When they surrounded the Medium with a
+current, in vacuum, he lost his power--almost as if it cut him off from
+the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make
+the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'Defense' against
+certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this
+protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is
+some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a
+Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I
+never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap
+laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.
+
+"In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a
+supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the
+danger is abominable.
+
+"I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of
+its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales'
+of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery,
+and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum
+tubes shone out.
+
+"I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and
+realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and
+unfriendly. Then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier
+of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of
+weirdness thrust upon me--in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of
+something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised
+garlic, a smell I hate.
+
+"I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in
+order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought
+that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialization of an
+ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can
+say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel
+the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized
+monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never
+forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me,
+and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt
+that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.
+
+"By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with
+the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly,
+and then all 'round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to
+come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over
+me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly
+feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself 'round with
+a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It
+seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed--the
+place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I
+could see nothing unusual; no opening--nothing!...
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that
+unnatural wind.... I believe I just squatted there and stared in a
+horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able
+to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile,
+cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the
+outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room,
+and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.
+
+"A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me;
+and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the
+left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward,
+unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius
+glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I
+stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight--a moving shadow, a
+little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the
+vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side,
+with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was
+directed to the bed. All the covering's were being drawn steadily off,
+with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging
+slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.
+I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the
+'creep' had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been
+for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating
+coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my
+right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze
+or my attention from those moving clothes.
+
+"The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense
+silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet,
+immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being
+dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the
+camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed.
+And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were
+torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as
+they were hurled into the corner.
+
+"There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of
+minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been
+thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of
+the thing that had just been done before me!
+
+"Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise--a sort of crickling
+sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill
+swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head;
+for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was
+there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was
+impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination
+supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... And
+then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered
+there among the shadows.
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I
+reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was
+slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of
+hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a
+power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were 'out.' Can
+you understand?
+
+"The door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the
+basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all
+along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether
+whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose
+suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then--too late--I
+snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had
+been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half
+in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of
+the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had
+power to destroy.
+
+"During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable
+quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the
+time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be
+pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most
+horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to
+see whether anything was coming at me.
+
+"My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and
+abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the 'water circle.'
+It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of
+a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It
+passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but
+only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living
+person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.
+
+"'Round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round I turned. Then, just
+opposite to one of the Vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as
+though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the
+glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to
+gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign
+determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees,
+and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild
+endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was
+grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing
+came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water
+circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then,
+just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by
+some mighty, invisible force.
+
+"It must have been some moments before I realized that I was safe; and
+then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling
+horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but
+the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that
+the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.
+
+"Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the
+monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the
+pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the
+thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale'
+had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways'
+unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had
+found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. And I began to hope
+again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so
+nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the
+'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a
+Force. You can understand?
+
+"For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I
+saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the
+door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the
+dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows
+against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.
+
+"A minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with
+tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart
+at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from
+it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where--for a
+wickedly careless moment--I had placed it. The monster was hurled off
+from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though--owing to my inconceivable
+foolishness--it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer
+barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved
+right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making
+myself as small and compact as possible.
+
+"As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two
+'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I
+being _influenced_ to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me?
+The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I
+stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some
+was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright
+and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I
+did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the
+shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it
+approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether
+enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which
+it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if
+some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only
+upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a
+strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this
+more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was
+simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I
+can put it no other way.
+
+"I knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more
+fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded
+myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my
+own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?
+
+"I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense
+that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear
+that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the
+Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that
+ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at
+me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I
+heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the
+horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left
+of the bed.
+
+"Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural
+wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The
+dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and
+made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it
+was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave
+the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in
+the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.
+
+"At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look
+'round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy
+fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on
+the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the
+coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I
+had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly, and after
+I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.
+
+"I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I
+switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my
+hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not
+want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful
+search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several
+holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with
+my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on
+metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the
+second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window.
+I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The
+curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon;
+that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without
+the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. It was free
+from all chasing or engraving.
+
+"You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure
+I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which,
+indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the
+history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son
+through generations, and always--in obedience to some ancient family
+tradition--each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I
+may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar
+circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.
+
+"It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson's, made a
+bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did
+so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the
+bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem,
+thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken
+anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night
+in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no
+one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had
+been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most
+extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you
+can understand.
+
+"It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.
+Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway--You see what I mean? A sort
+of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was
+not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come
+from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it.
+Then the shape--the inside of a pentacle. It had no 'mounts,' and without
+mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills
+of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to
+fayvor the Evill Thynge.' You see, the very shape of the ring was
+significant; and I determined to test it.
+
+"I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh _and around_ the one
+to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left
+the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier'
+must be used a second time. I returned about seven thirty, and as soon as
+the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I
+dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before.
+When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and
+sealed the door. I went to the place in the center of the room where all
+the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct
+a barrier about me and the ring.
+
+"I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned
+that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were
+enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it
+loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression
+as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab
+from the Normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility.
+
+"As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed
+about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
+that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
+effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
+strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
+You will see whether I was right.
+
+"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
+of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
+once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
+quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
+a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
+happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
+queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
+come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
+The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
+me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
+I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
+Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
+queer about the ring--funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
+at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
+up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
+seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
+Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
+convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
+was forming _within_ the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
+brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
+through--pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
+mouth of a pipe.
+
+"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.
+Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to
+hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible,
+living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet,
+in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal
+force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came
+at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I
+gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning
+candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and
+ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that
+was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The hand was plunging toward me;
+yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring
+was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass
+out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were
+chains riveted upon it.
+
+"Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken
+with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned,
+I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked
+it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could
+hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get
+the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or
+two, and so I got steadied.
+
+"I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee.
+When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along
+with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and
+peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and
+behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And
+there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying
+demure and ordinary.
+
+"Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never
+managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.
+
+"After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the
+afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two
+cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey
+Room, and there, in the center of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the
+little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck,' but
+now the 'bane,' of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid
+splash of hot metal."
+
+Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue
+paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of
+greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.
+
+"Well?" I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to
+the others. "Did that stop the haunting?"
+
+Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room,
+before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but
+by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and
+ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
+
+Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "Out you go!" he said,
+genially. And presently we went, pondering, to our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 2--THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+
+
+"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as
+after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy
+dining room.
+
+"I have just got back from the West of Ireland," he continued.
+"Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy,
+in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside
+of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has
+been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the
+case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
+
+"It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession, he found the
+place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I
+know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the
+big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable
+feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the
+natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long
+uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone.
+
+"When he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village,
+meaning to see the one-time Agent of the Estate, and arrange for someone
+to go in as caretaker. The Agent, who proved by the way to be a
+Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the Estate once
+more; but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as
+caretaker; and that his--the Agent's--advice was to have the house pulled
+down, and a new one built.
+
+"This, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the
+village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems
+that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in
+the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven
+years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they
+had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and
+had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free
+lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the
+method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been
+found in the great entrance hall.
+
+"By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he
+told the Agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the
+haunting, by staying a night or two in the Manor himself. The death of
+the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural
+agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents, spread over a
+large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural
+enough in a little place like Korunton. Tramps had to die some time, and
+in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds
+who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity
+to die under shelter.
+
+"But the Agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the
+landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his
+'sowl's sake,' Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because
+of his 'life's sake,' the Scotchman was equally in earnest.
+
+"It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me, it was warm
+and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking
+seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his
+mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that
+very night, in the Manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them
+that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered
+to come up along with him, and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was
+quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion; and though Tabbit, the
+Agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it.
+
+"It seems that Wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when
+the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing
+to tackle.
+
+"A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this
+time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him, and
+a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would
+not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at
+sight.' And then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered
+the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great
+bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company.
+Wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his
+head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for
+him to get away from the castle. For it was obvious that he did not
+consider the gun would prove of any use.
+
+"Wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. He told me that, already,
+he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would
+go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of
+men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were
+keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the Manor, and
+then went right over the whole place with him.
+
+"It was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk;
+and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt
+ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that,
+by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back
+with them. And then, abruptly, an idea came to him. He suggested that
+they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. For a
+time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but
+finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that
+they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen
+bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles.
+Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place,
+light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and
+make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got them to agree.
+
+"They set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey
+was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, Dennis was
+doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible
+man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. You
+see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth.
+
+"'I tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter
+reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther
+pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to
+shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the
+bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all
+the gold in the worrld was offered ye.'
+
+"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip.
+
+"'Shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back
+in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to
+patch up, an' he invited thim--the O'Haras they was--siventy av thim. An'
+he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to
+shlape with him. Thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered
+thim wan an' all as they slep'. 'Tis from me father's grandfather ye have
+the sthory. An' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the
+night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'Twill put out candle
+an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the Virgin Herself would be powerless
+to protect ye.'
+
+"Wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put
+it:--'One always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you
+feel inside.' He asked old Dennis whether he expected him to believe it.
+
+"'Yes, sorr,' said Dennis, 'I do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please God,
+if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' The man's serious
+simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand. But, for all
+that, he went; and I must admire his pluck.
+
+"There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the Manor--or
+castle as the villagers always call it--they were not long in getting a
+big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. They had
+all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot
+to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, Wentworth had his
+gun. He kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them
+sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to
+make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. If you once let a
+crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to
+fancy things.
+
+"The big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which
+shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so
+this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a
+jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. He had opened a second lot
+of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the
+men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. And
+then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous
+main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible
+hand, and shut with a sharp click.
+
+"Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the
+men, and looked 'round at them. Several had ceased their talk, and were
+staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had
+never noticed, and were talking and yarning. He reached for his gun, and
+the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking,
+which drew the attention of the whole company.
+
+"The hall I should tell you is oblong. The south wall is all windows; but
+the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the
+west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading
+into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
+north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
+suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
+passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
+and for a minute there was an absolute silence.
+
+"Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
+the doorway.
+
+"'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
+came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
+report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
+moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
+into the black shapes of the empty doorways.
+
+"Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
+was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
+frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
+happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
+and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
+candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners.
+
+"The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
+together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
+ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
+on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
+with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
+near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:--'The
+bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
+same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
+of:--'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
+candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
+let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
+with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
+rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
+dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
+in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
+one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me.
+
+"Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
+connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
+and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
+Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
+me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house.
+The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
+growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
+look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
+even by daylight.
+
+"The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
+sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
+one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
+with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
+whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
+some force exceedingly dangerous to life.
+
+"Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
+examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
+drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
+candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
+general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
+examination of every square foot of the place--not only of the hall, in
+this case, but of the whole interior of the castle.
+
+"I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
+kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
+have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
+stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
+perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
+whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
+shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
+after dusk.
+
+"I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
+hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
+attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing.
+However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
+persuade him to be present.
+
+"With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
+arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
+policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
+and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment.
+
+"When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
+good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
+donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
+boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
+the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
+all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
+doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
+to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
+influence.
+
+"By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
+and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
+lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
+took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
+entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
+dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
+figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
+with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
+more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
+doors make the angle.
+
+"When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
+of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
+into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
+open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
+the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
+each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
+then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
+the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
+took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Theyre must
+noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure.
+
+"I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
+in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth
+were tremendously interested, and I took the opportunity to warn them
+that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a
+definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human
+thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that, as they
+valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must
+on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I
+was making.
+
+"After I had drawn the circle, I took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged
+it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. When this was
+complete, I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the
+police to lighting them, and as they were lit, I took them, and sealed
+them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart.
+As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took
+sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and I need hardly say that
+every number and measurement has a significance.
+
+"Then, from candle to candle I took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it
+alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was
+completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into
+the wax of the sixty-sixth candle.
+
+"It had now been dark some time, and I made haste to get the 'Defense'
+complete. To this end, I got the men well together, and began to fit the
+Electric Pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the
+Defensive Star came just within the Hair Circle. This did not take me
+long, and a minute later I had connected up the batteries, and the weak
+blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. I felt
+happier then; for this Pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful
+'Defense.' I have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading
+Professor Garder's 'Experiments with a Medium.' He found that a current,
+of a certain number of vibrations, _in vacuo,_ 'insulated' the medium. It
+is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are
+really interested you should read Carder's lecture on 'Astral Vibrations
+Compared with Matero-involuted Vibrations below the Six-Billion Limit.'
+
+"As I stood up from my work, I could hear outside in the night a constant
+drip from the laurels, which as I have said, come right up around the
+house, very thick. By the sound, I knew that a 'soft' rain had set in;
+and there was absolutely no wind, as I could tell by the steady flames of
+the candles.
+
+"I stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my
+arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. By his tone, I
+could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all;
+and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid
+they were beginning to get shaky.
+
+"I set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center;
+so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating
+outward. Then, by compass, I laid their legs to the eight chief points,
+and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to
+their feet, I made the Eight Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual. The eighth
+place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment;
+for I had omitted to make the Sealing Sign to that point, until I had
+finished all my preparations, and could enter the Inner Star.
+
+"I took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big
+hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. The fire
+was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt
+steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went 'round
+the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever
+happened; but to trust to the 'Defense'; and to let nothing tempt or
+drive them to cross the Barriers. Also, I told them to watch their
+movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. For the rest,
+there was to be no shooting, unless I gave the word.
+
+"And now at last, I went to my place, and, sitting down, made the Eighth
+sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy,
+and examined my revolver.
+
+"Wentworth sat behind the First Sign, and as the numbering went 'round
+reversed, that put him next to me on my left. I asked him, in a low
+voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt
+confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the
+matter, whatever happened.
+
+"We settled down to wait. There was no talking, except that, once or
+twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks
+concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense
+silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and
+only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great
+entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace.
+
+"It was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our
+legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the
+Pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of
+lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty
+hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone
+before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest
+mass of flame. And the feeling of mystery! Can you picture it all?
+
+"It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was
+aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the
+air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with
+us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to
+happen any moment.
+
+"Abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and I
+felt the star of men move suddenly. 'Steady! Keep steady!' I shouted, and
+they quietened. I looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon
+their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great
+entrance. I turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned
+their heads to look. Suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and
+I glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the
+big doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be
+listening. In the same instant, I heard a faint chink of metal to my
+left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It
+moved, even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A
+queer, sickening thrill went through me, and I felt all the men about me,
+stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something
+impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but
+overwhelming, Presence. The hall was full of a queer silence, and not a
+sound came from the dogs. _Then I saw the hook slowly raised from out of
+its hasp, without any visible thing touching it._ Then a sudden power of
+movement came to me. I raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and
+snapped it at the door. There came the great blare of the flashlight, and
+a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs.
+
+"The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some
+moments, and in that time of darkness, I heard a jingle in the direction
+of the door, and strained to look. The effect of the bright light passed,
+and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly
+closed. It shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence,
+broken only by the whimpering of the dogs.
+
+"I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me.
+
+"'Just as it did before,' he whispered.
+
+"'Most extraordinary,' I said, and he nodded and looked 'round,
+nervously.
+
+"The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling
+rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think
+that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is
+extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than
+most people.
+
+"I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low
+voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, _whatever happened_; not even
+though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
+them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
+Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
+Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
+kept to our order within the Pentacle.
+
+"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
+the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
+from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
+their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
+sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.
+
+"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
+out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
+before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
+Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
+with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
+actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
+of the hall in general.
+
+"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
+flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
+smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
+the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
+quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
+as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
+room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.
+
+"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
+hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
+now over in the corners.
+
+"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
+visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
+impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
+way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
+watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
+from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
+the Pentacle.
+
+"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
+to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
+in the hall: The steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible.
+The _extent_ of the Power to affect the Material was horrible. The
+extent of the Power to affect the Material was now the one constant,
+anxious questioning in my brain. You can understand?
+
+"Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were
+getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
+quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
+within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
+once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
+state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.
+
+"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
+known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
+would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
+'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.
+
+"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
+of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
+company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
+yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
+him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
+room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
+glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
+again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.
+
+"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
+candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
+seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
+weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.
+
+"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
+solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
+felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
+normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I
+began, however, to feel better, after a while; but I simply had not the
+pluck to move. You can understand?
+
+"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
+flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
+once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
+a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
+eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
+police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
+
+"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
+there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
+the sealing-wax. _The sealed doors were opening._ I raised the camera and
+flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
+me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
+felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
+if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
+brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
+
+"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
+floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
+a sense of a very real and present danger--_imminent._ The 'blood-drip'
+had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
+save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
+
+"Through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an
+increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the Barriers. I
+saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing
+intertwining tubes of the Electric Pentacle; but, strangely enough, I
+could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise
+of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the
+boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of
+agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an
+immediate silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's
+neck, you will know the sound--in miniature! Like lightning, the thought
+sprang into my brain:--_IT has crossed the Pentacle._ For you will
+remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly,
+with a sick apprehension, of our own Barriers. There was something in the
+hall with us that had passed the Barrier of the Pentacle about one of the
+dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And
+suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman,
+and bolted for the door. He fumbled, and had it open in a moment. I
+yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and I
+heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped
+on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter
+darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the
+powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the
+useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the
+night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk.
+
+"The men were a little ahead of me, and I never ceased running, and
+neither did they. Sometimes, I glanced back over my shoulder; and I kept
+glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly
+things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though
+something were keeping parallel with me, among them. The rain had
+stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It
+was disgusting.
+
+"I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside, and
+ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up, waiting for us,
+and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known
+in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all;
+which is not a bad rendering of his remark.
+
+"Fortunately, I had brought my camera away from the house--possibly
+because the strap had happened to be over my head. Yet, I did not go
+straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we
+talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole
+horrible business.
+
+"Later, however, I went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography.
+I was steadier now, and it was just possible, so I hoped, that the
+negatives might show something.
+
+"On two of the plates, I found nothing unusual: but on the third, which
+was the first one that I snapped, I saw something that made me quite
+excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then I put
+it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots.
+
+"The negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and I had made
+up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without
+losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and
+the police, until I was certain; and, also, I believed that I stood a
+greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, I do not
+suppose anything would have taken them up to the Manor again that night.
+
+"I took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. The
+rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When
+I came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going
+through, and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the
+drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels.
+You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled, I jumped.
+
+"I made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a
+little window which I had taken note of during my search; for, of course,
+I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the
+kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, I went to the
+left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the
+doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. I looked up it, and saw a
+faint flicker of light away at the end; and I tiptoed silently toward it,
+holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door, I heard men's
+voices, and then a burst of laughing. I went on, until I could see into
+the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well
+dressed, and one, at least, I saw was armed. They were examining my
+'Barriers' against the Supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter.
+I never felt such a fool in my life.
+
+"It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the
+empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now
+that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the
+traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping
+so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were, I mean
+whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, I could not imagine.
+
+"Presently, they left the Pentacle, and gathered 'round the living
+boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged.
+There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but
+finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of
+them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of
+the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. Then a
+third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. The two men
+with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that I could not see what was
+done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there
+was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, I had heard earlier
+in the night, as you will remember.
+
+"The men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you
+may suppose. For my part, I fully appreciated the calculated
+remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold
+determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. I
+guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular
+men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending.
+
+"A minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should
+'shift the wires.' One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor
+in which I stood, and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper
+end. I saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door,
+and I heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire.
+
+"When he had gone, I ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after
+another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble
+steps being raised. When the last man had vanished, the slab that made
+the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. It
+was the seventh step from the bottom, as I took care to count: and a
+splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a
+fairly heavy hammer, as I found later.
+
+"There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and
+quietly as possible, and back to the inn. The police came without any
+coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. We
+entered the park and the Manor in the same way that I had done. Yet, when
+we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. This
+must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room
+which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness
+of the walls, we found no one.
+
+"The police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my
+part, I did not care either way. I had 'laid the ghost,' as you might
+say, and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of
+being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken
+in'; and in the end, I had scored, without their help.
+
+"We searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an
+exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well,
+out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a
+little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The 'blood-drip' was
+merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the
+ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out, I do not
+know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which
+held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' Perhaps it was too
+difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which
+might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may
+possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but
+how suspended, I have no idea.
+
+"The secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. There was also, did I
+tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered
+the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall, I
+should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned
+them had I gone in through the gateway."
+
+"What was on the negative?" I asked, with much curiosity.
+
+"A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook
+that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the
+crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for
+lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone would make
+use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine
+to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight
+'picked it out.' Do you see?
+
+"The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have
+guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else I should soon have found
+them, when I made my search.
+
+"I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed, of
+course, by the men direct. You see, they made the place as dark as
+possible, first. Of course, if I had managed to take a flashlight just at
+that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed.
+But Fate just ordered it the other way."
+
+"And the tramps?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the Manor," said
+Carnacki. "Well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the
+other. Perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a
+hypodermic. Or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of
+their dying, and just died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many
+tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another."
+
+Carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. We rose also, and went for
+our coats and hats.
+
+"Out you go!" said Carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. And
+we went out on to the Embankment, and presently through the darkness to
+our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 3--THE WHISTLING ROOM
+
+
+Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
+the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us--Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and myself--in to dinner.
+
+We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
+silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
+usual positions, and Carnacki--having got himself comfortable in his big
+chair--began without any preliminary:--
+
+"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
+chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
+the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
+this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, I have been
+utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
+peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that I have come
+against. Now listen.
+
+"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
+miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
+Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
+only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
+
+"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
+drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
+I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
+American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
+all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
+they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
+
+"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
+about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
+different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
+Case was very queer, too.
+
+"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
+shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
+haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
+on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
+not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
+
+"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
+
+"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
+replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
+infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
+playing a trick on me.'
+
+"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
+
+"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
+playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
+in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
+wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
+so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
+There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
+years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
+against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
+
+"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
+all this affects the room?'
+
+"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
+out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
+her--one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
+she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
+must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
+were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
+found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
+this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
+market again, after a trial.
+
+"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
+after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
+twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
+talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
+Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
+were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
+something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
+
+"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
+others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
+guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
+mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
+
+"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
+castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
+been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
+frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
+
+"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
+had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
+for the talk up at Arlestrae--Miss Donnehue's place--had made me wonder a
+bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
+wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
+the talk about it, you know.
+
+"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
+said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
+whistling, coming along the East Corridor--The room is in the East
+Wing, you know.
+
+"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
+off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
+along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
+queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
+rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
+That's how it makes you feel.
+
+"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
+then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
+said he got it the same way--sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
+looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
+locked the door.
+
+"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
+began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
+the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
+Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
+
+"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
+visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
+and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
+had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
+You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
+
+"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
+house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
+queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
+of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
+a rise out of me.'
+
+"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said--'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
+chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
+We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
+nerves; so we sent for you.'
+
+"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
+suddenly called out:--'Ssh! Hark!'
+
+"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
+hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
+corridors to my right.
+
+"'By G--d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
+candles, both of you, and come along.'
+
+"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
+Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
+candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
+near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
+of some wanton Immense Force--a sense of an actual taint, as you might
+say, of monstrosity all about us.
+
+"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
+back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
+us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
+it--with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
+darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
+glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
+and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
+you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:--That's Hell. And you
+knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
+
+"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
+and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
+came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
+with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
+ear, something seemed to be saying to me:--'Get out of here--quick!
+Quick! Quick!'
+
+"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
+be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
+warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
+Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
+others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, _out_ quick.' And in an instant I
+had them into the passage.
+
+"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
+and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
+and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
+were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
+there we stood a moment, silent.
+
+"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
+a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
+man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
+downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
+and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
+
+"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
+said. And directly afterward:--'What on earth made you hustle us all out
+like that, Carnacki?'
+
+"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
+bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
+sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
+laughed at.'
+
+"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
+that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
+rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
+going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
+dangerous about this thing.'
+
+"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
+we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
+ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
+after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
+on the morrow.
+
+"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
+the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
+the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
+old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
+more modern doors of the various rooms.
+
+"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
+instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
+or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
+extraordinary whistling.
+
+"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
+my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
+of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
+down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
+pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
+light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
+
+"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
+of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
+know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
+of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
+produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
+prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
+astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
+abnormal in them.
+
+"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
+garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
+room, I hoped to be safe.
+
+"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
+had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
+if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
+gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
+revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
+
+"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
+with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
+Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
+empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
+realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
+understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
+of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
+I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
+that same _malevolent_ silence--the beastly quietness of a thing that is
+looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
+Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
+as to have light over the _whole_ room.
+
+"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
+sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
+sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
+tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
+can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
+there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
+was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
+Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case--you know.
+
+"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
+a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
+projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
+human hairs--the seventh crossing the six others.
+
+"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
+room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
+from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
+extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
+human--as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
+As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
+doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
+the _Inanimate_ reproducing the functions of the _Animate_, I made a
+grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
+shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
+I got my hand upon the handle--a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
+piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
+slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
+wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
+squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
+when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
+the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
+business. There is no protection against this particular form of
+monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
+reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
+material which you may use, and has the power to '_forme_ wythine the
+pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
+of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
+too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
+then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
+harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
+
+"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
+whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
+there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
+
+"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
+off down the great passage, and so to bed.
+
+"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
+Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
+coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
+and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
+terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
+mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
+
+"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
+and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
+and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
+
+"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
+said. '_I_ can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
+
+"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
+time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
+
+"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:--
+
+"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
+toward the door.
+
+"'No!' I said. 'By Jove--_no!_ I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
+believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
+
+"'Haunted--_really_ haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
+frequent banter.
+
+"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite _yes_ or _no_ to
+such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
+Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
+Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
+particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
+subject of a manifestation.
+
+"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
+went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
+another spell of sleep.
+
+"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
+intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
+the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
+thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
+having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
+broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
+instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
+would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
+just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
+
+"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
+It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
+open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
+Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
+breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
+all the way; but I found nothing.
+
+"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room--floor, ceiling,
+and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
+hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
+
+"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
+thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
+when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
+whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
+to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
+within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
+as you must allow.
+
+"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
+mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
+been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
+years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
+would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
+Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
+someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
+to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
+would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
+nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
+all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
+'haunting.'
+
+"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
+hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
+intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
+and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
+extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
+along--tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet--to the sealed door (for
+I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
+often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
+note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
+door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
+whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
+about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
+
+"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
+hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
+hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
+the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
+wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
+arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
+exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
+
+"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
+entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
+nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
+risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
+Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
+getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
+
+"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
+look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
+come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
+in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
+sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
+down my spine. You know the feeling.
+
+"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
+something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
+walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
+under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
+vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
+Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
+low, but evidently in glee:--
+
+"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
+that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
+
+"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
+rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
+had spotted me.
+
+"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
+_they_ were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
+made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
+and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
+genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
+details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
+natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
+
+"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
+whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
+East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
+the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
+hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
+
+"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
+which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
+simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
+watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
+was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
+sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
+yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
+it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
+after dark.
+
+"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
+be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
+mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
+back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
+way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
+phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
+impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
+feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
+microphone will not magnify the sound--will not even transmit it; seems
+to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
+absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
+to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. _I_
+cannot--not yet."
+
+He rose to his feet.
+
+"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
+without offence, into the night.
+
+A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
+I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
+dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
+began again, where he had left off:--
+
+"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
+you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
+had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
+the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
+whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
+outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
+could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
+it, and gone off to bed.
+
+"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
+whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
+night. It had a queer note in it, I remember--low and constant, queerly
+meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
+sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
+look into the Room, through the window.
+
+"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
+straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
+though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
+first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
+ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
+larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
+had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
+
+"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
+conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
+itself--can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
+note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct--a mighty parody of
+the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
+lips of a monster with a man's soul.
+
+"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
+huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
+soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
+pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
+heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
+as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
+and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
+dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
+enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
+moonlight....
+
+"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
+stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
+moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
+same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
+that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
+then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
+undisturbed floor of the room--smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
+to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
+
+"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
+I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide _quietly_ down
+the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
+voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, _help_. My God! but I
+got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
+that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
+taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
+window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
+had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
+across to it; but there was no one there.
+
+"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
+apartment; and then, in a flash, _I knew that Tassoc had never called_. I
+whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
+frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
+the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
+black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
+mad instant at my revolver; not for _it_, but myself; for the danger was
+a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
+Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
+Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
+sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
+life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
+vertigo of unseeable things. Then _that_ ended, and I knew that I might
+live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
+dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
+I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
+on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
+way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
+with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
+of the Room, there was a low whistling.
+
+"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
+and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
+good whisky--for I was shaken to pieces--and I explained things as much
+as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
+every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
+pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
+
+"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
+thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
+
+"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
+a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
+great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
+that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
+old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
+Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
+King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
+
+"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
+tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
+library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
+Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
+countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
+one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
+was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
+
+"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
+job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
+Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
+nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
+until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
+sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
+Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
+
+"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
+it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
+his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
+the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
+tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
+him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
+purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
+her prettiness.
+
+"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
+morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
+sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
+power to sing it.
+
+"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace--probably from
+that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
+died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
+he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
+heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
+in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
+seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
+
+"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
+translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
+a tremendous manifestation?"
+
+"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
+upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
+development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
+produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
+manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
+spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
+itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
+the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
+plainer in a few words."
+
+"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
+
+But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
+too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
+men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
+secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
+become the talk of the whole countryside.
+
+"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
+use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
+that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
+but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
+
+"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
+and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
+extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
+may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
+case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
+taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
+other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
+inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
+soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
+the material expression of the ancient Jester--that his soul, rotten with
+hatred, had bred into a monster--eh?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
+neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
+descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
+think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
+Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
+_It_ had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
+that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
+a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, _if_ ever she
+had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
+
+He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
+took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
+friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
+
+"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
+had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.
+
+
+
+
+No. 4--THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+
+
+I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached
+his place I found him sitting alone. As I came into the room he rose with
+a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. His face seemed
+to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. He shook
+hands and offered me his paper, which I refused. Then he passed me a
+handful of photographs and returned to his reading.
+
+Now, that is just Carnacki. Not a word had come from him and not a
+question from me. He would tell us all about it later. I spent about half
+an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by
+flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the
+photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so
+frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to
+believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent
+and overwhelming danger.
+
+The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
+passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
+the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
+portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
+evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
+first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
+surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.
+
+Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something _definitely_
+extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
+in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
+turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
+noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
+the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.
+
+I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
+than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
+was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
+held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
+and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
+the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
+Carnacki began:
+
+"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
+at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
+strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
+finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
+have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
+Also I know _now_ that I never considered it seriously--in spite of my
+rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!
+
+"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
+that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
+himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
+horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
+understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
+haunted by the Horse during her courtship.
+
+"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
+always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
+an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven
+generations the Hisgins family have had men children for their first-born
+and even the Hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be
+little more than a myth.
+
+"To come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is
+a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her
+friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest
+for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men
+friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape
+the haunting. And this, I think, shows us how thoroughly the tale
+had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious
+thought. Don't you think so?
+
+"Two months ago Miss Hisgins became engaged to Beaumont, a young Naval
+Officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it
+was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which
+resulted in Captain Hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately
+going down to their place to look into the thing.
+
+"From the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me I
+found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like
+a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and
+disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way.
+In the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five
+first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. Each
+of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each
+one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling
+from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure,
+owing to sudden shock through fright). The fifth girl was killed one
+evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be
+no _exact_ knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had
+been kicked by a horse. She was dead when found. Now, you see, all of
+these deaths might be attributed in a way--even the suicides--to natural
+causes, I mean as distinct from supernatural. You see? Yet, in every
+case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and
+terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the
+records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or
+of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other
+peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. You begin to understand
+now, I think, just how extraordinary a business it was that I was asked
+to look into.
+
+"I gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so
+constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from
+their ladyloves. And I think it was this, more than anything else, that
+made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere
+succession of uncomfortable coincidences.
+
+"I got hold of these facts before I had been many hours in the house and
+after this I went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that
+happened on the night of Miss Hisgins's engagement to Beaumont. It seems
+that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just
+after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a
+sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. Immediately
+afterward Beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his
+right forearm. Then the rest of the family and the servants came running
+to know what was wrong. Lights were brought and the corridor and,
+afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found.
+
+"You can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous,
+half believing talk about the old legend. Then, later, in the middle of
+the night the old Captain was waked by the sound of a great horse
+galloping 'round and 'round the house.
+
+"Several times after this both Beaumont and the girl said that they had
+heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the
+rooms and corridors.
+
+"Three nights later Beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the
+nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
+He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
+They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
+the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.
+
+"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
+were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.
+
+"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
+details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
+evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
+had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
+that had happened the evening before.
+
+"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
+whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
+and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
+yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.
+
+"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
+girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'
+
+"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it--the sound of a horse
+outside of the front door.
+
+"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
+not riding.
+
+"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
+Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see
+whether anyone was at the entrance. It was pretty dark in the hall and he
+could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the
+darkness of the hall. He walked over to the glass and looked through into
+the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight.
+
+"He felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to
+the carriage-circle. Almost directly afterward the great hall door swung
+to with a crash behind him. He told me that he had a sudden awful feeling
+of having been trapped in some way--that is how he put it. He whirled
+'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it
+with a vast grip on the other side. Then, before he could be fixed in his
+mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door.
+
+"He paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had
+hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really
+frightened or not. Then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of
+the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him
+from the boudoir. He blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway,
+meaning to go to her. And then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening
+knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that
+kiss. He knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the
+darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. He jumped back and
+in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. He
+called out at the top of his voice: 'Mary, stay in the boudoir. Don't
+move out of the boudoir until I come to you.' He heard her call something
+in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or
+so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the
+hall. There was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there
+came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive.
+
+"Now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse
+galloping; but when I questioned more closely I found that the aunt had
+heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further
+back in the room. Of course, both he and Miss Hisgins had been in an
+extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. The door might have
+been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being
+opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing
+more than the snick catching.
+
+"With regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, I
+pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they
+had been only cool enough to reason. As I told him, and as he knew, the
+sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he
+had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some
+distance away. And as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises--the rustle of
+a paper or a leaf--have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in
+an overstrung condition and imagining things.
+
+"I finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria
+as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. But neither
+Beaumont nor Miss Hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on
+their parts.
+
+"We had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along
+the passage and I was still doing my best to make both of them see the
+ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my
+pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard
+room we had just left.
+
+"I felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back
+of my head. Miss Hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and
+ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. Beaumont, however,
+ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. I gave back
+too, a bit, as you can understand.
+
+"'There it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'Perhaps you'll
+believe now.'
+
+"'There's certainly something,' I whispered, never taking my gaze off the
+closed door of the billiard room.
+
+"'H'sh!' he muttered. 'There it is again.'
+
+"There was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the
+billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. A horrible cold fright took me
+so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
+and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
+suddenly at the opening of the long passage.
+
+"We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
+horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
+malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
+occupied. Do you understand just what I mean?
+
+"Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
+excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
+sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
+'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her.
+
+"I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
+about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
+realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
+see what's there.'
+
+"'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck.
+I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
+my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
+and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
+not stop me from being able to work my flashlight.
+
+"Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
+his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
+shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all.
+He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
+in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
+went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
+we were a pretty nervous couple.
+
+"All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
+within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
+of a hoof on the solid _parquet_ floor of the billiard room. In the
+instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
+ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, _coming toward the door_. Both
+Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
+our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
+to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
+silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
+and temples almost deafened me.
+
+"I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
+restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
+right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
+the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
+the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
+clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
+between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
+I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
+body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
+breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
+could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
+danger abroad. Do you understand?
+
+"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
+of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
+quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
+Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
+and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'
+
+"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
+landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
+nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.
+
+"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
+'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
+the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
+landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
+the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
+where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
+anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
+that infernal thing.
+
+"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
+passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
+if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
+thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
+down the stairs.
+
+"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
+follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
+came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
+me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
+girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
+room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.
+
+"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
+no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
+anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
+and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
+so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle.
+I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
+and that he had better be armed.
+
+"When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
+miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
+him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
+'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
+the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
+like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
+feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
+wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
+that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
+least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later.
+
+"I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
+for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
+whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
+foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
+particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
+remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
+outside. Poor devil!
+
+"The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
+we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
+house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
+queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
+the bedroom. I knocked at the door, for I was uneasy, and the Captain
+came. I asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and
+immediately asked me whether I had heard the galloping, so that I knew he
+had heard them also. I suggested that it might be well to leave the
+bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly
+something abroad. This was done and he went back into the room, to be
+near his wife and daughter.
+
+"I had better say here that I was doubtful whether there was any value in
+the 'Defense' about Miss Hisgins, for what I term the 'personal sounds'
+of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that I was inclined
+to parallel the case with that one of Harford's where the hand of the
+child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. As
+you will remember, that was a hideous business.
+
+"Yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had
+fully come we all went off to bed.
+
+"Beaumont knocked me up about midday and I went down and made breakfast
+into lunch. Miss Hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits,
+considering. She told me that I had made her feel almost safe for the
+first time for days. She told me also that her cousin, Harry Parsket, was
+coming down from London and she knew that he would do anything to help
+fight the ghost. And after that she and Beaumont went out into the
+grounds to have a little time together.
+
+"I had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no
+traces of hoof marks and after that I spent the rest of the day making an
+examination of the house, but found nothing.
+
+"I made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for
+dinner. When I got down the cousin had just arrived and I found him one
+of the nicest men I have met for a long time. A chap with a tremendous
+amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man I like to have with me in
+a bad case like the one I was on. I could see that what puzzled him most
+was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and I found myself
+almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. As
+it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance.
+
+"Beaumont and Miss Hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk
+and Captain Hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat
+whilst Parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him.
+
+"I had a long conversation with the old Captain in which I pointed out
+that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the
+house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was
+married, the better as it would give Beaumont a right to be with her at
+all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations
+would cease if the marriage were actually performed.
+
+"The old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and
+reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted'
+had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. And then
+in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption,
+for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most
+extraordinarily pale:
+
+"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
+the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse--'
+
+"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
+sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
+snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
+Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.
+
+"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
+sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
+of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
+of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
+The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
+tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
+and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
+shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.
+
+"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
+for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
+blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
+was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
+staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
+don't know.'
+
+"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
+toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
+darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
+game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
+immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
+carried by some of the men-servants.
+
+"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
+standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
+saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
+the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
+the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
+one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
+strange to be seen anywhere.
+
+"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
+Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
+four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched
+'round the home park. But we found nothing.
+
+"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
+Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
+straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
+guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
+soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
+I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
+They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
+order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
+of the door.
+
+"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
+got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
+seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
+the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
+'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
+nothing for a little. Then he caught it--the sound of a horse, seemingly
+a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
+that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
+was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
+close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
+caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
+heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
+at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
+right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
+looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
+last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
+tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
+butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
+
+"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
+glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
+however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
+him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
+him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
+for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
+anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
+
+"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
+each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont
+and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun. In addition to my weapon
+I had my camera and flashlight.
+
+"Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of
+the bedroom to have a word with us. About half-past one we had all grown
+very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand,
+silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. I
+knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I
+whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse. For some time we
+stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it;
+but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont. Yet afterward, I thought
+I heard it again.
+
+"I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and
+leave the door a little open and this he did. But from that time onward
+we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very
+thankfully to bed.
+
+"When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain
+Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to
+take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than
+possible. Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special
+License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.
+
+"This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the
+extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
+investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
+was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.
+
+"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
+Miss Hisgins and her _surroundings_. Sometimes the camera sees things
+that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.
+
+"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
+company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
+experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
+her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
+impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
+we chanced to be at the moment.
+
+"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
+whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
+cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
+for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
+darkness without help and companionship at hand.
+
+"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
+carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
+lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
+Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
+off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
+the experiment.
+
+"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
+extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss
+Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding
+the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the
+trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling
+neighing that I had heard out in the Park. It seemed to come from
+somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light I saw that
+she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. And then in the
+succeeding comparative darkness, I was shouting to the Captain and
+Parsket to run Miss Hisgins out into the daylight.
+
+"This was done instantly and I shut and locked the door afterward making
+the First and Eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual opposite to each post
+and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line.
+
+"In the meanwhile Parsket and Captain Hisgins carried the girl to her
+mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst I stayed
+on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for I knew
+that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling
+there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know,
+because I had exposed Miss Hisgins to the danger.
+
+"I had got the Captain's shotgun and when he and Parsket came down again
+they were each carrying guns and lanterns. I could not possibly tell you
+the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when I heard them
+coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of
+that cellar. Can you?
+
+"I remember noticing, just before I went to unlock the door, how white
+and ghastly Parsket looked and the old Captain was grey-looking and I
+wondered whether my face was like theirs. And this, you know, had its own
+distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness
+of the thing crashing down on to me in a fresh way. I know it was only sheer
+will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key.
+
+"I paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide
+open and held my lantern over my head. Parsket and the Captain came one
+on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was
+absolutely empty. Of course, I did not trust to a casual look of this
+kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding
+every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls.
+
+"Yet, in the end I had to admit that the place itself was absolutely
+normal and so we came away. But I sealed the door and outside, opposite
+each doorpost I made the First and Last signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+joined them as before, with a triple line. Can you imagine what it was
+like, searching that cellar?
+
+"When we got upstairs I inquired very anxiously how Miss Hisgins was
+and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and
+that I was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as I told her I
+had been doing.
+
+"I felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was
+done, Parsket and I took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives
+that I had been taking. Yet none of the plates had anything to tell us
+until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. Parsket was
+developing and I had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the
+lamplight to examine them.
+
+"I had just gone carefully through the lot when I heard a shout from
+Parsket and when I ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed
+negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. It showed the girl
+plainly, looking upward as I had seen her, but the thing that astonished
+me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were
+coming down upon her out of the shadows. And you know, I had run her
+bang into that danger. That was the thought that was chief in my mind.
+
+"As soon as the developing was complete I fixed the plate and examined it
+carefully in a good light. There was no doubt about it at all, the thing
+above Miss Hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. Yet I was no nearer to
+coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing I could do was to
+warn Parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only
+increase her fright, but I showed the thing to her father for I
+considered it right that he should know.
+
+"That night we took the same precaution for Miss Hisgins's safety as on
+the two previous nights and Parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in
+without anything unusual having happened and I went off to bed.
+
+"When I got down to lunch I learnt that Beaumont had wired to say that he
+would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the
+Rector. And it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a
+tremendous fluster.
+
+"Beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even
+then the Rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to
+say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away
+unexpectedly. Twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down,
+but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until
+the next day.
+
+"That night I arranged the 'Defense' 'round the girl's bed and the
+Captain and his wife sat up with her as before. Beaumont, as I expected,
+insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened
+mood; not for himself, you know, but for Miss Hisgins. He had a horrible
+feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his
+sweetheart that night.
+
+"This, of course, I told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made
+me feel very anxious; for I have seen too much not to know that under
+such circumstances a premonitory _conviction_ of impending danger is not
+necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. In fact, Beaumont was so
+simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some
+extraordinary manifestation that I got Parsket to rig up a long cord from
+the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy.
+
+"To the butler himself I gave directions not to undress and to give the
+same order to two of the footmen. If I rang he was to come instantly,
+with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept
+ready lit all night. If for any reason the bell did not ring and I blew
+my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell.
+
+"After I had arranged all these minor details I drew a pentacle about
+Beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever
+happened. And when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and
+pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before.
+
+"We scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense
+and nervous so that at last Parsket got up and began to walk up and
+down the corridor to steady himself a bit. Presently I slipped off my
+pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally
+for something over an hour, until in turning I caught my foot in the
+bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or
+making a noise.
+
+"When I got up Parsket nudged me.
+
+"'Did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered.
+
+"'Jove!' I said, 'you're right.'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' he answered. 'I'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in
+the cord.' He left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the
+top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying Beaumont's revolver ready
+in his right hand. He was a plucky chap, I remember thinking then, and
+again, later.
+
+"Just then Beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. Directly afterward
+I heard the thing for which he listened--the sound of a horse galloping,
+out in the night. I think that I may say I fairly shivered. The sound
+died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you
+know. I put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping Parsket had got it
+clear. Then I waited, glancing before and behind.
+
+"Perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly
+quiet. And then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there
+sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown
+with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. I tugged hard on the
+cord and blew the whistle; then I raised my snapshot and fired the
+flashlight. The corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was
+nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. I heard the Captain at
+the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, _quick_; but
+instead something started to kick the door and I heard the Captain
+shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. I had a
+sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in
+the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile,
+gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. I blew
+the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to
+Beaumont to stay in the Pentacle, whatever happened. I yelled again to
+the Captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against
+the bedroom door. Then I had my matches in my hand, to get some light
+before that incredible, unseen Monster was upon us.
+
+"The match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant
+I heard a faint sound behind me. I whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror
+and saw something in the light of the match--a monstrous horse-head close
+to Beaumont.
+
+"'Look out, Beaumont!' I shouted in a sort of scream. 'It's behind you!'
+
+"The match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of
+Parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently
+single-handed by Beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. I caught a
+momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof
+amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon Beaumont.
+In the same instant I fired three chambers of my revolver. There was the
+sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out
+close to me. I fired twice at the sound. Immediately afterward something
+struck me and I was knocked backward. I got on to my knees and shouted
+for help at the top of my voice. I heard the women screaming behind the
+closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being
+smashed from the inside, and directly afterward I knew that Beaumont was
+struggling with some hideous thing near to me. For an instant I held
+back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of
+rigid chill of goose flesh I went to help him, shouting his name. I can
+tell you, I was nearly sick with the naked fear I had on me. There came a
+little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that I jumped forward
+into the dark. I gripped a vast, furry ear. Then something struck me
+another great blow knocking me sick. I hit back, weak and blind and
+gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. Abruptly I was dimly
+aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. There
+were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. My
+hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; I shut my eyes stupidly
+and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher
+chopping meat and then something fell upon me.
+
+"I was helped to my knees by the Captain and the butler. On the floor lay
+an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. On
+the wrists were fixed great hoofs. It was the monster. The Captain cut
+something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted
+off the mask, for that is what it was. I saw the face then of the man who
+had worn it. It was Parsket. He had a bad wound across the forehead where
+the Captain's sword had bit through the mask. I looked bewilderedly from
+him to Beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the
+corridor. Then I stared at Parsket again.
+
+"'By Jove!' I said at last, and then I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
+the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
+you know, I had grown so to like him.
+
+"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
+looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
+happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
+corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
+that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
+face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
+terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
+stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
+from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
+the corridor.
+
+"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
+the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
+immediately afterward the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
+coming down the passage toward us.
+
+"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
+Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
+doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
+shouted out:
+
+"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'
+
+"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a _sense_ that there was
+something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:
+
+"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'
+
+"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
+that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
+was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
+the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
+afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
+the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
+in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
+seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
+sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
+halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
+that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
+across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
+extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
+wound in his forehead; and then I noticed that he seemed to be looking at
+something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly
+masterful gaze. But there was really nothing to be seen. And suddenly the
+clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the
+passage. In the same moment Parsket pitched forward out of the doorway
+on to his face.
+
+"There were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two
+footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the
+Captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was
+carrying over his head. The dull tread of the Horse went past him, and
+left him unharmed and I heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and
+away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence.
+
+"Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with
+an extraordinarily grey face.
+
+"I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me. We turned him
+over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can
+imagine what a feeling it sent through me.
+
+"I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said:
+
+"'That--That--That--' and I know that he was trying to tell me that
+Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone
+down the passage. I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very
+steady myself. And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to
+his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child. Then the women
+came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to
+them, whilst I over to Beaumont.
+
+"That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to
+me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.
+
+"Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and
+this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. He was
+doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact I
+think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what
+I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.
+
+"In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket's intention was to
+frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I
+think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. I hate to
+say this, but the facts force me to think so.
+
+"I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont's arm. He knew
+all the details of the so-called 'Horse Legend,' and got the idea to work
+upon the old story for his own end. He evidently had some method of
+slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French
+windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and
+when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet
+and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.
+
+"The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous
+imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that
+the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to
+explain away. But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this
+point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.
+
+"The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by
+Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling
+with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. I proved this by an
+examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.
+
+"The sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made
+also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation
+nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how
+he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. In any case, I
+don't feel perfect certainty on this point. I failed to find any hoof
+marks, as you remember.
+
+"The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on
+the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by
+him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been
+outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.
+This is almost probable. I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it
+had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his
+foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. I cannot
+imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action
+of which I have just told you. He was enormously without fear of any
+kind for himself as you can see.
+
+"The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse
+galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. No one was
+very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage
+the belief.
+
+"The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first
+suspicion into Parsket's mind that there was something more at work than
+his sham haunting. The neighing was done by him in the same way that he
+did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure
+that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which
+frightened the man himself. Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he
+had been getting fanciful. Of course, I must not forget that the effect
+upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.
+
+"Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it
+was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was
+at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve
+his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for
+he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away. I hate to think
+this, but I'm bound to. Anyway, it is obvious that the man was
+temporarily a bit off his normal balance. Love's a queer disease!
+
+"Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the
+butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away
+naturally to clear it. This also gave him the opportunity to remove one
+of the passage lamps. Then he had only to smash the other and the passage
+was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.
+
+"In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took
+the key (it was in his pocket). This prevented the Captain from bringing
+a light and coming to the rescue. But Captain Hisgins broke down the door
+with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded
+so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.
+
+"The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is
+one of the things that I am less sure about. It might have been faked by
+Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy
+enough, to anyone who knew how. But, you know, it does not look like a
+fake. Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as
+against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a
+definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the
+other. It is certainly a horrible photograph.
+
+"And now I come to that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further
+manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary
+uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and
+if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this
+case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact,
+as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be
+cleared up, but I see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last
+and the fear that Parsket showed.
+
+"His death--no, that proves nothing. At the inquest it was described
+somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and
+leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood
+between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity.
+
+"The look on Parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the
+great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the
+sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a
+horrible suspicion. And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous
+danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then
+he did the one fine, great thing!"
+
+"And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?"
+
+Carnacki shook his head.
+
+"God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "If that
+thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which
+would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. Yet I have
+thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get
+you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket had produced what I might term
+a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental
+conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to
+make it clearer in a few words."
+
+"But the old story!" I said. "Why may not there have been something
+in _that_?"
+
+"There may have been something in it," said Carnacki. "But I do not think
+it had anything to do with this. I have not clearly thought out my
+reasons, yet; but later I may be able to tell you why I think so."
+
+"And the marriage? And the cellar--was there anything found there?"
+asked Taylor.
+
+"Yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy,"
+Carnacki told us. "It was the wisest thing to do considering the things
+that I cannot explain. Yes, I had the floor of that big cellar up, for I
+had a feeling I might find something there to give me some light. But
+there was nothing.
+
+"You know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. I shall
+never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting
+sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house."
+
+Carnacki stood up.
+
+"Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+
+And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to
+our homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 5--THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+
+
+It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
+silent in his great chair.
+
+We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which--as you
+know--we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
+now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
+had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
+have hinted.
+
+However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
+memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:--
+
+"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
+have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
+a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
+what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
+
+"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
+outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
+row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
+and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
+smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
+doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
+complete niceness.
+
+"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
+that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
+not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
+
+"And then, something happened.
+
+"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
+that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
+top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
+
+"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
+that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
+room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
+heard me safe up to my room.
+
+"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
+upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
+was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
+should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
+dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
+into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
+momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
+the passage; but it was not until the following night that I _realized_ I
+had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
+that--one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
+consciousness, perhaps a year before.
+
+"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
+she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
+she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
+the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
+must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
+accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
+me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
+but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
+my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
+down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
+properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
+subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
+but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
+
+"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
+I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
+immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
+to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
+made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
+of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
+as I had said.
+
+"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
+to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
+a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
+mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
+understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
+and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
+
+"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
+not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
+believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
+her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
+the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
+over to look at her.
+
+"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
+a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
+and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
+what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
+you must see.
+
+"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
+the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
+strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
+
+"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
+though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
+that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
+_expected really_ to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
+
+"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
+explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
+banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
+about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
+happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
+thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
+
+"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
+not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
+that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
+associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
+talking about. You will understand that I am able _now_ to analyze and
+put the thing into words; but _then_ I did not even know my chief reason
+for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
+
+"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
+into words:--
+
+"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
+looking at me. Then:--'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
+at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
+expectancy.
+
+"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
+been walking about in your sleep.'
+
+"'The smell,' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
+the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
+
+"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
+bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
+underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
+I was more nervous than I would admit.
+
+"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
+bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
+believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
+been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
+fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
+knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
+bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
+difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
+queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
+of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the
+little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
+
+"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
+
+"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
+ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
+could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
+and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
+really were.
+
+"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
+again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
+had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
+felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
+into it; but very human.
+
+"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
+after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
+found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
+with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
+the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
+was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
+
+"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
+twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
+and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
+poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
+really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
+getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations
+seemed futile.
+
+"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
+also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
+made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
+that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
+that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
+I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
+hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
+all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
+inside of us, we did not believe this.
+
+"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
+mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
+get to sleep.
+
+"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
+by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
+heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
+that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
+
+"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
+and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
+open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
+shut off from me.
+
+"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
+one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
+one. 'Who's there?'
+
+"Then I heard my mother saying:--
+
+"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
+
+"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
+hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
+been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
+
+"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
+wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
+knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
+with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
+search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
+will understand.
+
+"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
+because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
+However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
+bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
+the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
+whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
+only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
+beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
+taint of that disgusting odor.
+
+"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
+something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
+my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
+
+"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
+landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
+twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
+from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
+long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
+on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
+peculiar. The landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the
+house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
+and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
+
+"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
+no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
+five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
+so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
+supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
+the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
+night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
+first month's tenancy.
+
+"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
+ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
+seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
+himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
+indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
+
+"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
+with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
+the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
+affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
+getting about.
+
+"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
+thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
+Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
+drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
+sitting up all night.
+
+"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
+nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
+it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
+the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
+we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
+
+"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
+and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
+afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
+
+"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
+as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
+lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
+the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
+was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
+reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
+darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
+violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
+blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
+violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
+Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
+distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
+concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
+which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
+make clear to you; but try to understand it.
+
+"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
+of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
+was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
+the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
+shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
+fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
+and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
+glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
+shown solid.
+
+"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
+heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
+close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
+lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
+darkness, for my warning to come true.
+
+"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
+side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
+belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
+thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
+And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
+what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
+think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
+often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
+from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
+lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
+then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
+known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
+seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
+of Maetheson's, which you know about.
+
+"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
+left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
+landlord shout out:--'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
+disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
+aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
+frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
+saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
+looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
+came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
+the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
+these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
+unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
+violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
+me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
+hoarse sort of cry:--'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
+clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
+showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
+chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
+
+"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
+mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
+the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
+but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
+passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
+saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
+over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
+with sweat.
+
+"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
+his words:--'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
+over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
+voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
+I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
+go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
+stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
+beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
+most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
+so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
+ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
+question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
+seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
+adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
+
+"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. _I_ had
+not seen this Woman. _I_ had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
+Something or Someone. _He_ had not seen the Child, or the other
+things--only the Woman. And _I_ had not seen her. What did it all mean?
+
+"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
+bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
+explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
+the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
+there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
+streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
+mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
+
+"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
+answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
+I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
+
+"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
+Smell! Do _you_ smell it?'
+
+"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I shook
+him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
+shaking lantern at the stair head.
+
+"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
+gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
+alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
+that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
+it makes rags of your courage.
+
+"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
+afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
+and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
+should know which had been opened.
+
+"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
+beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
+had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
+horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
+shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
+courage, I went down the stairs.
+
+"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
+passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
+on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
+soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
+extraordinary horror.
+
+"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
+saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
+closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
+swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
+against me, in his fear.
+
+"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
+put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
+through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
+be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
+yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
+
+"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
+hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
+garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
+fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
+afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
+heard the shot.
+
+"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
+and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
+very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
+path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
+I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
+mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
+for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
+went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
+how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
+door had been opened.
+
+"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
+top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
+which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
+room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
+then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
+one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
+rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
+permeated with the horrible odor.
+
+"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
+room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
+or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
+through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
+oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
+
+"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
+trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
+or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
+each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
+toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
+windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
+by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
+
+"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
+and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
+flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
+looked strange and bewildered.
+
+"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
+
+"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
+the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
+sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
+
+"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
+
+"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
+monotonously.
+
+"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
+his breath.
+
+"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:--'I hope you held the door open
+politely for the lady.'
+
+"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
+
+"'Are you mad--' began Johnstone.
+
+"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
+enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
+his control again.
+
+"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
+than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
+
+"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
+again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
+saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
+cellar door; and the last print showed _under_ the door; yet the
+policeman said the door had not been opened.
+
+"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
+saying, I asked the landlord:--
+
+"'What were the feet like?'
+
+"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
+open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
+order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
+the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
+horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
+
+"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
+steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
+unnatural footprints.
+
+"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
+there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
+inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
+disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
+backed suddenly out of the doorway:
+
+"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
+
+"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
+that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
+shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
+darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
+back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
+for a weapon of some kind.
+
+"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
+hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
+empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
+cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
+and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:--
+
+"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
+
+"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
+
+"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
+and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
+screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
+gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
+heard the landlord.
+
+"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
+his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
+the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
+stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
+from the horror.
+
+"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
+Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
+went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
+thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
+you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
+
+"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
+found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
+erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
+some blind scent.
+
+"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
+the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
+water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
+the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
+about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
+
+"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
+light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
+plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
+the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
+turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
+
+"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
+across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
+belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
+as it were, a menace--the material expression that some monstrous thing
+was there with us, invisible.
+
+"'I think--' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
+stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
+for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
+
+"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
+waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
+same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
+locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
+
+"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
+sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
+and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
+watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
+just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
+and went over to his place for a sleep.
+
+"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
+arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
+relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
+the previous night.
+
+"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
+thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
+them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
+everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
+in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
+piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
+height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
+
+"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
+sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
+and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
+
+"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
+when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
+see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
+rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
+wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
+Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
+or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
+cellar stairs.
+
+"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
+the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
+ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
+like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
+which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
+pitchforks.
+
+"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
+rather white all at once.
+
+"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
+I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
+into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
+it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
+hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
+well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
+hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
+a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
+
+"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
+the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
+table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
+
+"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
+when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
+him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
+to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
+nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
+help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
+that night.
+
+"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
+front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
+carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
+and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
+
+"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
+not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
+arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
+he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
+detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
+appreciated all my precautions.
+
+"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
+pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
+
+"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
+
+"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
+the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
+quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
+which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
+the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
+took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
+which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
+out every lamp.
+
+"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
+lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
+keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
+lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
+
+"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
+able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
+absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
+
+"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
+extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
+night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
+the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
+faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
+hold of it, in readiness.
+
+"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
+in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
+to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
+conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
+but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
+to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
+from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
+again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
+violet night in which it ran.
+
+"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
+it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
+brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
+table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
+to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
+to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
+nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
+our world.
+
+"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
+distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
+sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
+Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
+
+"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
+little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
+There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
+was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
+landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
+to catch my arm:--
+
+"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
+
+"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
+color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
+
+"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
+saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
+straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
+half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
+table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
+fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
+the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
+had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
+something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
+same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
+absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
+eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
+of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
+cotton wool.
+
+"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
+oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
+lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
+another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
+might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
+forces that I was unable to comprehend.
+
+"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
+stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
+light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
+was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
+which I had screwed into the ceiling.
+
+"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
+vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
+remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
+there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
+indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
+glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
+of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
+fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
+collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
+consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
+
+"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
+whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
+attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
+into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
+nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
+
+"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
+as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
+sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
+the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
+nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
+
+"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
+absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
+table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
+of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
+it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
+instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
+
+"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
+There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
+and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
+my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
+do the same.
+
+"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
+from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
+the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
+thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
+leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
+of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
+coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
+felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
+the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
+big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
+rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
+
+"From the detective there came a sudden shout:--
+
+"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
+instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
+
+"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
+followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
+mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
+
+"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
+inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
+their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
+dancing all over the place.
+
+"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
+trying to speak plainly.
+
+"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
+The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
+to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
+had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
+floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
+leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
+ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
+
+"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
+which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
+a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
+been so much water.
+
+"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
+tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
+the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
+Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
+smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
+couple of weeks earlier.
+
+"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
+house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
+bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
+the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
+mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
+of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
+unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
+
+"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
+warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
+had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
+for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
+something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
+get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
+drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
+artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
+rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
+time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
+there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
+with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
+were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
+beach beyond the church.
+
+"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
+my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
+it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
+should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
+hushed up.
+
+"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
+house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
+seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
+the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
+only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
+from the Revenue people.
+
+"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
+mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
+about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
+woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
+he found them.
+
+"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
+an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
+delighted to learn how it had affected us.
+
+"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
+the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
+contributions.
+
+"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
+of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
+was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
+made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
+Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
+thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
+should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
+policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
+landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
+
+"I can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as I might
+say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
+was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
+the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. _I_ saw nothing, until
+I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
+running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
+later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
+was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
+theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
+the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
+the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
+Force present in the house.
+
+"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
+visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
+why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
+
+"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why _you_ didn't
+see the Woman, and why _they_ didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
+same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
+
+"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
+Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
+but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
+
+"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
+child '_still_born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
+but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
+let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
+physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
+possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
+Element--the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
+waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
+Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
+tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
+that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
+forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
+thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
+other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
+thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
+so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
+half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
+incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
+
+"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
+discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
+fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
+there is a Mother Spirit--"
+
+"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
+other side?"
+
+"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
+not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
+and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
+and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
+on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
+the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
+told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
+
+"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
+interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
+house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
+_en rapport_, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
+produced the tragedy?"
+
+"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
+the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
+
+"There may be other houses--" I began.
+
+"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
+
+"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
+five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
+various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 6--THE THING INVISIBLE
+
+
+Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this
+interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
+which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself
+at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki
+had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends
+knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we
+had no knowledge. Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
+only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his
+three other friends--Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor--would receive a card
+or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed, for
+after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down
+into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
+ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would
+begin to talk.
+
+Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found
+Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me
+firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never
+having uttered a word.
+
+For my part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him
+with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
+Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a
+comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
+
+Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I
+have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
+directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express
+it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. A minute
+or so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks,
+and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell:
+
+"I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in
+South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most
+extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
+Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I
+could help to clear matters up a bit. I went.
+
+"When I got there, I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the
+castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is
+popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I
+managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable
+occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always
+content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental.
+
+"It sounds almost laughable, I know, to hear of a long-respected
+supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
+the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth,
+except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming.
+
+"But however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what I might
+term the Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly
+dangerous--deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to
+death one night in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
+
+"It is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the
+Chapel. At least, there has been always a story handed down in the family
+that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into
+the Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this had been taken with
+just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost
+tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly _real_ nature. I mean that
+most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of
+matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an
+opportunity to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I am as big a
+skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to
+meet; only I am what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am not given
+to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as I have
+found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
+to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven
+until I have examined into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
+cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. But the
+hundredth! Well, if it were not for the hundredth, I should have few
+stories to tell you--eh?
+
+"Of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there
+was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and I
+found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really
+strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
+found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some
+invisible thing or monster of the Outer World!
+
+"From considerable experience, I knew that it was much more likely that
+the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human!
+
+"Naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human
+agency, and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the
+people who knew most about the tragedy.
+
+"The result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for
+it left me with very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
+of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of
+a Force from the Outside. In more popular phraseology--a genuine case
+of haunting.
+
+"These are the facts: On the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred
+Jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the Chapel.
+You see, the Rector goes over to officiate twice each Sunday, after
+concluding his duties at the public Church about three miles away.
+
+"At the end of the service in the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his
+son Mr. George Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
+minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went 'round, putting
+out the candles.
+
+"Suddenly, the Rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book
+on the Communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to
+get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
+
+"Now I have particularly called your attention to this because it is
+important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an
+extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector's turning to speak to Bellett
+had naturally caused both Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the
+direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst
+all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed--there,
+full in the candlelight, before their eyes.
+
+"I took the opportunity to call early upon the Rector, after I had
+questioned Mr. George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition
+as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling
+upon the scene as much as possible.
+
+"The Rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
+the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me the whole
+affair--Bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and
+absolutely alone; and then the _blow_, out of the Void, he described it;
+and the _force_ prodigious--the old man being driven headlong into the
+body of the Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector said, his
+benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually
+witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed.
+
+"When I left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when
+I appeared. I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
+sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear old chap, and I should
+certainly like to have heard it.
+
+"The last man I visited was the butler. He was, of course, in a
+frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that
+did not point to there being a Power abroad in the Chapel. He told the
+same tale, in every minute particle, that I had learned from the others.
+He had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the
+Rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the
+left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
+
+"Examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger--of which I
+will tell you more in a moment--that hung always above the altar. The
+weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
+the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the
+blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out
+through the scapula behind.
+
+"The poor old fellow could not talk much, and I soon left him; but what
+he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
+person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as I knew,
+this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses,
+independent of Bellett himself.
+
+"The thing now was to search the Chapel, which is small and extremely
+old. It is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which
+leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, the butler having no duplicate.
+
+"The shape of the Chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the
+usual fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in
+the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the
+chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
+which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
+
+"Above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as I had learned it was
+named. I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which
+describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. I took the
+dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
+inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but
+sharp point, rather peculiar. It is double-edged.
+
+"The metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with
+the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of
+the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a
+cross. That this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
+Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in Latin, is the
+inscription: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay.' A quaint and rather
+terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade of the dagger is graven in
+old English capitals: I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt there is
+carved deeply a Pentacle.
+
+"This is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that
+has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of
+its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike
+murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family who may chance to enter the
+Chapel after nightfall. I may tell you here and now, that before I left,
+I had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for I tested the
+deadliness of the thing myself.
+
+"As you know, however, at this point of my investigation, I was still at
+that stage where I considered the existence of a supernatural Force
+unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the Chapel drastically, sounding
+and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
+foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
+
+"At the end of this search, I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of
+the groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening
+of the third day I had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no
+place in the whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
+hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the
+Chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of
+which was always kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
+himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course, that this doorway is the
+only entrance practicable to material people.
+
+"Yes, as you will see, even had I discovered some other opening, secret
+or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of
+the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. For the butler, as you know,
+was struck in full sight of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
+Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... _'Out of
+the Void,'_ the Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'Out of
+the Void!' A strange feeling it gives one--eh?
+
+"And this is the thing that I had been called in to bottom!
+
+"After considerable thought, I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
+Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the Chapel, and keep a
+constant watch upon the dagger. But to this, the old knight--a little,
+wizened, nervous man--would not listen for a moment. He, at least, I felt
+assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural Force
+a roam at night in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been his habit
+every evening to lock the Chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or
+heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
+that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had
+happened to the butler.
+
+"I could see that Sir Alfred Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would
+evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the
+experiment and any harm come to me; so I said nothing in argument; and
+presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said
+goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite
+but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
+
+"That night, however, whilst I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve
+the thing I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark, without
+making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On the morrow, when I borrowed the
+key, I would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then, with my
+private key, I could do just what I liked.
+
+"In the morning I carried out my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to
+take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When I had done this I
+locked up the Chapel and handed the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having
+first taken an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
+plate--in its slide--with me; but the camera I had left exactly as it
+was, as I wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
+from the same position.
+
+"I took the dark slide into Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the
+impress. The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was something of
+a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if I
+would call in two hours. This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a
+photographer where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him
+I would call next day. At the end of the two hours I went for my key and
+found it ready, much to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
+
+"After dinner that evening, I played billiards with young Jarnock for
+a couple of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went off to my
+room, telling him I was feeling awfully tired. He nodded and told me
+he felt the same way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle as
+soon as possible.
+
+"I locked the door of my room, then from under the bed--where I had
+hidden them earlier in the evening--I drew out several fine pieces of
+plate armor, which I had removed from the armory. There was also a shirt
+of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head.
+
+"I buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily
+uncomfortable, and over all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
+about armor, but from what I have learned since, I must have put on parts
+of two suits. Anyway, I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to
+move my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the thing I was thinking
+of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. Over the armor I
+pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side
+pockets--and my repeating flash-light into the other. My dark lantern I
+carried in my hand.
+
+"As soon as I was ready I went out into the passage and listened. I had
+been some considerable time making my preparations and I found that now
+the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed
+quiet. I stepped back and closed and locked my door. Then, very slowly
+and silently I went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage
+that led to the Chapel.
+
+"I reached the door and tried my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment
+later I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about
+me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of
+the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and
+lonesomeness almost the more apparent.
+
+"Now it would be silly to say I did not feel queer. I felt very queer
+indeed. You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in
+the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to
+the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little
+while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could believe that
+something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I
+had got to go through with the business, and I just took hold of my
+little bit of courage and set to work.
+
+"First of all I switched on my light, then I began a careful tour of the
+place; examining every corner and nook. I found nothing unusual. At the
+chancel gate I held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. It
+hung there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember thinking of the
+word 'demure,' as I looked at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
+what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts.
+
+"I completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness
+of its utter chill and unkind desolation--an atmosphere of cold
+dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable.
+
+"At the conclusion of my search I walked across to where I had left my
+camera focused upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had put beneath
+the tripod I took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing
+the shutter. After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
+apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was an intense, brilliant
+flash, that made the whole of the interior of the Chapel jump into sight,
+and disappear as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern, I inserted
+the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh
+plate ready to expose at any time.
+
+"After I had done this I shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the
+pews near to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
+an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
+horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
+
+"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
+faint chime of a clock that had been erected over the stables. I was
+beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
+furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
+sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
+of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
+And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
+my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
+if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
+then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
+the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
+intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
+imagine how I felt?
+
+"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
+wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
+was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
+if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
+something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
+might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. I sat
+immovable. I was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. I
+could not take my arms down from over my face, but I knew that I was
+getting hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly I made a mighty
+effort and lowered my arms. I held my face up in the darkness. And, I
+tell you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought truly at that
+moment that I was going to die. But I think, just then, by the slow
+revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
+that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of
+the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits,
+for a time.
+
+"Do I make myself clear? You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of
+respect, which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you
+see, I am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. I mean that if
+I had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
+revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much more worthy of
+mention. But, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of
+respect. You follow me, don't you?
+
+"And, you know, nothing touched me, after all! So that, in a little
+while, I had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go
+through with the business without any more funking.
+
+"I daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the
+chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
+cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen. And suddenly the thought
+came that the sound I heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the
+altar. It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
+too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
+understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
+time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
+animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
+possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
+invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
+the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... _of the
+void_. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
+'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
+thoughts were running.
+
+"I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
+me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
+light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
+could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
+light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
+side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
+floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
+thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
+and eternally silent. You know the feeling.
+
+"I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
+pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
+switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
+my constant watch.
+
+"It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
+after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
+grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
+place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal--it had
+given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
+child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
+just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
+of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
+was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
+butler, it had certainly not been visible.
+
+"And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
+and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
+other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
+intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
+in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
+listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
+a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
+moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
+my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
+I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
+of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
+shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
+There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
+just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
+repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
+coming slowly down the aisle.
+
+"Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
+more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
+_stiffened_. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel.
+And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
+it--that I had never heard it.
+
+"Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
+nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
+of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders _ached_, with
+the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
+myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
+might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
+around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
+respite--a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
+impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
+more clearly than this, myself.
+
+"Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
+nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
+normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
+with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
+This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances.
+
+"I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
+when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
+moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
+sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
+_tense_. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
+and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
+desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off.
+If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
+of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
+'creep' busy at my spine....
+
+"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
+soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
+little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
+was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
+booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
+place where my camera stood--a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
+then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
+snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
+conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
+I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
+was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
+great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
+there, but it showed me nothing.
+
+"I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
+sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
+the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
+here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
+was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
+prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
+of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
+of terror and horror. I tell you, that no one who has not been through
+these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical
+pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that
+ghostly fright sets up in the human system. I stood there feeling
+positively ill. But I got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a
+minute, and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin
+man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and
+over my head continually. And the hand that held my revolver sweated so
+much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does not sound very
+heroic, does it?
+
+"I passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to
+the small gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from my lantern
+upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it's all right. Abruptly, it seemed to
+me that there was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
+chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. My suspicion was hideously
+correct. _The dagger had gone._ Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
+above the altar.
+
+"In a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, I pictured the thing
+adrift in the Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
+volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly beyond
+visibility. I turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing
+frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. In the
+same instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and
+hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging
+loudly in the horrible silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
+on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the corner of a pew front,
+and brought me up, half stunned. I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick
+and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the
+moment. I was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as
+to just where I was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling run
+in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. I jumped back,
+staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the
+aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
+hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the font, and reeled back.
+Then I was at the exit. I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for
+the key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the
+keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and
+was into the passage. I slammed the door and leant hard against it,
+gasping, whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock
+the door upon what was in the Chapel. I succeeded, and began to feel my
+way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come to the
+big hall, and so in a little to my room.
+
+"In my room, I sat for a while, until I had steadied down something
+to the normal. After a time I commenced to strip off the armor. I saw
+then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced
+over the breast. And, suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had
+struck for my heart.
+
+"Stripping rapidly, I found that the skin of the breast over the heart
+had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt,
+nothing more. Only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely
+painful. You can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn the
+armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I was not knocked senseless.
+
+"I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking,
+and waiting for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before Sir Alfred
+Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide from him the fact that I had
+managed a duplicate key.
+
+"So soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently
+to show me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly down to
+the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense nerves, I opened the door. The
+chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place--everything seeming
+instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. Can you get the feeling? I
+waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and
+likewise my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun threw an odd
+beam right in through the big, East window, making colored sunshine all
+the length of the Chapel. And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced
+myself to enter.
+
+"I went up the aisle to where I had overthrown my camera in the darkness.
+The legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and I
+expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the
+ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done.
+
+"I replaced the camera in the position from which I had taken the
+previous photography; but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
+flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that
+I had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when I heard those
+strange sounds up in the chancel.
+
+"Having tidied my photographic apparatus, I went to the chancel to
+recover my lantern and revolver, which had both--as you know--been
+knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found the lantern lying,
+hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. My revolver I
+must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there
+in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned into the pew corner.
+It was quite undamaged.
+
+"Having secured these two articles, I walked up to the chancel rail to
+see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
+above the altar. Before, however, I reached the chancel rail, I had a
+slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away
+from where I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the
+polished marble pavement. I wonder whether you will, any of you,
+understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. With a
+sudden, unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot on it, to
+hold it there. Can you understand? Do you? And, you know, I could not
+stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I should
+think. Afterward, when I had done so, however, and handled it a little,
+this feeling passed away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
+made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass. Quite natural,
+though, I assure you! Yet it was a new kind of fear to me. I'm taking no
+notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking about the
+curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear
+that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
+interest you?
+
+"I examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands
+and never--as I suddenly discovered--holding it loosely. It was as if I
+were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even
+this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. The curious weapon
+showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color--of the blade was
+slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
+
+"Presently, when I had made an end of staring at the dagger, I went up
+the chancel step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling upon the
+altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail
+again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable
+because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. I
+suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, I had an unreasoned
+and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of
+danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when
+it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don't think this is a very good
+explanation, when I remember the _demure_ look the thing seemed to have
+when I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only I know this, that
+when I had replaced the dagger I had quite a touch of nerves and I
+stopped only to pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst I
+examined the weapon, after which I went down the quiet aisle at a pretty
+quick walk, and so got out of the place.
+
+"That the nerve tension had been considerable, I realized, when I had
+locked the door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think of old Sir
+Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming
+precautions regarding the Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
+might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the
+dagger had been concerned.
+
+"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
+awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
+sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
+
+"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
+walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
+reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
+photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
+until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
+his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
+dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.
+
+"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
+used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
+develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
+into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
+camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
+lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
+been, as it were, under observation.
+
+"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
+that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
+direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
+this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results--nothing more
+than a vague hope that it might show me something.
+
+"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
+absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
+developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
+part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
+the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
+almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
+lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
+me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.
+
+"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
+make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
+represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
+they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
+shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
+be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
+the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me.
+
+"I carried development a little further, then put the negative into the
+hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. This came up nicely, and
+very soon I had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every
+respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
+taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate, then having washed both
+it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them
+into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which I carried them
+into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven.
+
+"Whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and I made an
+enlargement from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then we did the
+same with the two that I had just developed, washing them as quickly as
+possible, for I was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
+drying them with spirits.
+
+"When this was done I took them to the window and made a thorough
+examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy
+daggers in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged, I was still
+unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything
+abnormal; and because of this, I put it on one side, determined not to
+let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of
+the indefinite outlines.
+
+"I took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will
+remember, and commenced to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
+without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they
+portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw something in which they varied. In
+the second enlargement--the one made from the flashlight negative--the
+dagger was not in its sheath. Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few
+minutes before I took the photograph.
+
+"After this discovery I began to compare the two enlargements in a very
+different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers
+from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and
+exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs.
+
+"Suddenly I came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement.
+I threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through
+the shop into the street. The three enlargements I took with me, making
+them into a roll as I went. At the corner of the street I had the luck to
+get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
+
+"I hurried up to my room and put the photographs away; then I went down to
+see whether I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock, who
+met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer
+that no one entered the Chapel unless he were about.
+
+"Young Jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking
+that Sir Alfred Jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
+but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for
+his carefulness had been justified. He added, also, that even before the
+horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular,
+always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except
+when the place was in use for Divine Service, and for an hour each
+forenoon when the cleaners were in.
+
+"To all this I nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young
+man left me I took my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
+I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried out some
+intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. These proved
+successful to such an extent that I came out of the place in a perfect
+fever of excitement. I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
+he was in the morning room.
+
+"'Come along,' I said, when I had found him. 'Please give me a lift. I've
+something exceedingly strange to show you.'
+
+"He was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. As we strode along
+he asked me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook my head,
+asking him to wait a little.
+
+"I led the way to the Armory. Here I suggested that he should take one
+side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the other.
+He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried
+the thing to the Chapel door. When he saw me take out my key and open
+the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in,
+evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered the Chapel and I locked
+the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle
+to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round,
+wooden stand.
+
+"'Stand back!' I shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
+open the gate. 'My God, man! you mustn't do that!'
+
+"Do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words
+and manner.
+
+"One minute," I said. "Just stand to the side a moment, and watch."
+
+He stepped to the left whilst I took the dummy in my arms and turned it
+to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
+well away on the right side, I pressed the back of the thing so that it
+leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. In the same
+instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the
+aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor.
+
+"Good God!" shouted young Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail,
+his face very white.
+
+"Come and look at the thing," I said, and led the way to where the dummy
+lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. I
+stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel
+breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.'
+
+"Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The
+thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!"
+
+"Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of
+the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never
+budged an inch.
+
+"Come and see how it was done," I said, and led the way back to the
+chancel rail. From the wall to the left of the altar I took down a long,
+curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. The
+sharp end of this I inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
+chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor
+upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom.
+Down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. As I bent
+the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the
+floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to
+enclose the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove the post down
+into the niche. Immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch
+snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring.
+
+I went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to
+wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and
+placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted
+loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave
+another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom
+of the cavity, catching there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
+and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and
+looking no different from the surrounding surface.
+
+Then I shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. I
+took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
+opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the
+air, striking the bottom wall of the Chapel. It was the dagger. I
+showed Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back
+into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the
+right-hand side of the gate.
+
+"There!" I said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post.
+"There's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is
+the person who sets the trap?" I looked at him keenly as I spoke.
+
+"My father is the only one who has a key," he said. "So it's practically
+impossible for anyone to get in and meddle."
+
+I looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out
+to any conclusion.
+
+"See here, Mr. Jarnock," I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have
+done, considering what I had to say. "Are you quite sure that Sir Alfred
+is quite balanced--mentally?"
+
+"He looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. I realized
+then how badly I put it.
+
+"'I--I don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent,
+except for one or two incoherent half remarks.
+
+"'Tell the truth,' I said. 'Haven't you suspected something, now and
+again? You needn't be afraid to tell me.'
+
+"'Well,' he answered slowly, 'I'll admit I've thought Father a little--a
+little strange, perhaps, at times. But I've always tried to think I was
+mistaken. I've always hoped no one else would see it. You see, I'm very
+fond of the old guvnor.'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'Quite right, too,' I said. 'There's not the least need to make any kind
+of scandal about this. We must do something, though, but in a quiet way.
+No fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with your father, and tell
+him we've found out about this thing.' I touched the divided post.
+
+"Young Jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my
+hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel. He came
+back in about an hour, looking rather upset. He told me that my
+conclusions were perfectly correct. It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set
+the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the
+past night. Indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every
+night for many years. He had learnt of its existence from an old
+manuscript book in the Castle library. It had been planned and used in an
+earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which
+were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
+
+"This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his
+wife's jewelry. She had died some twelve years back, and the young man
+told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since.
+
+"I mentioned to young Jarnock how puzzled I was that the trap had been
+set _before_ the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for,
+if I understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting
+the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone
+entered the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit of temporary
+forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set
+it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
+
+"That is about all there is to tell. The old man is not (so far as I
+could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word.
+He is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the
+whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
+on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to
+overmuch of his own company and thoughts. Indeed, young Jarnock told me
+that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the
+Chapel." Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill.
+
+"But you've never told us just _how_ you discovered the secret of the
+divided post and all that," I said, speaking for the four of us.
+
+"Oh, that!" replied Carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "I
+found--on comparing the--photos, that the one--taken in the--daytime,
+showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the
+flashlight. That put me on to the track. I saw at once that there might
+be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and
+nothing at all of an abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
+was simple enough, you know.
+
+"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may
+be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' Young
+Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my
+adventure."
+
+He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before
+the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
+
+"Jarnock and I made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a
+few moments. "I've got the dagger, as you see, and old Bellett's getting
+about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. All
+the same I fancy the Chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous
+place. Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in."
+
+"There's two things you haven't explained yet," I said. "What do you
+think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the Chapel in the
+dark? And do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a
+fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?"
+
+"Don't know for certain about the clangs," replied Carnacki.
+
+"I've puzzled quite a bit about them. I can only think that the spring
+which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in
+the catch. If it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a
+ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the
+night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' You can understand that--eh?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed. "And the other sounds?"
+
+"Well, the same thing--I mean the extraordinary quietness--may help to
+explain these a bit. They may have been some usual enough sound that
+would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have
+been only fancy. It is just impossible to say. They were disgustingly
+real to me. As for the slithery noise, I am pretty sure that one of the
+tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it
+may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would
+account for that queer little tap which I heard directly after."
+
+"How do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar
+when you first examined it that night?" I asked. "How could it be there,
+when at that very moment it was set in the trap?"
+
+"That was my mistake," replied Carnacki. "The dagger could not possibly
+have been in its sheath at the time, though I thought it was. You see,
+the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete
+weapon, as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger protrudes very
+little above the continued portion of the sheath--a most inconvenient
+arrangement for drawing quickly!" He nodded sagely at the lot of us and
+yawned, then glanced at the clock.
+
+"Out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+"I want a sleep."
+
+We rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and
+the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope Hodgson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10832 ***
diff --git a/10832-h/10832-h.htm b/10832-h/10832-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..939a1d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10832-h/10832-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,5974 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+    content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
+<title>
+    Carnacki, the Ghost Finder,
+    by William Hope Hodgson
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+		body { text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent:   1em;
+		    margin: 5%;
+        margin-top:    .75em;
+        margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+		hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    hr.full { width: 100%; }
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+		.play { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: justify; font-size: 100%; }
+		img {border: 0;}
+		blockquote {font-size: 90%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;}
+		.pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 1%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: left;
+                color: gray;
+              } /* page numbers */
+		.figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 1%;}
+		.mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em;
+                margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+		.toc       { margin-left: 5%; margin-bottom: .75em; font-size: 110%;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 5%;}
+		.indent    {font-style: italic; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    -->
+</style>
+
+</head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10832 ***</div>
+
+<div style="height: 8em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h1>
+    CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER
+</h1><br>
+<h2>
+By William Hope Hodgson
+</h2>
+<center>
+1910, 1912
+</center>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<p class="toc"><big><b>CONTENTS</b></big></p><br />
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0001">
+No. 1&mdash;THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0002">
+No. 2&mdash;THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0003">
+No. 3&mdash;THE WHISTLING ROOM
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0004">
+No. 4&mdash;THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0005">
+No. 5&mdash;THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0006">
+No. 6&mdash;THE THING INVISIBLE
+</a></p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<a name="2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 1&mdash;THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and
+listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the
+three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there
+before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I
+were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my
+soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to
+skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he
+would not stint words.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject,
+remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he
+gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely
+good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably
+down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with
+very little circumlocution:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and
+for a very good reason too&mdash;I've only been away a short distance. The
+exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than
+twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't
+spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary
+things ever I have run against.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson,
+asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found
+that he wished me to investigate and see whether I could not clear up a
+long-standing and well&mdash;too well&mdash;authenticated case of what he termed
+'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
+seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
+very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had
+left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
+and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
+butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
+thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
+old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
+detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
+Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
+door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
+slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
+key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
+always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
+and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
+with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
+after time&mdash;thud! thud! thud!&mdash;so that sleep was impossible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
+over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it&mdash;an
+ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
+very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
+feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
+dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
+me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
+one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
+fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
+and then he could accompany me himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
+explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
+affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
+But he shook his head when I said that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful
+pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.
+He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently
+in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my
+examination until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told
+him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn
+manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have
+the 'creeps' right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well
+furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with
+its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and
+two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and
+after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind
+you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had taken a good look 'round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon
+across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the
+fireplace and the wall closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler
+stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter;
+though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here
+and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say:&mdash;'You'll
+excuse me, I'm sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair
+in a quake for you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what
+he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all
+alone there. He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize
+the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a
+pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I
+should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother
+me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on
+my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it
+any nastier.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and
+sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were
+anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of
+playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had
+anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken
+off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had
+practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to
+the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when
+the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came
+sharp and frightened:&mdash;'Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to
+happen!' Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the
+candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind,
+or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to
+make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before
+I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing
+there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein'
+brave, y'know.' So I just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles
+off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I
+saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to
+those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door,
+the old man called again:&mdash;'Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'All right, Peter,' I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as
+I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work not to
+start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine.
+Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the
+room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little.
+I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of
+instinctive way. 'Collar the candles, Peter!' I said, pretty sharply,
+and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and
+slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so,
+I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only
+fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the
+door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I
+put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I
+pocketed the key, and went downstairs&mdash;with Peter; who was nervous and
+silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until
+that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the
+last two or three hours.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor
+upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between
+it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can
+understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to
+undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and
+sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I
+should know just which one.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked
+suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage.
+I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I
+was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door
+being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got
+my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding
+my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing
+happened. I could not go a step toward the Grey Room. You all know I am
+not really a cowardly chap. I've gone into too many cases connected with
+ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply
+funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy
+in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked
+the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal
+thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all
+the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not
+slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt
+ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're
+meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes.
+And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight.
+Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it
+is something warning you, and fighting <i>for</i> you. But, all the same, I
+always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver
+handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the
+stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old
+butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt
+into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Hullo, Peter!' I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as
+any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'Where are you off
+to with the refreshments?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up
+at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up
+the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'I'm very thankful
+indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'I feared, one time, you
+might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I've lain awake all night, with
+the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I'd make you a
+cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it
+seems safer if there's two, sir.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Peter,' I said, 'you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.' And I
+drank the coffee. 'Come along,' I told him, and handed him back the tray.
+'I'm going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply
+hadn't the pluck to in the night.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'Flesh and blood can do nothing,
+sir, against devils; and that's what's in the Grey Room after dark.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them
+right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the
+card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the
+door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole
+room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light.
+I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old
+butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:&mdash;'The
+bedclothes, sir!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in
+the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I
+felt. Something <i>had</i> been in the room. I stared for a while, from the
+bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to
+touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He
+went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as,
+doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped
+him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This,
+I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up
+the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was
+getting on my nerves.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own
+man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of
+the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed&mdash;even
+the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with
+probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I
+can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible
+thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up
+everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my
+camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a
+string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if
+the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there
+would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The
+last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I
+went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight;
+and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my
+candle burning.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and
+slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my
+door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it
+would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty
+feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so
+that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark
+passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my
+revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where I knew my
+camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when,
+suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately
+conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and
+my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of
+the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight.
+There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the
+corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint
+glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with
+the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped
+forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door
+of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
+corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
+horrible&mdash;as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
+stare, and how I listened. And then it came again&mdash;thud, thud, thud, and
+then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
+kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
+corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a
+yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
+thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I <i>thought</i> I
+heard a sound in the passage, and quite <i>near</i> me. I made one backward
+spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed,
+and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
+abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
+of that door. For some unknown reason I <i>knew</i> it was pressed up against
+the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
+extraordinary thing to think.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
+hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it
+almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of
+the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a
+miserable, brutal night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to
+an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
+corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you,
+it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
+been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
+room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had
+been sitting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
+coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we
+went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
+untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was
+the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
+keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
+unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
+the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
+left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very
+queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that
+not one had been broken.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me,
+nodding his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
+enter, without proper protection.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
+of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
+certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
+to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
+Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
+the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat
+which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward the
+bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, 'Yes,
+sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which
+was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me
+and himself, if he had known what I intended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried
+back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work,
+for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried
+the cat&mdash;still fastened in its basket&mdash;over toward the far wall, and left
+it. I returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
+twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a 'broom of hyssop.'
+About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the
+circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right
+around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among
+my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the
+parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in
+the little jar, I went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor,
+just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can
+tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle'
+complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and
+placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each Crescent. After that, I
+drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star
+touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five
+portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,'
+five opened jars of the water I had used to make the 'water circle.' And
+now I had my first protective barrier complete.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of
+investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish
+superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I
+believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst
+Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea
+from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th
+century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of
+the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it
+occurred to me to test his 'Defense,' which I did, as I've just said, in
+that horrible Black Veil business. You know how <i>that</i> turned out. Later,
+I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that
+Moving Fur case. It was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and I nearly
+died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's
+'Experiments with a Medium.' When they surrounded the Medium with a
+current, in vacuum, he lost his power&mdash;almost as if it cut him off from
+the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make
+the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'Defense' against
+certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this
+protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is
+some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a
+Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I
+never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap
+laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a
+supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the
+danger is abominable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of
+its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales'
+of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery,
+and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum
+tubes shone out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and
+realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and
+unfriendly. Then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier
+of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of
+weirdness thrust upon me&mdash;in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of
+something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised
+garlic, a smell I hate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in
+order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought
+that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialization of an
+ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can
+say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel
+the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized
+monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never
+forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me,
+and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt
+that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with
+the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly,
+and then all 'round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to
+come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over
+me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly
+feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself 'round with
+a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It
+seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed&mdash;the
+place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I
+could see nothing unusual; no opening&mdash;nothing!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that
+unnatural wind.... I believe I just squatted there and stared in a
+horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able
+to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile,
+cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the
+outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room,
+and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me;
+and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the
+left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward,
+unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius
+glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I
+stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight&mdash;a moving shadow, a
+little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the
+vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side,
+with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was
+directed to the bed. All the covering's were being drawn steadily off,
+with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging
+slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.
+I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the
+'creep' had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been
+for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating
+coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my
+right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze
+or my attention from those moving clothes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense
+silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet,
+immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being
+dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the
+camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed.
+And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were
+torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as
+they were hurled into the corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of
+minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been
+thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of
+the thing that had just been done before me!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise&mdash;a sort of crickling
+sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill
+swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head;
+for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was
+there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was
+impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination
+supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... And
+then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered
+there among the shadows.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I
+reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was
+slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of
+hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a
+power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were 'out.' Can
+you understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"The door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the
+basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all
+along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether
+whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose
+suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then&mdash;too late&mdash;I
+snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had
+been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half
+in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of
+the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had
+power to destroy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable
+quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the
+time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be
+pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most
+horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to
+see whether anything was coming at me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and
+abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the 'water circle.'
+It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of
+a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It
+passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but
+only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living
+person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round I turned. Then, just
+opposite to one of the Vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as
+though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the
+glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to
+gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign
+determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees,
+and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild
+endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was
+grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing
+came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water
+circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then,
+just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by
+some mighty, invisible force.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It must have been some moments before I realized that I was safe; and
+then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling
+horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but
+the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that
+the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the
+monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the
+pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the
+thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale'
+had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways'
+unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had
+found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. And I began to hope
+again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so
+nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the
+'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a
+Force. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I
+saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the
+door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the
+dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows
+against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with
+tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart
+at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from
+it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where&mdash;for a
+wickedly careless moment&mdash;I had placed it. The monster was hurled off
+from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though&mdash;owing to my inconceivable
+foolishness&mdash;it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer
+barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved
+right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making
+myself as small and compact as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two
+'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I
+being <i>influenced</i> to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me?
+The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I
+stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some
+was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright
+and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I
+did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the
+shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it
+approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether
+enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which
+it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if
+some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only
+upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a
+strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this
+more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was
+simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I
+can put it no other way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more
+fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded
+myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my
+own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense
+that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear
+that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the
+Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that
+ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at
+me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I
+heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the
+horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left
+of the bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural
+wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The
+dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and
+made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it
+was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave
+the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in
+the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look
+'round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy
+fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on
+the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the
+coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I
+had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly, and after
+I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I
+switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my
+hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not
+want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful
+search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several
+holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with
+my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on
+metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the
+second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window.
+I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The
+curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon;
+that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without
+the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. It was free
+from all chasing or engraving.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure
+I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which,
+indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the
+history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son
+through generations, and always&mdash;in obedience to some ancient family
+tradition&mdash;each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I
+may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar
+circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson's, made a
+bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did
+so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the
+bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem,
+thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken
+anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night
+in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no
+one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had
+been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most
+extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you
+can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.
+Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway&mdash;You see what I mean? A sort
+of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was
+not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come
+from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it.
+Then the shape&mdash;the inside of a pentacle. It had no 'mounts,' and without
+mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it:&mdash;'Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills
+of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to
+fayvor the Evill Thynge.' You see, the very shape of the ring was
+significant; and I determined to test it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh <i>and around</i> the one
+to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left
+the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier'
+must be used a second time. I returned about seven thirty, and as soon as
+the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I
+dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before.
+When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and
+sealed the door. I went to the place in the center of the room where all
+the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct
+a barrier about me and the ring.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned
+that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were
+enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it
+loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression
+as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab
+from the Normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed
+about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
+that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
+effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
+strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
+You will see whether I was right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
+of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
+once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
+quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
+a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
+happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
+queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
+come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
+The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
+me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
+I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
+Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
+queer about the ring&mdash;funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
+at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
+up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
+seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
+Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
+convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
+was forming <i>within</i> the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
+brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
+through&mdash;pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
+mouth of a pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.
+Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to
+hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible,
+living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet,
+in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal
+force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came
+at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I
+gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning
+candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and
+ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that
+was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The hand was plunging toward me;
+yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring
+was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass
+out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were
+chains riveted upon it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken
+with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned,
+I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked
+it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could
+hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get
+the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or
+two, and so I got steadied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee.
+When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along
+with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and
+peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and
+behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And
+there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying
+demure and ordinary.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never
+managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the
+afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two
+cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey
+Room, and there, in the center of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the
+little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck,' but
+now the 'bane,' of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid
+splash of hot metal."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue
+paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of
+greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?" I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to
+the others. "Did that stop the haunting?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room,
+before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but
+by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and
+ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "Out you go!" he said,
+genially. And presently we went, pondering, to our various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 2&mdash;THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+</h2>
+<p>
+"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as
+after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy
+dining room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just got back from the West of Ireland," he continued.
+"Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy,
+in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside
+of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has
+been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the
+case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession, he found the
+place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I
+know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the
+big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable
+feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the
+natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long
+uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village,
+meaning to see the one-time Agent of the Estate, and arrange for someone
+to go in as caretaker. The Agent, who proved by the way to be a
+Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the Estate once
+more; but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as
+caretaker; and that his&mdash;the Agent's&mdash;advice was to have the house pulled
+down, and a new one built.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the
+village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems
+that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in
+the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven
+years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they
+had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and
+had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free
+lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the
+method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been
+found in the great entrance hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he
+told the Agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the
+haunting, by staying a night or two in the Manor himself. The death of
+the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural
+agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents, spread over a
+large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural
+enough in a little place like Korunton. Tramps had to die some time, and
+in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds
+who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity
+to die under shelter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the Agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the
+landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his
+'sowl's sake,' Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because
+of his 'life's sake,' the Scotchman was equally in earnest.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me, it was warm
+and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking
+seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his
+mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that
+very night, in the Manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them
+that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered
+to come up along with him, and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was
+quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion; and though Tabbit, the
+Agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems that Wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when
+the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing
+to tackle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this
+time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him, and
+a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would
+not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at
+sight.' And then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered
+the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great
+bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company.
+Wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his
+head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for
+him to get away from the castle. For it was obvious that he did not
+consider the gun would prove of any use.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. He told me that, already,
+he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would
+go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of
+men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were
+keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the Manor, and
+then went right over the whole place with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk;
+and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt
+ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that,
+by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back
+with them. And then, abruptly, an idea came to him. He suggested that
+they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. For a
+time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but
+finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that
+they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen
+bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles.
+Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place,
+light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and
+make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got them to agree.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey
+was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, Dennis was
+doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible
+man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. You
+see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter
+reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther
+pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to
+shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the
+bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all
+the gold in the worrld was offered ye.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back
+in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to
+patch up, an' he invited thim&mdash;the O'Haras they was&mdash;siventy av thim. An'
+he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to
+shlape with him. Thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered
+thim wan an' all as they slep'. 'Tis from me father's grandfather ye have
+the sthory. An' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the
+night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'Twill put out candle
+an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the Virgin Herself would be powerless
+to protect ye.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put
+it:&mdash;'One always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you
+feel inside.' He asked old Dennis whether he expected him to believe it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes, sorr,' said Dennis, 'I do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please God,
+if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' The man's serious
+simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand. But, for all
+that, he went; and I must admire his pluck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the Manor&mdash;or
+castle as the villagers always call it&mdash;they were not long in getting a
+big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. They had
+all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot
+to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, Wentworth had his
+gun. He kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them
+sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to
+make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. If you once let a
+crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to
+fancy things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which
+shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so
+this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a
+jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. He had opened a second lot
+of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the
+men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. And
+then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous
+main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible
+hand, and shut with a sharp click.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the
+men, and looked 'round at them. Several had ceased their talk, and were
+staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had
+never noticed, and were talking and yarning. He reached for his gun, and
+the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking,
+which drew the attention of the whole company.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hall I should tell you is oblong. The south wall is all windows; but
+the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the
+west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading
+into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
+north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
+suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
+passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
+and for a minute there was an absolute silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
+the doorway.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
+came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
+report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
+moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
+into the black shapes of the empty doorways.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
+was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
+frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
+happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
+and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
+candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
+together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
+ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
+on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
+with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
+near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:&mdash;'The
+bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
+same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
+of:&mdash;'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
+candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
+let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
+with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
+rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
+dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
+in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
+one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
+connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
+and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
+Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
+me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house.
+The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
+growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
+look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
+even by daylight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
+sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
+one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
+with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
+whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
+some force exceedingly dangerous to life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
+examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
+drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
+candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
+general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
+examination of every square foot of the place&mdash;not only of the hall, in
+this case, but of the whole interior of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
+kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
+have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
+stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
+perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
+whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
+shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
+after dusk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
+hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
+attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing.
+However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
+persuade him to be present.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
+arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
+policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
+and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
+good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
+donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
+boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
+the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
+all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
+doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
+to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
+influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
+and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
+lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
+took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
+entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
+dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
+figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
+with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
+more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
+doors make the angle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
+of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
+into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
+open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
+the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
+each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
+then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
+the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
+took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:&mdash;'Theyre must
+noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
+in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth
+were tremendously interested, and I took the opportunity to warn them
+that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a
+definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human
+thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that, as they
+valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must
+on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I
+was making.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had drawn the circle, I took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged
+it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. When this was
+complete, I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the
+police to lighting them, and as they were lit, I took them, and sealed
+them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart.
+As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took
+sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and I need hardly say that
+every number and measurement has a significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, from candle to candle I took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it
+alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was
+completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into
+the wax of the sixty-sixth candle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It had now been dark some time, and I made haste to get the 'Defense'
+complete. To this end, I got the men well together, and began to fit the
+Electric Pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the
+Defensive Star came just within the Hair Circle. This did not take me
+long, and a minute later I had connected up the batteries, and the weak
+blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. I felt
+happier then; for this Pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful
+'Defense.' I have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading
+Professor Garder's 'Experiments with a Medium.' He found that a current,
+of a certain number of vibrations, <i>in vacuo,</i> 'insulated' the medium. It
+is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are
+really interested you should read Carder's lecture on 'Astral Vibrations
+Compared with Matero-involuted Vibrations below the Six-Billion Limit.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I stood up from my work, I could hear outside in the night a constant
+drip from the laurels, which as I have said, come right up around the
+house, very thick. By the sound, I knew that a 'soft' rain had set in;
+and there was absolutely no wind, as I could tell by the steady flames of
+the candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my
+arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. By his tone, I
+could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all;
+and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid
+they were beginning to get shaky.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center;
+so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating
+outward. Then, by compass, I laid their legs to the eight chief points,
+and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to
+their feet, I made the Eight Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual. The eighth
+place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment;
+for I had omitted to make the Sealing Sign to that point, until I had
+finished all my preparations, and could enter the Inner Star.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big
+hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. The fire
+was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt
+steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went 'round
+the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever
+happened; but to trust to the 'Defense'; and to let nothing tempt or
+drive them to cross the Barriers. Also, I told them to watch their
+movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. For the rest,
+there was to be no shooting, unless I gave the word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now at last, I went to my place, and, sitting down, made the Eighth
+sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy,
+and examined my revolver.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth sat behind the First Sign, and as the numbering went 'round
+reversed, that put him next to me on my left. I asked him, in a low
+voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt
+confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the
+matter, whatever happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We settled down to wait. There was no talking, except that, once or
+twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks
+concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense
+silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and
+only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great
+entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our
+legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the
+Pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of
+lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty
+hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone
+before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest
+mass of flame. And the feeling of mystery! Can you picture it all?
+</p>
+<p>
+"It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was
+aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the
+air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with
+us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to
+happen any moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and I
+felt the star of men move suddenly. 'Steady! Keep steady!' I shouted, and
+they quietened. I looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon
+their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great
+entrance. I turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned
+their heads to look. Suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and
+I glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the
+big doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be
+listening. In the same instant, I heard a faint chink of metal to my
+left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It
+moved, even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A
+queer, sickening thrill went through me, and I felt all the men about me,
+stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something
+impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but
+overwhelming, Presence. The hall was full of a queer silence, and not a
+sound came from the dogs. <i>Then I saw the hook slowly raised from out of
+its hasp, without any visible thing touching it.</i> Then a sudden power of
+movement came to me. I raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and
+snapped it at the door. There came the great blare of the flashlight, and
+a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some
+moments, and in that time of darkness, I heard a jingle in the direction
+of the door, and strained to look. The effect of the bright light passed,
+and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly
+closed. It shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence,
+broken only by the whimpering of the dogs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Just as it did before,' he whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Most extraordinary,' I said, and he nodded and looked 'round,
+nervously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling
+rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think
+that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is
+extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than
+most people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low
+voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, <i>whatever happened</i>; not even
+though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
+them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
+Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
+Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
+kept to our order within the Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
+the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
+from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
+their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
+sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
+out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
+before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
+Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
+with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
+actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
+of the hall in general.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
+flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
+smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
+the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
+quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
+as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
+room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
+hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
+now over in the corners.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
+visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
+impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
+way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
+watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
+from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
+the Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
+to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
+in the hall: The steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible.
+The <i>extent</i> of the Power to affect the Material was horrible. The
+extent of the Power to affect the Material was now the one constant,
+anxious questioning in my brain. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were
+getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
+quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
+within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
+once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
+state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
+known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
+would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
+'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
+of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
+company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
+yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
+him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
+room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
+glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
+again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
+candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
+seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
+weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
+solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
+felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
+normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I
+began, however, to feel better, after a while; but I simply had not the
+pluck to move. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
+flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
+once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
+a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
+eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
+police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
+there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
+the sealing-wax. <i>The sealed doors were opening.</i> I raised the camera and
+flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
+me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
+felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
+if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
+brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
+floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
+a sense of a very real and present danger&mdash;<i>imminent.</i> The 'blood-drip'
+had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
+save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an
+increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the Barriers. I
+saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing
+intertwining tubes of the Electric Pentacle; but, strangely enough, I
+could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise
+of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the
+boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of
+agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an
+immediate silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's
+neck, you will know the sound&mdash;in miniature! Like lightning, the thought
+sprang into my brain:&mdash;<i>IT has crossed the Pentacle.</i> For you will
+remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly,
+with a sick apprehension, of our own Barriers. There was something in the
+hall with us that had passed the Barrier of the Pentacle about one of the
+dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And
+suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman,
+and bolted for the door. He fumbled, and had it open in a moment. I
+yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and I
+heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped
+on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter
+darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the
+powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the
+useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the
+night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men were a little ahead of me, and I never ceased running, and
+neither did they. Sometimes, I glanced back over my shoulder; and I kept
+glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly
+things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though
+something were keeping parallel with me, among them. The rain had
+stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It
+was disgusting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside, and
+ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up, waiting for us,
+and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known
+in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all;
+which is not a bad rendering of his remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fortunately, I had brought my camera away from the house&mdash;possibly
+because the strap had happened to be over my head. Yet, I did not go
+straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we
+talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole
+horrible business.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, however, I went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography.
+I was steadier now, and it was just possible, so I hoped, that the
+negatives might show something.
+</p>
+<p>
+"On two of the plates, I found nothing unusual: but on the third, which
+was the first one that I snapped, I saw something that made me quite
+excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then I put
+it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and I had made
+up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without
+losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and
+the police, until I was certain; and, also, I believed that I stood a
+greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, I do not
+suppose anything would have taken them up to the Manor again that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. The
+rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When
+I came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going
+through, and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the
+drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels.
+You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled, I jumped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a
+little window which I had taken note of during my search; for, of course,
+I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the
+kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, I went to the
+left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the
+doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. I looked up it, and saw a
+faint flicker of light away at the end; and I tiptoed silently toward it,
+holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door, I heard men's
+voices, and then a burst of laughing. I went on, until I could see into
+the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well
+dressed, and one, at least, I saw was armed. They were examining my
+'Barriers' against the Supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter.
+I never felt such a fool in my life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the
+empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now
+that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the
+traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping
+so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were, I mean
+whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, I could not imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, they left the Pentacle, and gathered 'round the living
+boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged.
+There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but
+finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of
+them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of
+the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. Then a
+third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. The two men
+with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that I could not see what was
+done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there
+was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, I had heard earlier
+in the night, as you will remember.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you
+may suppose. For my part, I fully appreciated the calculated
+remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold
+determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. I
+guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular
+men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should
+'shift the wires.' One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor
+in which I stood, and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper
+end. I saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door,
+and I heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he had gone, I ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after
+another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble
+steps being raised. When the last man had vanished, the slab that made
+the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. It
+was the seventh step from the bottom, as I took care to count: and a
+splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a
+fairly heavy hammer, as I found later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and
+quietly as possible, and back to the inn. The police came without any
+coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. We
+entered the park and the Manor in the same way that I had done. Yet, when
+we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. This
+must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room
+which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness
+of the walls, we found no one.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my
+part, I did not care either way. I had 'laid the ghost,' as you might
+say, and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of
+being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken
+in'; and in the end, I had scored, without their help.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an
+exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well,
+out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a
+little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The 'blood-drip' was
+merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the
+ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out, I do not
+know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which
+held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' Perhaps it was too
+difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which
+might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may
+possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but
+how suspended, I have no idea.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. There was also, did I
+tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered
+the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall, I
+should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned
+them had I gone in through the gateway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was on the negative?" I asked, with much curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook
+that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the
+crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for
+lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone would make
+use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine
+to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight
+'picked it out.' Do you see?
+</p>
+<p>
+"The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have
+guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else I should soon have found
+them, when I made my search.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed, of
+course, by the men direct. You see, they made the place as dark as
+possible, first. Of course, if I had managed to take a flashlight just at
+that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed.
+But Fate just ordered it the other way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the tramps?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the Manor," said
+Carnacki. "Well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the
+other. Perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a
+hypodermic. Or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of
+their dying, and just died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many
+tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. We rose also, and went for
+our coats and hats.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" said Carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. And
+we went out on to the Embankment, and presently through the darkness to
+our various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 3&mdash;THE WHISTLING ROOM
+</h2>
+<p>
+Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
+the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us&mdash;Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and myself&mdash;in to dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
+silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
+usual positions, and Carnacki&mdash;having got himself comfortable in his big
+chair&mdash;began without any preliminary:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
+chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
+the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
+this, though, at the beginning&mdash;up to the present moment, I have been
+utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
+peculiar cases of 'haunting'&mdash;or devilment of some sort&mdash;that I have come
+against. Now listen.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
+miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
+Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
+only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
+drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
+I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
+American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
+all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
+they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
+about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
+different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
+Case was very queer, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
+shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
+haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
+on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
+not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
+replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
+infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
+playing a trick on me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
+playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
+in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
+wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
+so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
+There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
+years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
+against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
+all this affects the room?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
+out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
+her&mdash;one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
+she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
+must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
+were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
+found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
+this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
+market again, after a trial.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
+after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
+twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
+talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
+Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
+were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
+something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
+others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
+guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
+mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
+castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
+been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
+frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
+had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
+for the talk up at Arlestrae&mdash;Miss Donnehue's place&mdash;had made me wonder a
+bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
+wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
+the talk about it, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
+said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
+whistling, coming along the East Corridor&mdash;The room is in the East
+Wing, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
+off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
+along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
+queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
+rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
+That's how it makes you feel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
+then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
+said he got it the same way&mdash;sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
+looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
+locked the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
+began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
+the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
+Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
+visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
+and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
+had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
+You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
+house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
+queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
+of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
+a rise out of me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' he said&mdash;'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
+chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
+We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
+nerves; so we sent for you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
+suddenly called out:&mdash;'Ssh! Hark!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
+hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
+corridors to my right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By G&mdash;d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
+candles, both of you, and come along.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
+Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
+candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
+near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
+of some wanton Immense Force&mdash;a sense of an actual taint, as you might
+say, of monstrosity all about us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
+back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
+us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
+it&mdash;with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
+darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
+glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
+and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
+you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:&mdash;That's Hell. And you
+knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
+and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
+came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
+with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
+ear, something seemed to be saying to me:&mdash;'Get out of here&mdash;quick!
+Quick! Quick!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
+be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
+warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
+Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
+others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, <i>out</i> quick.' And in an instant I
+had them into the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
+and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
+and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
+were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
+there we stood a moment, silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
+a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
+man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
+downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
+and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
+said. And directly afterward:&mdash;'What on earth made you hustle us all out
+like that, Carnacki?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
+bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
+sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
+laughed at.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
+that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
+rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
+going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
+dangerous about this thing.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
+we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
+ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
+after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
+on the morrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
+the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
+the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
+old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
+more modern doors of the various rooms.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
+instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
+or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
+extraordinary whistling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
+my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
+of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
+down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
+pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
+light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
+of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
+know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
+of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
+produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
+prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
+astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
+abnormal in them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
+garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
+room, I hoped to be safe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
+had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
+if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
+gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
+revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
+with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
+Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
+empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
+realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
+understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
+of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
+I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
+that same <i>malevolent</i> silence&mdash;the beastly quietness of a thing that is
+looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
+Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
+as to have light over the <i>whole</i> room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
+sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
+sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
+tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
+can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
+there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
+was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
+Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case&mdash;you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
+a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
+projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
+human hairs&mdash;the seventh crossing the six others.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
+room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
+from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
+extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
+human&mdash;as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
+As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
+doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
+the <i>Inanimate</i> reproducing the functions of the <i>Animate</i>, I made a
+grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
+shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
+I got my hand upon the handle&mdash;a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
+piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
+slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
+wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
+squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
+when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
+the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
+business. There is no protection against this particular form of
+monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
+reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
+material which you may use, and has the power to '<i>forme</i> wythine the
+pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
+of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
+too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
+then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
+harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
+whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
+there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
+off down the great passage, and so to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
+Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
+coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
+and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
+terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
+mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
+and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
+and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
+said. '<i>I</i> can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
+time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
+toward the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No!' I said. 'By Jove&mdash;<i>no!</i> I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
+believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Haunted&mdash;<i>really</i> haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
+frequent banter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite <i>yes</i> or <i>no</i> to
+such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
+Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
+Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
+particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
+subject of a manifestation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
+went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
+another spell of sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
+intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
+the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
+thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
+having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
+broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
+instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
+would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
+just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
+It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
+open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
+Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
+breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
+all the way; but I found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room&mdash;floor, ceiling,
+and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
+hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
+thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
+when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
+whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
+to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
+within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
+as you must allow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
+mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
+been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
+years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
+would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
+Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
+someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
+to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
+would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
+nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
+all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
+'haunting.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
+hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
+intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
+and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
+extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
+along&mdash;tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet&mdash;to the sealed door (for
+I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
+often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
+note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
+door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
+whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
+about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
+hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
+hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
+the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
+wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
+arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
+exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
+entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
+nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
+risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
+Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
+getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
+look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
+come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
+in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
+sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
+down my spine. You know the feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
+something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
+walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
+under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
+vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
+Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
+low, but evidently in glee:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
+that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
+rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
+had spotted me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
+<i>they</i> were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
+made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
+and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
+genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
+details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
+natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
+whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
+East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
+the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
+hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
+which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
+simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
+watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
+was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
+sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
+yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
+it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
+after dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
+be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
+mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
+back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
+way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
+phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
+impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
+feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
+microphone will not magnify the sound&mdash;will not even transmit it; seems
+to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
+absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
+to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. <i>I</i>
+cannot&mdash;not yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rose to his feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
+without offence, into the night.
+</p>
+<p>
+A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
+I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
+dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
+began again, where he had left off:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
+you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
+had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
+the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
+whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
+outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
+could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
+it, and gone off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
+whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
+night. It had a queer note in it, I remember&mdash;low and constant, queerly
+meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
+sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
+look into the Room, through the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
+straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
+though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
+first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
+ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
+larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
+had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
+conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
+itself&mdash;can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
+note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct&mdash;a mighty parody of
+the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
+lips of a monster with a man's soul.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
+huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
+soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
+pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
+heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
+as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
+and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
+dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
+enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
+moonlight....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
+stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
+moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
+same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
+that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
+then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
+undisturbed floor of the room&mdash;smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
+to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
+I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide <i>quietly</i> down
+the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
+voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, <i>help</i>. My God! but I
+got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
+that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
+taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
+window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
+had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
+across to it; but there was no one there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
+apartment; and then, in a flash, <i>I knew that Tassoc had never called</i>. I
+whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
+frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
+the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
+black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
+mad instant at my revolver; not for <i>it</i>, but myself; for the danger was
+a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
+Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
+Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
+sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
+life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
+vertigo of unseeable things. Then <i>that</i> ended, and I knew that I might
+live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
+dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
+I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
+on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
+way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
+with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
+of the Room, there was a low whistling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
+and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
+good whisky&mdash;for I was shaken to pieces&mdash;and I explained things as much
+as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
+every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
+pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
+thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
+a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
+great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
+that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
+old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
+Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
+King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
+tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
+library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
+Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
+countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
+one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
+was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
+job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
+Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
+nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
+until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
+sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
+Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
+it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
+his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
+the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
+tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
+him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
+purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
+her prettiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
+morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
+sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
+power to sing it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace&mdash;probably from
+that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
+died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
+he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
+heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
+in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
+seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
+translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
+you think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
+a tremendous manifestation?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
+upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
+development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
+produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
+manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
+spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
+itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
+the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
+plainer in a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
+too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
+men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
+secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
+become the talk of the whole countryside.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
+use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
+that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
+but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
+and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
+extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
+may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
+case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
+taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
+other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
+inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
+soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
+the material expression of the ancient Jester&mdash;that his soul, rotten with
+hatred, had bred into a monster&mdash;eh?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
+neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
+descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
+think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
+Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
+<i>It</i> had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
+that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
+a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, <i>if</i> ever she
+had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
+took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
+friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
+had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 4&mdash;THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+</h2>
+<p>
+I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached
+his place I found him sitting alone. As I came into the room he rose with
+a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. His face seemed
+to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. He shook
+hands and offered me his paper, which I refused. Then he passed me a
+handful of photographs and returned to his reading.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, that is just Carnacki. Not a word had come from him and not a
+question from me. He would tell us all about it later. I spent about half
+an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by
+flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the
+photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so
+frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to
+believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent
+and overwhelming danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
+passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
+the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
+portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
+evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
+first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
+surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something <i>definitely</i>
+extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
+in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
+turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
+noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
+the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.
+</p>
+<p>
+I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
+than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
+was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
+held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
+and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
+the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
+Carnacki began:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
+at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
+strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
+finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
+have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
+Also I know <i>now</i> that I never considered it seriously&mdash;in spite of my
+rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
+that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
+himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
+horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
+understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
+haunted by the Horse during her courtship.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
+always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
+an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven
+generations the Hisgins family have had men children for their first-born
+and even the Hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be
+little more than a myth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is
+a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her
+friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest
+for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men
+friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape
+the haunting. And this, I think, shows us how thoroughly the tale
+had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious
+thought. Don't you think so?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two months ago Miss Hisgins became engaged to Beaumont, a young Naval
+Officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it
+was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which
+resulted in Captain Hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately
+going down to their place to look into the thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me I
+found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like
+a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and
+disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way.
+In the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five
+first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. Each
+of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each
+one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling
+from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure,
+owing to sudden shock through fright). The fifth girl was killed one
+evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be
+no <i>exact</i> knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had
+been kicked by a horse. She was dead when found. Now, you see, all of
+these deaths might be attributed in a way&mdash;even the suicides&mdash;to natural
+causes, I mean as distinct from supernatural. You see? Yet, in every
+case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and
+terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the
+records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or
+of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other
+peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. You begin to understand
+now, I think, just how extraordinary a business it was that I was asked
+to look into.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so
+constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from
+their ladyloves. And I think it was this, more than anything else, that
+made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere
+succession of uncomfortable coincidences.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got hold of these facts before I had been many hours in the house and
+after this I went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that
+happened on the night of Miss Hisgins's engagement to Beaumont. It seems
+that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just
+after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a
+sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. Immediately
+afterward Beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his
+right forearm. Then the rest of the family and the servants came running
+to know what was wrong. Lights were brought and the corridor and,
+afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous,
+half believing talk about the old legend. Then, later, in the middle of
+the night the old Captain was waked by the sound of a great horse
+galloping 'round and 'round the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Several times after this both Beaumont and the girl said that they had
+heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the
+rooms and corridors.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Three nights later Beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the
+nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
+He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
+They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
+the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
+were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
+details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
+evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
+had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
+that had happened the evening before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
+whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
+and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
+yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
+girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it&mdash;the sound of a horse
+outside of the front door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
+not riding.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
+Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see
+whether anyone was at the entrance. It was pretty dark in the hall and he
+could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the
+darkness of the hall. He walked over to the glass and looked through into
+the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to
+the carriage-circle. Almost directly afterward the great hall door swung
+to with a crash behind him. He told me that he had a sudden awful feeling
+of having been trapped in some way&mdash;that is how he put it. He whirled
+'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it
+with a vast grip on the other side. Then, before he could be fixed in his
+mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had
+hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really
+frightened or not. Then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of
+the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him
+from the boudoir. He blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway,
+meaning to go to her. And then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening
+knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that
+kiss. He knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the
+darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. He jumped back and
+in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. He
+called out at the top of his voice: 'Mary, stay in the boudoir. Don't
+move out of the boudoir until I come to you.' He heard her call something
+in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or
+so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the
+hall. There was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there
+came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse
+galloping; but when I questioned more closely I found that the aunt had
+heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further
+back in the room. Of course, both he and Miss Hisgins had been in an
+extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. The door might have
+been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being
+opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing
+more than the snick catching.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, I
+pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they
+had been only cool enough to reason. As I told him, and as he knew, the
+sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he
+had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some
+distance away. And as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises&mdash;the rustle of
+a paper or a leaf&mdash;have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in
+an overstrung condition and imagining things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria
+as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. But neither
+Beaumont nor Miss Hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on
+their parts.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along
+the passage and I was still doing my best to make both of them see the
+ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my
+pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard
+room we had just left.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back
+of my head. Miss Hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and
+ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. Beaumont, however,
+ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. I gave back
+too, a bit, as you can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'Perhaps you'll
+believe now.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There's certainly something,' I whispered, never taking my gaze off the
+closed door of the billiard room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'H'sh!' he muttered. 'There it is again.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the
+billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. A horrible cold fright took me
+so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
+and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
+suddenly at the opening of the long passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
+horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
+malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
+occupied. Do you understand just what I mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
+excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
+sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
+'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
+about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
+realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
+see what's there.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck.
+I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
+my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
+and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
+not stop me from being able to work my flashlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
+his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
+shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all.
+He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
+in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
+went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
+we were a pretty nervous couple.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
+within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
+of a hoof on the solid <i>parquet</i> floor of the billiard room. In the
+instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
+ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, <i>coming toward the door</i>. Both
+Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
+our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
+to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
+silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
+and temples almost deafened me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
+restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
+right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
+the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
+the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
+clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
+between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
+I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
+body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
+breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
+could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
+danger abroad. Do you understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
+of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
+quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
+Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
+and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
+landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
+nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
+'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
+the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
+landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
+the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
+where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
+anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
+that infernal thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
+passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
+if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
+thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
+down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
+follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
+came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
+me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
+girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
+room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
+no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
+anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
+and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
+so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle.
+I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
+and that he had better be armed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
+miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
+him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
+'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
+the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
+like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
+feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
+wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
+that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
+least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
+for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
+whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
+foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
+particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
+remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
+outside. Poor devil!
+</p>
+<p>
+"The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
+we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
+house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
+queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
+the bedroom. I knocked at the door, for I was uneasy, and the Captain
+came. I asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and
+immediately asked me whether I had heard the galloping, so that I knew he
+had heard them also. I suggested that it might be well to leave the
+bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly
+something abroad. This was done and he went back into the room, to be
+near his wife and daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had better say here that I was doubtful whether there was any value in
+the 'Defense' about Miss Hisgins, for what I term the 'personal sounds'
+of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that I was inclined
+to parallel the case with that one of Harford's where the hand of the
+child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. As
+you will remember, that was a hideous business.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had
+fully come we all went off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont knocked me up about midday and I went down and made breakfast
+into lunch. Miss Hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits,
+considering. She told me that I had made her feel almost safe for the
+first time for days. She told me also that her cousin, Harry Parsket, was
+coming down from London and she knew that he would do anything to help
+fight the ghost. And after that she and Beaumont went out into the
+grounds to have a little time together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no
+traces of hoof marks and after that I spent the rest of the day making an
+examination of the house, but found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for
+dinner. When I got down the cousin had just arrived and I found him one
+of the nicest men I have met for a long time. A chap with a tremendous
+amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man I like to have with me in
+a bad case like the one I was on. I could see that what puzzled him most
+was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and I found myself
+almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. As
+it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont and Miss Hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk
+and Captain Hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat
+whilst Parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a long conversation with the old Captain in which I pointed out
+that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the
+house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was
+married, the better as it would give Beaumont a right to be with her at
+all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations
+would cease if the marriage were actually performed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and
+reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted'
+had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. And then
+in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption,
+for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most
+extraordinarily pale:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
+the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
+sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
+snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
+Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
+sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
+of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
+of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
+The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
+tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
+and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
+shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
+for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
+blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
+was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
+staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
+don't know.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
+toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
+darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
+game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
+immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
+carried by some of the men-servants.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
+standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
+saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
+the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
+the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
+one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
+strange to be seen anywhere.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
+Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
+four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched
+'round the home park. But we found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
+Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
+straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
+guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
+soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
+I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
+They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
+order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
+of the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
+got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
+seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
+the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
+'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
+nothing for a little. Then he caught it&mdash;the sound of a horse, seemingly
+a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
+that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
+was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
+close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
+caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
+heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
+at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
+right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
+looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
+last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
+tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
+butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
+glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
+however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
+him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
+him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
+for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
+anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
+each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont
+and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun. In addition to my weapon
+I had my camera and flashlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of
+the bedroom to have a word with us. About half-past one we had all grown
+very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand,
+silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. I
+knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I
+whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse. For some time we
+stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it;
+but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont. Yet afterward, I thought
+I heard it again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and
+leave the door a little open and this he did. But from that time onward
+we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very
+thankfully to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain
+Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to
+take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than
+possible. Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special
+License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the
+extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
+investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
+was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
+Miss Hisgins and her <i>surroundings</i>. Sometimes the camera sees things
+that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
+company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
+experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
+her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
+impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
+we chanced to be at the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
+whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
+cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
+for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
+darkness without help and companionship at hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
+carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
+lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
+Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
+off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
+the experiment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
+extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss
+Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding
+the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the
+trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling
+neighing that I had heard out in the Park. It seemed to come from
+somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light I saw that
+she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. And then in the
+succeeding comparative darkness, I was shouting to the Captain and
+Parsket to run Miss Hisgins out into the daylight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This was done instantly and I shut and locked the door afterward making
+the First and Eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual opposite to each post
+and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the meanwhile Parsket and Captain Hisgins carried the girl to her
+mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst I stayed
+on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for I knew
+that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling
+there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know,
+because I had exposed Miss Hisgins to the danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had got the Captain's shotgun and when he and Parsket came down again
+they were each carrying guns and lanterns. I could not possibly tell you
+the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when I heard them
+coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of
+that cellar. Can you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I remember noticing, just before I went to unlock the door, how white
+and ghastly Parsket looked and the old Captain was grey-looking and I
+wondered whether my face was like theirs. And this, you know, had its own
+distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness
+of the thing crashing down on to me in a fresh way. I know it was only sheer
+will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide
+open and held my lantern over my head. Parsket and the Captain came one
+on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was
+absolutely empty. Of course, I did not trust to a casual look of this
+kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding
+every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, in the end I had to admit that the place itself was absolutely
+normal and so we came away. But I sealed the door and outside, opposite
+each doorpost I made the First and Last signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+joined them as before, with a triple line. Can you imagine what it was
+like, searching that cellar?
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we got upstairs I inquired very anxiously how Miss Hisgins was
+and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and
+that I was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as I told her I
+had been doing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was
+done, Parsket and I took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives
+that I had been taking. Yet none of the plates had anything to tell us
+until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. Parsket was
+developing and I had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the
+lamplight to examine them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had just gone carefully through the lot when I heard a shout from
+Parsket and when I ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed
+negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. It showed the girl
+plainly, looking upward as I had seen her, but the thing that astonished
+me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were
+coming down upon her out of the shadows. And you know, I had run her
+bang into that danger. That was the thought that was chief in my mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as the developing was complete I fixed the plate and examined it
+carefully in a good light. There was no doubt about it at all, the thing
+above Miss Hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. Yet I was no nearer to
+coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing I could do was to
+warn Parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only
+increase her fright, but I showed the thing to her father for I
+considered it right that he should know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night we took the same precaution for Miss Hisgins's safety as on
+the two previous nights and Parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in
+without anything unusual having happened and I went off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got down to lunch I learnt that Beaumont had wired to say that he
+would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the
+Rector. And it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a
+tremendous fluster.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even
+then the Rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to
+say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away
+unexpectedly. Twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down,
+but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until
+the next day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night I arranged the 'Defense' 'round the girl's bed and the
+Captain and his wife sat up with her as before. Beaumont, as I expected,
+insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened
+mood; not for himself, you know, but for Miss Hisgins. He had a horrible
+feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his
+sweetheart that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This, of course, I told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made
+me feel very anxious; for I have seen too much not to know that under
+such circumstances a premonitory <i>conviction</i> of impending danger is not
+necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. In fact, Beaumont was so
+simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some
+extraordinary manifestation that I got Parsket to rig up a long cord from
+the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To the butler himself I gave directions not to undress and to give the
+same order to two of the footmen. If I rang he was to come instantly,
+with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept
+ready lit all night. If for any reason the bell did not ring and I blew
+my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had arranged all these minor details I drew a pentacle about
+Beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever
+happened. And when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and
+pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense
+and nervous so that at last Parsket got up and began to walk up and
+down the corridor to steady himself a bit. Presently I slipped off my
+pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally
+for something over an hour, until in turning I caught my foot in the
+bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or
+making a noise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got up Parsket nudged me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Jove!' I said, 'you're right.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Wait a minute,' he answered. 'I'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in
+the cord.' He left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the
+top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying Beaumont's revolver ready
+in his right hand. He was a plucky chap, I remember thinking then, and
+again, later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just then Beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. Directly afterward
+I heard the thing for which he listened&mdash;the sound of a horse galloping,
+out in the night. I think that I may say I fairly shivered. The sound
+died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you
+know. I put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping Parsket had got it
+clear. Then I waited, glancing before and behind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly
+quiet. And then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there
+sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown
+with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. I tugged hard on the
+cord and blew the whistle; then I raised my snapshot and fired the
+flashlight. The corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was
+nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. I heard the Captain at
+the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, <i>quick</i>; but
+instead something started to kick the door and I heard the Captain
+shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. I had a
+sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in
+the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile,
+gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. I blew
+the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to
+Beaumont to stay in the Pentacle, whatever happened. I yelled again to
+the Captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against
+the bedroom door. Then I had my matches in my hand, to get some light
+before that incredible, unseen Monster was upon us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant
+I heard a faint sound behind me. I whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror
+and saw something in the light of the match&mdash;a monstrous horse-head close
+to Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Look out, Beaumont!' I shouted in a sort of scream. 'It's behind you!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of
+Parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently
+single-handed by Beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. I caught a
+momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof
+amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon Beaumont.
+In the same instant I fired three chambers of my revolver. There was the
+sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out
+close to me. I fired twice at the sound. Immediately afterward something
+struck me and I was knocked backward. I got on to my knees and shouted
+for help at the top of my voice. I heard the women screaming behind the
+closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being
+smashed from the inside, and directly afterward I knew that Beaumont was
+struggling with some hideous thing near to me. For an instant I held
+back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of
+rigid chill of goose flesh I went to help him, shouting his name. I can
+tell you, I was nearly sick with the naked fear I had on me. There came a
+little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that I jumped forward
+into the dark. I gripped a vast, furry ear. Then something struck me
+another great blow knocking me sick. I hit back, weak and blind and
+gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. Abruptly I was dimly
+aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. There
+were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. My
+hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; I shut my eyes stupidly
+and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher
+chopping meat and then something fell upon me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was helped to my knees by the Captain and the butler. On the floor lay
+an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. On
+the wrists were fixed great hoofs. It was the monster. The Captain cut
+something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted
+off the mask, for that is what it was. I saw the face then of the man who
+had worn it. It was Parsket. He had a bad wound across the forehead where
+the Captain's sword had bit through the mask. I looked bewilderedly from
+him to Beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the
+corridor. Then I stared at Parsket again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By Jove!' I said at last, and then I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
+the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
+you know, I had grown so to like him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
+looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
+happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
+corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
+that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
+face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
+terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
+stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
+from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
+the corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
+the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
+immediately afterward the clungk, clunk&mdash;clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
+coming down the passage toward us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
+Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
+doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
+shouted out:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a <i>sense</i> that there was
+something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
+that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
+was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
+the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
+afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
+the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
+in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
+seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
+sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
+halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
+that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
+across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
+extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
+wound in his forehead; and then I noticed that he seemed to be looking at
+something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly
+masterful gaze. But there was really nothing to be seen. And suddenly the
+clungk, clunk&mdash;clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the
+passage. In the same moment Parsket pitched forward out of the doorway
+on to his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two
+footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the
+Captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was
+carrying over his head. The dull tread of the Horse went past him, and
+left him unharmed and I heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and
+away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with
+an extraordinarily grey face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me. We turned him
+over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can
+imagine what a feeling it sent through me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That&mdash;That&mdash;That&mdash;' and I know that he was trying to tell me that
+Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone
+down the passage. I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very
+steady myself. And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to
+his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child. Then the women
+came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to
+them, whilst I over to Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to
+me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and
+this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. He was
+doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact I
+think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what
+I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket's intention was to
+frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I
+think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. I hate to
+say this, but the facts force me to think so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont's arm. He knew
+all the details of the so-called 'Horse Legend,' and got the idea to work
+upon the old story for his own end. He evidently had some method of
+slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French
+windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and
+when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet
+and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous
+imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that
+the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to
+explain away. But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this
+point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by
+Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling
+with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. I proved this by an
+examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made
+also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation
+nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how
+he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. In any case, I
+don't feel perfect certainty on this point. I failed to find any hoof
+marks, as you remember.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on
+the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by
+him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been
+outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.
+This is almost probable. I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it
+had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his
+foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. I cannot
+imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action
+of which I have just told you. He was enormously without fear of any
+kind for himself as you can see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse
+galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. No one was
+very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage
+the belief.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first
+suspicion into Parsket's mind that there was something more at work than
+his sham haunting. The neighing was done by him in the same way that he
+did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure
+that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which
+frightened the man himself. Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he
+had been getting fanciful. Of course, I must not forget that the effect
+upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it
+was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was
+at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve
+his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for
+he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away. I hate to think
+this, but I'm bound to. Anyway, it is obvious that the man was
+temporarily a bit off his normal balance. Love's a queer disease!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the
+butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away
+naturally to clear it. This also gave him the opportunity to remove one
+of the passage lamps. Then he had only to smash the other and the passage
+was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took
+the key (it was in his pocket). This prevented the Captain from bringing
+a light and coming to the rescue. But Captain Hisgins broke down the door
+with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded
+so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is
+one of the things that I am less sure about. It might have been faked by
+Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy
+enough, to anyone who knew how. But, you know, it does not look like a
+fake. Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as
+against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a
+definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the
+other. It is certainly a horrible photograph.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now I come to that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further
+manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary
+uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and
+if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this
+case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact,
+as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be
+cleared up, but I see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last
+and the fear that Parsket showed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"His death&mdash;no, that proves nothing. At the inquest it was described
+somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and
+leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood
+between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The look on Parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the
+great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the
+sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a
+horrible suspicion. And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous
+danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then
+he did the one fine, great thing!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki shook his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "If that
+thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which
+would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. Yet I have
+thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get
+you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket had produced what I might term
+a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental
+conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to
+make it clearer in a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the old story!" I said. "Why may not there have been something
+in <i>that</i>?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There may have been something in it," said Carnacki. "But I do not think
+it had anything to do with this. I have not clearly thought out my
+reasons, yet; but later I may be able to tell you why I think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the marriage? And the cellar&mdash;was there anything found there?"
+asked Taylor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy,"
+Carnacki told us. "It was the wisest thing to do considering the things
+that I cannot explain. Yes, I had the floor of that big cellar up, for I
+had a feeling I might find something there to give me some light. But
+there was nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. I shall
+never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting
+sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+</p>
+<p>
+And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to
+our homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 5&mdash;THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
+silent in his great chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which&mdash;as you
+know&mdash;we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
+now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
+had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
+have hinted.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
+memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
+have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
+a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
+what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
+outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
+row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
+and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
+smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
+doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
+complete niceness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
+that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
+not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, something happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
+that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
+top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
+that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
+room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
+heard me safe up to my room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
+upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
+was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
+should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
+dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
+into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
+momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
+the passage; but it was not until the following night that I <i>realized</i> I
+had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
+that&mdash;one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
+consciousness, perhaps a year before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
+she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
+she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
+the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
+must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
+accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
+me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
+but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
+my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
+down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
+properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
+subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
+but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
+I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
+immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
+to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
+made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
+of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
+as I had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
+to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
+a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
+mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
+understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
+and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
+not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
+believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
+her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
+the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
+over to look at her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
+a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
+and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
+what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
+you must see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
+the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
+strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
+though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
+that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
+<i>expected really</i> to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
+explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
+banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
+about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
+happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
+thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
+not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
+that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
+associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
+talking about. You will understand that I am able <i>now</i> to analyze and
+put the thing into words; but <i>then</i> I did not even know my chief reason
+for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
+into words:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
+looking at me. Then:&mdash;'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
+at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
+expectancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
+been walking about in your sleep.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The smell,' she said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
+the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
+bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
+underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
+I was more nervous than I would admit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
+bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
+believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
+been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
+fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
+knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
+bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
+difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
+queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
+of my mother's room, from the back garden, or&mdash;for that matter&mdash;from the
+little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
+ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
+could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
+and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
+really were.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
+again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
+had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
+felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
+into it; but very human.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
+after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
+found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
+with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
+the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
+was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
+twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
+and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
+poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
+really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
+getting hold of me; and all the <i>apparently</i> reasonable explanations
+seemed futile.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
+also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
+made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
+that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
+that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
+I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
+hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
+all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
+inside of us, we did not believe this.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
+mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
+get to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
+by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
+heard:&mdash;bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
+that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
+and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
+open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
+shut off from me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
+one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
+one. 'Who's there?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I heard my mother saying:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
+hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
+been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
+wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
+knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
+with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
+search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
+will understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
+because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
+However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
+bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
+the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
+whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
+only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
+beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
+taint of that disgusting odor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
+something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
+my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
+landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
+twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
+from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
+long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
+on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
+peculiar. The landlord's idea&mdash;as he told me frankly&mdash;was to free the
+house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
+and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
+</p>
+<p>
+"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
+no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
+five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
+so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
+supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
+the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
+night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
+first month's tenancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
+ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
+seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
+himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
+indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
+with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
+the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
+affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
+getting about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
+thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
+Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
+drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
+sitting up all night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
+nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
+it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
+the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
+we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
+and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
+afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
+as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
+lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
+the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
+was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
+reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
+darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
+violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
+blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
+violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
+Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
+distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
+concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
+which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
+make clear to you; but try to understand it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
+of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
+was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
+the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
+shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
+fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
+and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
+glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
+shown solid.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
+heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
+close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
+lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
+darkness, for my warning to come true.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
+side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
+belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
+thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
+And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
+what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
+think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
+often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
+from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
+lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
+then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
+known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
+seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
+of Maetheson's, which you know about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
+left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
+landlord shout out:&mdash;'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
+disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
+aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
+frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
+saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
+looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
+came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
+the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
+these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
+unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
+violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
+me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
+hoarse sort of cry:&mdash;'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
+clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
+showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
+chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
+mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
+the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
+but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
+passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
+saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
+over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
+with sweat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
+his words:&mdash;'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
+over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
+voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
+I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
+go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
+stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
+beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
+most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
+so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
+ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
+question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
+seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
+adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. <i>I</i> had
+not seen this Woman. <i>I</i> had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
+Something or Someone. <i>He</i> had not seen the Child, or the other
+things&mdash;only the Woman. And <i>I</i> had not seen her. What did it all mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
+bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
+explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
+the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
+there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
+streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
+mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
+answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
+I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
+Smell! Do <i>you</i> smell it?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I shook
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
+shaking lantern at the stair head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
+gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
+alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
+that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
+it makes rags of your courage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
+afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
+and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
+should know which had been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
+beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
+had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
+horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
+shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
+courage, I went down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
+passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
+on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
+soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
+extraordinary horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
+saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
+closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
+swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
+against me, in his fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
+put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
+through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
+be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
+yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
+hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
+garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
+fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
+afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
+heard the shot.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
+and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
+very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
+path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
+I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
+mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
+for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
+went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
+how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
+door had been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
+top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
+which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
+room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
+then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
+one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
+rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
+permeated with the horrible odor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
+room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
+or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
+through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
+oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
+trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
+or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
+each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
+toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
+windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
+by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
+and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
+flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
+looked strange and bewildered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
+the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
+sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
+monotonously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
+his breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:&mdash;'I hope you held the door open
+politely for the lady.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Are you mad&mdash;' began Johnstone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
+enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
+his control again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
+than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
+again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
+saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
+cellar door; and the last print showed <i>under</i> the door; yet the
+policeman said the door had not been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
+saying, I asked the landlord:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What were the feet like?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
+open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
+order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
+the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
+horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
+steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
+unnatural footprints.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
+there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
+inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
+disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
+backed suddenly out of the doorway:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
+that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
+shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
+darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
+back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
+for a weapon of some kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
+hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
+empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
+cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
+and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
+and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
+screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
+gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
+heard the landlord.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
+his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
+the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
+stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
+from the horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
+Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
+went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
+thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
+you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
+</p>
+<p>
+"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
+found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
+erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
+some blind scent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
+the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
+water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
+the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
+about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
+light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
+plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
+the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
+turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
+across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
+belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
+as it were, a menace&mdash;the material expression that some monstrous thing
+was there with us, invisible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I think&mdash;' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
+stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
+for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
+waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
+same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
+locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
+sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
+and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
+watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
+just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
+and went over to his place for a sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
+arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
+relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
+the previous night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
+thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
+them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
+everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
+in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
+piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
+height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
+sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
+and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
+when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
+see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
+rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
+wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
+Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
+or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
+cellar stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
+the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
+ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
+like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
+which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
+pitchforks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
+rather white all at once.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
+I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
+into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
+it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
+hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
+well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
+hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
+a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
+the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
+table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
+when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
+him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
+to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
+nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
+help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
+that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
+front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
+carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
+and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
+not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
+arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
+he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
+detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
+appreciated all my precautions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
+pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
+the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
+quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
+which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
+the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
+took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
+which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
+out every lamp.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
+lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
+keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
+lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
+able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
+absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
+extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
+night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
+the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
+faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
+hold of it, in readiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
+in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
+to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
+conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
+but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
+to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
+from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
+again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
+violet night in which it ran.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
+it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
+brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
+table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
+to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
+to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
+nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
+our world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
+distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
+sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
+Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
+little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
+There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
+was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
+landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
+to catch my arm:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
+color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
+saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
+straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
+half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
+table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
+fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
+the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
+had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
+something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
+same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
+absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
+eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
+of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
+cotton wool.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
+oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
+lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
+another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
+might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
+forces that I was unable to comprehend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
+stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
+light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
+was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
+which I had screwed into the ceiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
+vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
+remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
+there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
+indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
+glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
+of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
+fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
+collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
+consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
+whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
+attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
+into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
+nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
+as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
+sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
+the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
+nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
+absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
+table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
+of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
+it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
+instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
+There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
+and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
+my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
+do the same.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
+from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
+the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
+thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
+leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
+of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
+coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
+felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
+the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
+big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
+rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the detective there came a sudden shout:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
+instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
+followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
+mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
+inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
+their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
+dancing all over the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
+trying to speak plainly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
+The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
+to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
+had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
+floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
+leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
+ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
+which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
+a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
+been so much water.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
+tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
+the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
+Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
+smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
+couple of weeks earlier.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
+house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
+bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
+the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
+mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
+of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
+unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
+warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
+had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
+for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
+something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
+get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
+drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
+artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
+rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
+time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
+there was a passage&mdash;as he showed me afterward&mdash;connecting the dummy well
+with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
+were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
+beach beyond the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
+my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
+it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
+should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
+hushed up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
+house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
+seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
+the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
+only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
+from the Revenue people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
+mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
+about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
+woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
+he found them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
+an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
+delighted to learn how it had affected us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
+the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
+contributions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
+of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
+was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
+made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
+Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
+thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
+should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
+policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
+landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can only surmise that <i>fear</i> was in every case the key, as I might
+say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
+was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
+the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. <i>I</i> saw nothing, until
+I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
+running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
+later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
+was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
+theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
+the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
+the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
+Force present in the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
+visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
+why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why <i>you</i> didn't
+see the Woman, and why <i>they</i> didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
+same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
+Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
+but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
+child '<i>still</i>born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
+but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
+let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
+physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
+possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
+Element&mdash;the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
+waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
+Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
+tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
+that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
+forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
+thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
+other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
+thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
+so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
+half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
+incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
+discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
+fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
+there is a Mother Spirit&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
+other side?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
+not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
+and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
+and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
+on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
+the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
+told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
+interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
+house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
+<i>en rapport</i>, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
+produced the tragedy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
+the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There may be other houses&mdash;" I began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
+five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
+various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 6&mdash;THE THING INVISIBLE
+</h2>
+<p>
+Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this
+interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
+which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself
+at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki
+had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends
+knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we
+had no knowledge. Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
+only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his
+three other friends&mdash;Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor&mdash;would receive a card
+or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed, for
+after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down
+into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
+ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would
+begin to talk.
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found
+Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me
+firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never
+having uttered a word.
+</p>
+<p>
+For my part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him
+with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
+Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a
+comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I
+have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
+directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express
+it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. A minute
+or so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks,
+and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in
+South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most
+extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
+Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I
+could help to clear matters up a bit. I went.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got there, I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the
+castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is
+popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I
+managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable
+occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always
+content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It sounds almost laughable, I know, to hear of a long-respected
+supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
+the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth,
+except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what I might
+term the Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly
+dangerous&mdash;deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to
+death one night in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the
+Chapel. At least, there has been always a story handed down in the family
+that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into
+the Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this had been taken with
+just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost
+tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly <i>real</i> nature. I mean that
+most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of
+matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an
+opportunity to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I am as big a
+skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to
+meet; only I am what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am not given
+to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as I have
+found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
+to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven
+until I have examined into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
+cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. But the
+hundredth! Well, if it were not for the hundredth, I should have few
+stories to tell you&mdash;eh?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there
+was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and I
+found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really
+strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
+found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some
+invisible thing or monster of the Outer World!
+</p>
+<p>
+"From considerable experience, I knew that it was much more likely that
+the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human
+agency, and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the
+people who knew most about the tragedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for
+it left me with very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
+of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of
+a Force from the Outside. In more popular phraseology&mdash;a genuine case
+of haunting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"These are the facts: On the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred
+Jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the Chapel.
+You see, the Rector goes over to officiate twice each Sunday, after
+concluding his duties at the public Church about three miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the end of the service in the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his
+son Mr. George Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
+minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went 'round, putting
+out the candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, the Rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book
+on the Communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to
+get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I have particularly called your attention to this because it is
+important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an
+extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector's turning to speak to Bellett
+had naturally caused both Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the
+direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst
+all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed&mdash;there,
+full in the candlelight, before their eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took the opportunity to call early upon the Rector, after I had
+questioned Mr. George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition
+as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling
+upon the scene as much as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
+the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me the whole
+affair&mdash;Bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and
+absolutely alone; and then the <i>blow</i>, out of the Void, he described it;
+and the <i>force</i> prodigious&mdash;the old man being driven headlong into the
+body of the Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector said, his
+benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually
+witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when
+I appeared. I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
+sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear old chap, and I should
+certainly like to have heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The last man I visited was the butler. He was, of course, in a
+frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that
+did not point to there being a Power abroad in the Chapel. He told the
+same tale, in every minute particle, that I had learned from the others.
+He had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the
+Rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the
+left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger&mdash;of which I
+will tell you more in a moment&mdash;that hung always above the altar. The
+weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
+the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the
+blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out
+through the scapula behind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The poor old fellow could not talk much, and I soon left him; but what
+he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
+person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as I knew,
+this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses,
+independent of Bellett himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The thing now was to search the Chapel, which is small and extremely
+old. It is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which
+leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, the butler having no duplicate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The shape of the Chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the
+usual fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in
+the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the
+chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
+which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as I had learned it was
+named. I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which
+describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. I took the
+dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
+inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but
+sharp point, rather peculiar. It is double-edged.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with
+the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of
+the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a
+cross. That this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
+Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in Latin, is the
+inscription: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay.' A quaint and rather
+terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade of the dagger is graven in
+old English capitals: I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt there is
+carved deeply a Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that
+has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of
+its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike
+murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family who may chance to enter the
+Chapel after nightfall. I may tell you here and now, that before I left,
+I had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for I tested the
+deadliness of the thing myself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you know, however, at this point of my investigation, I was still at
+that stage where I considered the existence of a supernatural Force
+unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the Chapel drastically, sounding
+and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
+foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the end of this search, I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of
+the groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening
+of the third day I had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no
+place in the whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
+hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the
+Chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of
+which was always kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
+himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course, that this doorway is the
+only entrance practicable to material people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, as you will see, even had I discovered some other opening, secret
+or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of
+the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. For the butler, as you know,
+was struck in full sight of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
+Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... <i>'Out of
+the Void,'</i> the Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'Out of
+the Void!' A strange feeling it gives one&mdash;eh?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And this is the thing that I had been called in to bottom!
+</p>
+<p>
+"After considerable thought, I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
+Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the Chapel, and keep a
+constant watch upon the dagger. But to this, the old knight&mdash;a little,
+wizened, nervous man&mdash;would not listen for a moment. He, at least, I felt
+assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural Force
+a roam at night in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been his habit
+every evening to lock the Chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or
+heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
+that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had
+happened to the butler.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could see that Sir Alfred Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would
+evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the
+experiment and any harm come to me; so I said nothing in argument; and
+presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said
+goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite
+but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night, however, whilst I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve
+the thing I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark, without
+making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On the morrow, when I borrowed the
+key, I would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then, with my
+private key, I could do just what I liked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning I carried out my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to
+take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When I had done this I
+locked up the Chapel and handed the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having
+first taken an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
+plate&mdash;in its slide&mdash;with me; but the camera I had left exactly as it
+was, as I wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
+from the same position.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took the dark slide into Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the
+impress. The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was something of
+a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if I
+would call in two hours. This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a
+photographer where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him
+I would call next day. At the end of the two hours I went for my key and
+found it ready, much to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After dinner that evening, I played billiards with young Jarnock for
+a couple of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went off to my
+room, telling him I was feeling awfully tired. He nodded and told me
+he felt the same way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle as
+soon as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I locked the door of my room, then from under the bed&mdash;where I had
+hidden them earlier in the evening&mdash;I drew out several fine pieces of
+plate armor, which I had removed from the armory. There was also a shirt
+of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily
+uncomfortable, and over all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
+about armor, but from what I have learned since, I must have put on parts
+of two suits. Anyway, I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to
+move my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the thing I was thinking
+of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. Over the armor I
+pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side
+pockets&mdash;and my repeating flash-light into the other. My dark lantern I
+carried in my hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as I was ready I went out into the passage and listened. I had
+been some considerable time making my preparations and I found that now
+the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed
+quiet. I stepped back and closed and locked my door. Then, very slowly
+and silently I went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage
+that led to the Chapel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I reached the door and tried my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment
+later I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about
+me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of
+the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and
+lonesomeness almost the more apparent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now it would be silly to say I did not feel queer. I felt very queer
+indeed. You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in
+the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to
+the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little
+while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could believe that
+something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I
+had got to go through with the business, and I just took hold of my
+little bit of courage and set to work.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First of all I switched on my light, then I began a careful tour of the
+place; examining every corner and nook. I found nothing unusual. At the
+chancel gate I held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. It
+hung there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember thinking of the
+word 'demure,' as I looked at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
+what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness
+of its utter chill and unkind desolation&mdash;an atmosphere of cold
+dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the conclusion of my search I walked across to where I had left my
+camera focused upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had put beneath
+the tripod I took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing
+the shutter. After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
+apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was an intense, brilliant
+flash, that made the whole of the interior of the Chapel jump into sight,
+and disappear as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern, I inserted
+the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh
+plate ready to expose at any time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had done this I shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the
+pews near to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
+an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
+horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
+faint chime of a clock that had been erected over the stables. I was
+beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
+furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
+sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
+of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
+And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
+my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
+if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
+then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
+the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
+intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
+imagine how I felt?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
+wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
+was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
+if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
+something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
+might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. I sat
+immovable. I was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. I
+could not take my arms down from over my face, but I knew that I was
+getting hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly I made a mighty
+effort and lowered my arms. I held my face up in the darkness. And, I
+tell you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought truly at that
+moment that I was going to die. But I think, just then, by the slow
+revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
+that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of
+the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits,
+for a time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do I make myself clear? You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of
+respect, which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you
+see, I am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. I mean that if
+I had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
+revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much more worthy of
+mention. But, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of
+respect. You follow me, don't you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, you know, nothing touched me, after all! So that, in a little
+while, I had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go
+through with the business without any more funking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the
+chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
+cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen. And suddenly the thought
+came that the sound I heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the
+altar. It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
+too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
+understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
+time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
+animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
+possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
+invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
+the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... <i>of the
+void</i>. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
+'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
+thoughts were running.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
+me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
+light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
+could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
+light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
+side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
+floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
+thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
+and eternally silent. You know the feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
+pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
+switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
+my constant watch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
+after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
+grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
+place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal&mdash;it had
+given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
+child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
+just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
+of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
+was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
+butler, it had certainly not been visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
+and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
+other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
+intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
+in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
+listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
+a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
+moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
+my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
+I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
+of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
+shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
+There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
+just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
+repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
+coming slowly down the aisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
+more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
+<i>stiffened</i>. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel.
+And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
+it&mdash;that I had never heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
+nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
+of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders <i>ached</i>, with
+the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
+myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
+might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
+around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
+respite&mdash;a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
+impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
+more clearly than this, myself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
+nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
+normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
+with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
+This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
+when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
+moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
+sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
+<i>tense</i>. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
+and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
+desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off.
+If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
+of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
+'creep' busy at my spine....
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
+soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
+little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
+was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
+booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
+place where my camera stood&mdash;a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
+then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
+snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
+conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
+I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
+was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
+great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
+there, but it showed me nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
+sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
+the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
+here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
+was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
+prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
+of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
+of terror and horror. I tell you, that no one who has not been through
+these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical
+pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that
+ghostly fright sets up in the human system. I stood there feeling
+positively ill. But I got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a
+minute, and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin
+man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and
+over my head continually. And the hand that held my revolver sweated so
+much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does not sound very
+heroic, does it?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to
+the small gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from my lantern
+upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it's all right. Abruptly, it seemed to
+me that there was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
+chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. My suspicion was hideously
+correct. <i>The dagger had gone.</i> Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
+above the altar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, I pictured the thing
+adrift in the Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
+volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly beyond
+visibility. I turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing
+frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. In the
+same instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and
+hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging
+loudly in the horrible silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
+on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the corner of a pew front,
+and brought me up, half stunned. I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick
+and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the
+moment. I was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as
+to just where I was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling run
+in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. I jumped back,
+staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the
+aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
+hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the font, and reeled back.
+Then I was at the exit. I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for
+the key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the
+keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and
+was into the passage. I slammed the door and leant hard against it,
+gasping, whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock
+the door upon what was in the Chapel. I succeeded, and began to feel my
+way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come to the
+big hall, and so in a little to my room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In my room, I sat for a while, until I had steadied down something
+to the normal. After a time I commenced to strip off the armor. I saw
+then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced
+over the breast. And, suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had
+struck for my heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stripping rapidly, I found that the skin of the breast over the heart
+had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt,
+nothing more. Only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely
+painful. You can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn the
+armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I was not knocked senseless.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking,
+and waiting for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before Sir Alfred
+Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide from him the fact that I had
+managed a duplicate key.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently
+to show me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly down to
+the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense nerves, I opened the door. The
+chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place&mdash;everything seeming
+instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. Can you get the feeling? I
+waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and
+likewise my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun threw an odd
+beam right in through the big, East window, making colored sunshine all
+the length of the Chapel. And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced
+myself to enter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went up the aisle to where I had overthrown my camera in the darkness.
+The legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and I
+expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the
+ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I replaced the camera in the position from which I had taken the
+previous photography; but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
+flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that
+I had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when I heard those
+strange sounds up in the chancel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Having tidied my photographic apparatus, I went to the chancel to
+recover my lantern and revolver, which had both&mdash;as you know&mdash;been
+knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found the lantern lying,
+hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. My revolver I
+must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there
+in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned into the pew corner.
+It was quite undamaged.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Having secured these two articles, I walked up to the chancel rail to
+see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
+above the altar. Before, however, I reached the chancel rail, I had a
+slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away
+from where I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the
+polished marble pavement. I wonder whether you will, any of you,
+understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. With a
+sudden, unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot on it, to
+hold it there. Can you understand? Do you? And, you know, I could not
+stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I should
+think. Afterward, when I had done so, however, and handled it a little,
+this feeling passed away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
+made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass. Quite natural,
+though, I assure you! Yet it was a new kind of fear to me. I'm taking no
+notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking about the
+curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear
+that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
+interest you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands
+and never&mdash;as I suddenly discovered&mdash;holding it loosely. It was as if I
+were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even
+this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. The curious weapon
+showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color&mdash;of the blade was
+slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, when I had made an end of staring at the dagger, I went up
+the chancel step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling upon the
+altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail
+again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable
+because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. I
+suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, I had an unreasoned
+and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of
+danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when
+it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don't think this is a very good
+explanation, when I remember the <i>demure</i> look the thing seemed to have
+when I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only I know this, that
+when I had replaced the dagger I had quite a touch of nerves and I
+stopped only to pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst I
+examined the weapon, after which I went down the quiet aisle at a pretty
+quick walk, and so got out of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That the nerve tension had been considerable, I realized, when I had
+locked the door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think of old Sir
+Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming
+precautions regarding the Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
+might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the
+dagger had been concerned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
+awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
+sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
+walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
+reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
+photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
+until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
+his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
+dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
+used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
+develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
+into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
+camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
+lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
+been, as it were, under observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
+that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
+direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
+this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results&mdash;nothing more
+than a vague hope that it might show me something.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
+absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
+developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
+part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
+the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
+almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
+lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
+me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
+make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
+represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
+they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
+shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
+be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
+the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I carried development a little further, then put the negative into the
+hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. This came up nicely, and
+very soon I had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every
+respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
+taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate, then having washed both
+it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them
+into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which I carried them
+into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and I made an
+enlargement from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then we did the
+same with the two that I had just developed, washing them as quickly as
+possible, for I was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
+drying them with spirits.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done I took them to the window and made a thorough
+examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy
+daggers in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged, I was still
+unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything
+abnormal; and because of this, I put it on one side, determined not to
+let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of
+the indefinite outlines.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will
+remember, and commenced to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
+without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they
+portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw something in which they varied. In
+the second enlargement&mdash;the one made from the flashlight negative&mdash;the
+dagger was not in its sheath. Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few
+minutes before I took the photograph.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After this discovery I began to compare the two enlargements in a very
+different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers
+from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and
+exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly I came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement.
+I threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through
+the shop into the street. The three enlargements I took with me, making
+them into a roll as I went. At the corner of the street I had the luck to
+get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hurried up to my room and put the photographs away; then I went down to
+see whether I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock, who
+met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer
+that no one entered the Chapel unless he were about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young Jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking
+that Sir Alfred Jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
+but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for
+his carefulness had been justified. He added, also, that even before the
+horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular,
+always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except
+when the place was in use for Divine Service, and for an hour each
+forenoon when the cleaners were in.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To all this I nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young
+man left me I took my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
+I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried out some
+intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. These proved
+successful to such an extent that I came out of the place in a perfect
+fever of excitement. I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
+he was in the morning room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come along,' I said, when I had found him. 'Please give me a lift. I've
+something exceedingly strange to show you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. As we strode along
+he asked me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook my head,
+asking him to wait a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I led the way to the Armory. Here I suggested that he should take one
+side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the other.
+He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried
+the thing to the Chapel door. When he saw me take out my key and open
+the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in,
+evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered the Chapel and I locked
+the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle
+to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round,
+wooden stand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Stand back!' I shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
+open the gate. 'My God, man! you mustn't do that!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words
+and manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One minute," I said. "Just stand to the side a moment, and watch."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stepped to the left whilst I took the dummy in my arms and turned it
+to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
+well away on the right side, I pressed the back of the thing so that it
+leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. In the same
+instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the
+aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good God!" shouted young Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail,
+his face very white.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come and look at the thing," I said, and led the way to where the dummy
+lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. I
+stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel
+breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The
+thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of
+the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never
+budged an inch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come and see how it was done," I said, and led the way back to the
+chancel rail. From the wall to the left of the altar I took down a long,
+curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. The
+sharp end of this I inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
+chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor
+upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom.
+Down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. As I bent
+the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the
+floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to
+enclose the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove the post down
+into the niche. Immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch
+snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring.
+</p>
+<p>
+I went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to
+wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and
+placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted
+loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave
+another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom
+of the cavity, catching there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
+and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and
+looking no different from the surrounding surface.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then I shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. I
+took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
+opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the
+air, striking the bottom wall of the Chapel. It was the dagger. I
+showed Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back
+into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the
+right-hand side of the gate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There!" I said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post.
+"There's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is
+the person who sets the trap?" I looked at him keenly as I spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My father is the only one who has a key," he said. "So it's practically
+impossible for anyone to get in and meddle."
+</p>
+<p>
+I looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out
+to any conclusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"See here, Mr. Jarnock," I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have
+done, considering what I had to say. "Are you quite sure that Sir Alfred
+is quite balanced&mdash;mentally?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. I realized
+then how badly I put it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I&mdash;I don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent,
+except for one or two incoherent half remarks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tell the truth,' I said. 'Haven't you suspected something, now and
+again? You needn't be afraid to tell me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Well,' he answered slowly, 'I'll admit I've thought Father a little&mdash;a
+little strange, perhaps, at times. But I've always tried to think I was
+mistaken. I've always hoped no one else would see it. You see, I'm very
+fond of the old guvnor.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I nodded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Quite right, too,' I said. 'There's not the least need to make any kind
+of scandal about this. We must do something, though, but in a quiet way.
+No fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with your father, and tell
+him we've found out about this thing.' I touched the divided post.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young Jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my
+hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel. He came
+back in about an hour, looking rather upset. He told me that my
+conclusions were perfectly correct. It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set
+the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the
+past night. Indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every
+night for many years. He had learnt of its existence from an old
+manuscript book in the Castle library. It had been planned and used in an
+earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which
+were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his
+wife's jewelry. She had died some twelve years back, and the young man
+told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mentioned to young Jarnock how puzzled I was that the trap had been
+set <i>before</i> the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for,
+if I understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting
+the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone
+entered the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit of temporary
+forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set
+it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is about all there is to tell. The old man is not (so far as I
+could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word.
+He is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the
+whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
+on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to
+overmuch of his own company and thoughts. Indeed, young Jarnock told me
+that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the
+Chapel." Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you've never told us just <i>how</i> you discovered the secret of the
+divided post and all that," I said, speaking for the four of us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that!" replied Carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "I
+found&mdash;on comparing the&mdash;photos, that the one&mdash;taken in the&mdash;daytime,
+showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the
+flashlight. That put me on to the track. I saw at once that there might
+be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and
+nothing at all of an abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
+was simple enough, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may
+be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' Young
+Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my
+adventure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before
+the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Jarnock and I made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a
+few moments. "I've got the dagger, as you see, and old Bellett's getting
+about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. All
+the same I fancy the Chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous
+place. Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's two things you haven't explained yet," I said. "What do you
+think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the Chapel in the
+dark? And do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a
+fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't know for certain about the clangs," replied Carnacki.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've puzzled quite a bit about them. I can only think that the spring
+which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in
+the catch. If it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a
+ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the
+night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' You can understand that&mdash;eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I agreed. "And the other sounds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, the same thing&mdash;I mean the extraordinary quietness&mdash;may help to
+explain these a bit. They may have been some usual enough sound that
+would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have
+been only fancy. It is just impossible to say. They were disgustingly
+real to me. As for the slithery noise, I am pretty sure that one of the
+tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it
+may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would
+account for that queer little tap which I heard directly after."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar
+when you first examined it that night?" I asked. "How could it be there,
+when at that very moment it was set in the trap?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was my mistake," replied Carnacki. "The dagger could not possibly
+have been in its sheath at the time, though I thought it was. You see,
+the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete
+weapon, as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger protrudes very
+little above the continued portion of the sheath&mdash;a most inconvenient
+arrangement for drawing quickly!" He nodded sagely at the lot of us and
+yawned, then glanced at the clock.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+"I want a sleep."
+</p>
+<p>
+We rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and
+the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes.
+</p>
+
+
+<div style="height: 6em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10832 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fed0cc8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10832 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10832)
diff --git a/old/10832-h.zip b/old/10832-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b83d607
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10832-h.zip
diff --git a/old/10832-h/10832-h.htm b/old/10832-h/10832-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0d2168
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10832-h/10832-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,6382 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+    content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
+<title>
+    Carnacki, the Ghost Finder,
+    by William Hope Hodgson
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+		body { text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent:   1em;
+		    margin: 5%;
+        margin-top:    .75em;
+        margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+		hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    hr.full { width: 100%; }
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+		.play { margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: justify; font-size: 100%; }
+		img {border: 0;}
+		blockquote {font-size: 90%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;}
+		.pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 1%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: left;
+                color: gray;
+              } /* page numbers */
+		.figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 1%;}
+		.mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em;
+                margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+		.toc       { margin-left: 5%; margin-bottom: .75em; font-size: 110%;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 5%;}
+		.indent    {font-style: italic; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+		PRE    { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    -->
+</style>
+
+</head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope Hodgson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Carnacki, The Ghost Finder
+
+Author: William Hope Hodgson
+
+Release Date: January 25, 2004  [eBook #10832]
+Last Updated: October 5, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div style="height: 8em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h1>
+    CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER
+</h1><br>
+<h2>
+By William Hope Hodgson
+</h2>
+<center>
+1910, 1912
+</center>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<p class="toc"><big><b>CONTENTS</b></big></p><br />
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0001">
+No. 1&mdash;THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0002">
+No. 2&mdash;THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0003">
+No. 3&mdash;THE WHISTLING ROOM
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0004">
+No. 4&mdash;THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0005">
+No. 5&mdash;THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_0006">
+No. 6&mdash;THE THING INVISIBLE
+</a></p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<a name="2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 1&mdash;THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+</h2>
+<p>
+In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and
+listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the
+three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there
+before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I
+were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my
+soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to
+skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he
+would not stint words.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject,
+remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he
+gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely
+good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably
+down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with
+very little circumlocution:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and
+for a very good reason too&mdash;I've only been away a short distance. The
+exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than
+twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't
+spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary
+things ever I have run against.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson,
+asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found
+that he wished me to investigate and see whether I could not clear up a
+long-standing and well&mdash;too well&mdash;authenticated case of what he termed
+'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
+seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
+very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had
+left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
+and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
+butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
+thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
+old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
+detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
+Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
+door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
+slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
+key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
+always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
+and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
+with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
+after time&mdash;thud! thud! thud!&mdash;so that sleep was impossible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
+over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it&mdash;an
+ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
+very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
+feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
+dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
+me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
+one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
+fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
+and then he could accompany me himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
+explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
+affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
+But he shook his head when I said that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful
+pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.
+He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently
+in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my
+examination until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told
+him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn
+manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have
+the 'creeps' right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well
+furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with
+its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and
+two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and
+after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind
+you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had taken a good look 'round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon
+across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the
+fireplace and the wall closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler
+stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter;
+though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here
+and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say:&mdash;'You'll
+excuse me, I'm sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair
+in a quake for you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what
+he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all
+alone there. He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize
+the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a
+pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I
+should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother
+me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on
+my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it
+any nastier.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and
+sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were
+anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of
+playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had
+anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken
+off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had
+practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to
+the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when
+the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came
+sharp and frightened:&mdash;'Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to
+happen!' Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the
+candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind,
+or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to
+make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before
+I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing
+there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein'
+brave, y'know.' So I just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles
+off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I
+saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to
+those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door,
+the old man called again:&mdash;'Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'All right, Peter,' I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as
+I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work not to
+start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine.
+Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the
+room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little.
+I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of
+instinctive way. 'Collar the candles, Peter!' I said, pretty sharply,
+and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and
+slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so,
+I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only
+fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the
+door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I
+put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I
+pocketed the key, and went downstairs&mdash;with Peter; who was nervous and
+silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until
+that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the
+last two or three hours.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor
+upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between
+it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can
+understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to
+undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and
+sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I
+should know just which one.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked
+suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage.
+I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I
+was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door
+being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got
+my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding
+my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing
+happened. I could not go a step toward the Grey Room. You all know I am
+not really a cowardly chap. I've gone into too many cases connected with
+ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply
+funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy
+in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked
+the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal
+thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all
+the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not
+slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt
+ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're
+meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes.
+And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight.
+Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it
+is something warning you, and fighting <i>for</i> you. But, all the same, I
+always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver
+handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the
+stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old
+butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt
+into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Hullo, Peter!' I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as
+any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'Where are you off
+to with the refreshments?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up
+at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up
+the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'I'm very thankful
+indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'I feared, one time, you
+might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I've lain awake all night, with
+the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I'd make you a
+cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it
+seems safer if there's two, sir.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Peter,' I said, 'you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.' And I
+drank the coffee. 'Come along,' I told him, and handed him back the tray.
+'I'm going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply
+hadn't the pluck to in the night.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'Flesh and blood can do nothing,
+sir, against devils; and that's what's in the Grey Room after dark.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them
+right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the
+card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the
+door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole
+room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light.
+I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old
+butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:&mdash;'The
+bedclothes, sir!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in
+the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I
+felt. Something <i>had</i> been in the room. I stared for a while, from the
+bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to
+touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He
+went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as,
+doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped
+him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This,
+I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up
+the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was
+getting on my nerves.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own
+man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of
+the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed&mdash;even
+the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with
+probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I
+can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible
+thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up
+everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my
+camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a
+string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if
+the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there
+would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The
+last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I
+went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight;
+and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my
+candle burning.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and
+slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my
+door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it
+would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty
+feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so
+that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark
+passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my
+revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where I knew my
+camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when,
+suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately
+conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and
+my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of
+the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight.
+There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the
+corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint
+glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with
+the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped
+forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door
+of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
+corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
+horrible&mdash;as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
+stare, and how I listened. And then it came again&mdash;thud, thud, thud, and
+then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
+kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
+corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a
+yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
+thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I <i>thought</i> I
+heard a sound in the passage, and quite <i>near</i> me. I made one backward
+spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed,
+and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
+abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
+of that door. For some unknown reason I <i>knew</i> it was pressed up against
+the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
+extraordinary thing to think.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
+hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it
+almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of
+the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a
+miserable, brutal night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to
+an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
+corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you,
+it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
+been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
+room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had
+been sitting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
+coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we
+went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
+untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was
+the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
+keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
+unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
+the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
+left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very
+queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that
+not one had been broken.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me,
+nodding his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
+enter, without proper protection.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
+of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
+certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
+to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
+Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
+the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat
+which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward the
+bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, 'Yes,
+sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which
+was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me
+and himself, if he had known what I intended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried
+back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work,
+for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried
+the cat&mdash;still fastened in its basket&mdash;over toward the far wall, and left
+it. I returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
+twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a 'broom of hyssop.'
+About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the
+circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right
+around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among
+my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the
+parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in
+the little jar, I went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor,
+just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can
+tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle'
+complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and
+placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each Crescent. After that, I
+drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star
+touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five
+portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,'
+five opened jars of the water I had used to make the 'water circle.' And
+now I had my first protective barrier complete.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of
+investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish
+superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I
+believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst
+Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea
+from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th
+century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of
+the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it
+occurred to me to test his 'Defense,' which I did, as I've just said, in
+that horrible Black Veil business. You know how <i>that</i> turned out. Later,
+I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that
+Moving Fur case. It was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and I nearly
+died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's
+'Experiments with a Medium.' When they surrounded the Medium with a
+current, in vacuum, he lost his power&mdash;almost as if it cut him off from
+the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make
+the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'Defense' against
+certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this
+protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is
+some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a
+Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I
+never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap
+laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a
+supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the
+danger is abominable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of
+its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales'
+of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery,
+and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum
+tubes shone out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and
+realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and
+unfriendly. Then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier
+of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of
+weirdness thrust upon me&mdash;in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of
+something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised
+garlic, a smell I hate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in
+order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought
+that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialization of an
+ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can
+say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel
+the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized
+monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never
+forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me,
+and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt
+that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with
+the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly,
+and then all 'round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to
+come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over
+me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly
+feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself 'round with
+a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It
+seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed&mdash;the
+place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I
+could see nothing unusual; no opening&mdash;nothing!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that
+unnatural wind.... I believe I just squatted there and stared in a
+horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able
+to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile,
+cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the
+outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room,
+and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me;
+and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the
+left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward,
+unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius
+glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I
+stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight&mdash;a moving shadow, a
+little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the
+vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side,
+with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was
+directed to the bed. All the covering's were being drawn steadily off,
+with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging
+slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.
+I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the
+'creep' had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been
+for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating
+coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my
+right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze
+or my attention from those moving clothes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense
+silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet,
+immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being
+dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the
+camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed.
+And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were
+torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as
+they were hurled into the corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of
+minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been
+thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of
+the thing that had just been done before me!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise&mdash;a sort of crickling
+sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill
+swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head;
+for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was
+there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was
+impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination
+supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... And
+then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered
+there among the shadows.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I
+reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was
+slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of
+hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a
+power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were 'out.' Can
+you understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"The door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the
+basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all
+along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether
+whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose
+suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then&mdash;too late&mdash;I
+snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had
+been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half
+in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of
+the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had
+power to destroy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable
+quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the
+time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be
+pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most
+horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to
+see whether anything was coming at me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and
+abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the 'water circle.'
+It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of
+a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It
+passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but
+only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living
+person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round I turned. Then, just
+opposite to one of the Vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as
+though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the
+glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to
+gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign
+determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees,
+and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild
+endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was
+grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing
+came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water
+circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then,
+just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by
+some mighty, invisible force.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It must have been some moments before I realized that I was safe; and
+then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling
+horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but
+the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that
+the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the
+monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the
+pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the
+thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale'
+had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways'
+unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had
+found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. And I began to hope
+again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so
+nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the
+'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a
+Force. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I
+saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the
+door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the
+dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows
+against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with
+tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart
+at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from
+it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where&mdash;for a
+wickedly careless moment&mdash;I had placed it. The monster was hurled off
+from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though&mdash;owing to my inconceivable
+foolishness&mdash;it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer
+barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved
+right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making
+myself as small and compact as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two
+'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I
+being <i>influenced</i> to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me?
+The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I
+stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some
+was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright
+and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I
+did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the
+shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it
+approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether
+enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which
+it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if
+some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only
+upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a
+strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this
+more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was
+simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I
+can put it no other way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more
+fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded
+myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my
+own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense
+that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear
+that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the
+Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that
+ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at
+me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I
+heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the
+horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left
+of the bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural
+wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The
+dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and
+made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it
+was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave
+the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in
+the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look
+'round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy
+fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on
+the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the
+coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I
+had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly, and after
+I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I
+switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my
+hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not
+want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful
+search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several
+holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with
+my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on
+metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the
+second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window.
+I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The
+curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon;
+that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without
+the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. It was free
+from all chasing or engraving.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure
+I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which,
+indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the
+history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son
+through generations, and always&mdash;in obedience to some ancient family
+tradition&mdash;each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I
+may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar
+circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson's, made a
+bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did
+so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the
+bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem,
+thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken
+anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night
+in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no
+one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had
+been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most
+extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you
+can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.
+Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway&mdash;You see what I mean? A sort
+of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was
+not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come
+from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it.
+Then the shape&mdash;the inside of a pentacle. It had no 'mounts,' and without
+mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it:&mdash;'Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills
+of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to
+fayvor the Evill Thynge.' You see, the very shape of the ring was
+significant; and I determined to test it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh <i>and around</i> the one
+to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left
+the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier'
+must be used a second time. I returned about seven thirty, and as soon as
+the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I
+dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before.
+When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and
+sealed the door. I went to the place in the center of the room where all
+the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct
+a barrier about me and the ring.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned
+that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were
+enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it
+loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression
+as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab
+from the Normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed
+about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
+that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
+effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
+strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
+You will see whether I was right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
+of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
+once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
+quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
+a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
+happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
+queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
+come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
+The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
+me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
+I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
+Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
+queer about the ring&mdash;funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
+at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
+up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
+seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
+Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
+convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
+was forming <i>within</i> the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
+brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
+through&mdash;pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
+mouth of a pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.
+Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to
+hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible,
+living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet,
+in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal
+force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came
+at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I
+gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning
+candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and
+ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that
+was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The hand was plunging toward me;
+yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring
+was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass
+out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were
+chains riveted upon it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken
+with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned,
+I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked
+it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could
+hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get
+the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or
+two, and so I got steadied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee.
+When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along
+with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and
+peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and
+behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And
+there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying
+demure and ordinary.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never
+managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the
+afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two
+cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey
+Room, and there, in the center of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the
+little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck,' but
+now the 'bane,' of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid
+splash of hot metal."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue
+paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of
+greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?" I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to
+the others. "Did that stop the haunting?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room,
+before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but
+by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and
+ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "Out you go!" he said,
+genially. And presently we went, pondering, to our various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 2&mdash;THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+</h2>
+<p>
+"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as
+after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy
+dining room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just got back from the West of Ireland," he continued.
+"Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy,
+in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside
+of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has
+been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the
+case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession, he found the
+place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I
+know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the
+big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable
+feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the
+natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long
+uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village,
+meaning to see the one-time Agent of the Estate, and arrange for someone
+to go in as caretaker. The Agent, who proved by the way to be a
+Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the Estate once
+more; but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as
+caretaker; and that his&mdash;the Agent's&mdash;advice was to have the house pulled
+down, and a new one built.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the
+village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems
+that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in
+the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven
+years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they
+had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and
+had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free
+lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the
+method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been
+found in the great entrance hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he
+told the Agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the
+haunting, by staying a night or two in the Manor himself. The death of
+the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural
+agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents, spread over a
+large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural
+enough in a little place like Korunton. Tramps had to die some time, and
+in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds
+who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity
+to die under shelter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the Agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the
+landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his
+'sowl's sake,' Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because
+of his 'life's sake,' the Scotchman was equally in earnest.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me, it was warm
+and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking
+seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his
+mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that
+very night, in the Manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them
+that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered
+to come up along with him, and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was
+quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion; and though Tabbit, the
+Agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems that Wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when
+the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing
+to tackle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this
+time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him, and
+a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would
+not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at
+sight.' And then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered
+the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great
+bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company.
+Wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his
+head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for
+him to get away from the castle. For it was obvious that he did not
+consider the gun would prove of any use.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. He told me that, already,
+he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would
+go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of
+men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were
+keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the Manor, and
+then went right over the whole place with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk;
+and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt
+ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that,
+by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back
+with them. And then, abruptly, an idea came to him. He suggested that
+they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. For a
+time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but
+finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that
+they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen
+bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles.
+Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place,
+light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and
+make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got them to agree.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey
+was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, Dennis was
+doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible
+man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. You
+see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter
+reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther
+pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to
+shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the
+bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all
+the gold in the worrld was offered ye.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back
+in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to
+patch up, an' he invited thim&mdash;the O'Haras they was&mdash;siventy av thim. An'
+he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to
+shlape with him. Thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered
+thim wan an' all as they slep'. 'Tis from me father's grandfather ye have
+the sthory. An' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the
+night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'Twill put out candle
+an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the Virgin Herself would be powerless
+to protect ye.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put
+it:&mdash;'One always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you
+feel inside.' He asked old Dennis whether he expected him to believe it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes, sorr,' said Dennis, 'I do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please God,
+if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' The man's serious
+simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand. But, for all
+that, he went; and I must admire his pluck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the Manor&mdash;or
+castle as the villagers always call it&mdash;they were not long in getting a
+big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. They had
+all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot
+to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, Wentworth had his
+gun. He kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them
+sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to
+make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. If you once let a
+crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to
+fancy things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which
+shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so
+this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a
+jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. He had opened a second lot
+of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the
+men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. And
+then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous
+main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible
+hand, and shut with a sharp click.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the
+men, and looked 'round at them. Several had ceased their talk, and were
+staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had
+never noticed, and were talking and yarning. He reached for his gun, and
+the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking,
+which drew the attention of the whole company.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hall I should tell you is oblong. The south wall is all windows; but
+the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the
+west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading
+into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
+north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
+suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
+passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
+and for a minute there was an absolute silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
+the doorway.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
+came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
+report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
+moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
+into the black shapes of the empty doorways.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
+was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
+frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
+happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
+and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
+candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
+together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
+ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
+on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
+with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
+near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:&mdash;'The
+bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
+same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
+of:&mdash;'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
+candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
+let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
+with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
+rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
+dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
+in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
+one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
+connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
+and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
+Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
+me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house.
+The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
+growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
+look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
+even by daylight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
+sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
+one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
+with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
+whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
+some force exceedingly dangerous to life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
+examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
+drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
+candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
+general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
+examination of every square foot of the place&mdash;not only of the hall, in
+this case, but of the whole interior of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
+kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
+have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
+stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
+perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
+whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
+shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
+after dusk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
+hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
+attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing.
+However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
+persuade him to be present.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
+arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
+policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
+and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
+good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
+donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
+boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
+the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
+all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
+doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
+to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
+influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
+and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
+lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
+took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
+entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
+dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
+figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
+with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
+more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
+doors make the angle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
+of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
+into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
+open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
+the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
+each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
+then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
+the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
+took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:&mdash;'Theyre must
+noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
+in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth
+were tremendously interested, and I took the opportunity to warn them
+that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a
+definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human
+thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that, as they
+valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must
+on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I
+was making.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had drawn the circle, I took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged
+it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. When this was
+complete, I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the
+police to lighting them, and as they were lit, I took them, and sealed
+them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart.
+As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took
+sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and I need hardly say that
+every number and measurement has a significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, from candle to candle I took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it
+alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was
+completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into
+the wax of the sixty-sixth candle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It had now been dark some time, and I made haste to get the 'Defense'
+complete. To this end, I got the men well together, and began to fit the
+Electric Pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the
+Defensive Star came just within the Hair Circle. This did not take me
+long, and a minute later I had connected up the batteries, and the weak
+blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. I felt
+happier then; for this Pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful
+'Defense.' I have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading
+Professor Garder's 'Experiments with a Medium.' He found that a current,
+of a certain number of vibrations, <i>in vacuo,</i> 'insulated' the medium. It
+is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are
+really interested you should read Carder's lecture on 'Astral Vibrations
+Compared with Matero-involuted Vibrations below the Six-Billion Limit.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I stood up from my work, I could hear outside in the night a constant
+drip from the laurels, which as I have said, come right up around the
+house, very thick. By the sound, I knew that a 'soft' rain had set in;
+and there was absolutely no wind, as I could tell by the steady flames of
+the candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my
+arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. By his tone, I
+could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all;
+and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid
+they were beginning to get shaky.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center;
+so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating
+outward. Then, by compass, I laid their legs to the eight chief points,
+and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to
+their feet, I made the Eight Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual. The eighth
+place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment;
+for I had omitted to make the Sealing Sign to that point, until I had
+finished all my preparations, and could enter the Inner Star.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big
+hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. The fire
+was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt
+steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went 'round
+the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever
+happened; but to trust to the 'Defense'; and to let nothing tempt or
+drive them to cross the Barriers. Also, I told them to watch their
+movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. For the rest,
+there was to be no shooting, unless I gave the word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now at last, I went to my place, and, sitting down, made the Eighth
+sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy,
+and examined my revolver.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wentworth sat behind the First Sign, and as the numbering went 'round
+reversed, that put him next to me on my left. I asked him, in a low
+voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt
+confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the
+matter, whatever happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We settled down to wait. There was no talking, except that, once or
+twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks
+concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense
+silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and
+only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great
+entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our
+legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the
+Pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of
+lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty
+hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone
+before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest
+mass of flame. And the feeling of mystery! Can you picture it all?
+</p>
+<p>
+"It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was
+aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the
+air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with
+us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to
+happen any moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and I
+felt the star of men move suddenly. 'Steady! Keep steady!' I shouted, and
+they quietened. I looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon
+their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great
+entrance. I turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned
+their heads to look. Suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and
+I glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the
+big doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be
+listening. In the same instant, I heard a faint chink of metal to my
+left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It
+moved, even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A
+queer, sickening thrill went through me, and I felt all the men about me,
+stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something
+impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but
+overwhelming, Presence. The hall was full of a queer silence, and not a
+sound came from the dogs. <i>Then I saw the hook slowly raised from out of
+its hasp, without any visible thing touching it.</i> Then a sudden power of
+movement came to me. I raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and
+snapped it at the door. There came the great blare of the flashlight, and
+a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some
+moments, and in that time of darkness, I heard a jingle in the direction
+of the door, and strained to look. The effect of the bright light passed,
+and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly
+closed. It shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence,
+broken only by the whimpering of the dogs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Just as it did before,' he whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Most extraordinary,' I said, and he nodded and looked 'round,
+nervously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling
+rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think
+that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is
+extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than
+most people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low
+voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, <i>whatever happened</i>; not even
+though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
+them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
+Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
+Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
+kept to our order within the Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
+the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
+from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
+their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
+sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
+out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
+before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
+Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
+with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
+actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
+of the hall in general.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
+flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
+smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
+the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
+quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
+as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
+room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
+hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
+now over in the corners.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
+visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
+impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
+way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
+watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
+from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
+the Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
+to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
+in the hall: The steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible.
+The <i>extent</i> of the Power to affect the Material was horrible. The
+extent of the Power to affect the Material was now the one constant,
+anxious questioning in my brain. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were
+getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
+quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
+within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
+once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
+state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
+known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
+would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
+'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
+of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
+company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
+yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
+him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
+room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
+glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
+again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
+candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
+seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
+weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
+solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
+felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
+normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I
+began, however, to feel better, after a while; but I simply had not the
+pluck to move. You can understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
+flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
+once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
+a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
+eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
+police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
+there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
+the sealing-wax. <i>The sealed doors were opening.</i> I raised the camera and
+flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
+me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
+felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
+if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
+brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
+floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
+a sense of a very real and present danger&mdash;<i>imminent.</i> The 'blood-drip'
+had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
+save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an
+increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the Barriers. I
+saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing
+intertwining tubes of the Electric Pentacle; but, strangely enough, I
+could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise
+of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the
+boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of
+agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an
+immediate silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's
+neck, you will know the sound&mdash;in miniature! Like lightning, the thought
+sprang into my brain:&mdash;<i>IT has crossed the Pentacle.</i> For you will
+remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly,
+with a sick apprehension, of our own Barriers. There was something in the
+hall with us that had passed the Barrier of the Pentacle about one of the
+dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And
+suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman,
+and bolted for the door. He fumbled, and had it open in a moment. I
+yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and I
+heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped
+on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter
+darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the
+powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the
+useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the
+night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men were a little ahead of me, and I never ceased running, and
+neither did they. Sometimes, I glanced back over my shoulder; and I kept
+glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly
+things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though
+something were keeping parallel with me, among them. The rain had
+stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It
+was disgusting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside, and
+ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up, waiting for us,
+and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known
+in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all;
+which is not a bad rendering of his remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fortunately, I had brought my camera away from the house&mdash;possibly
+because the strap had happened to be over my head. Yet, I did not go
+straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we
+talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole
+horrible business.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, however, I went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography.
+I was steadier now, and it was just possible, so I hoped, that the
+negatives might show something.
+</p>
+<p>
+"On two of the plates, I found nothing unusual: but on the third, which
+was the first one that I snapped, I saw something that made me quite
+excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then I put
+it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and I had made
+up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without
+losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and
+the police, until I was certain; and, also, I believed that I stood a
+greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, I do not
+suppose anything would have taken them up to the Manor again that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. The
+rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When
+I came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going
+through, and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the
+drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels.
+You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled, I jumped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a
+little window which I had taken note of during my search; for, of course,
+I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the
+kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, I went to the
+left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the
+doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. I looked up it, and saw a
+faint flicker of light away at the end; and I tiptoed silently toward it,
+holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door, I heard men's
+voices, and then a burst of laughing. I went on, until I could see into
+the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well
+dressed, and one, at least, I saw was armed. They were examining my
+'Barriers' against the Supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter.
+I never felt such a fool in my life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the
+empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now
+that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the
+traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping
+so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were, I mean
+whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, I could not imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, they left the Pentacle, and gathered 'round the living
+boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged.
+There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but
+finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of
+them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of
+the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. Then a
+third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. The two men
+with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that I could not see what was
+done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there
+was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, I had heard earlier
+in the night, as you will remember.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you
+may suppose. For my part, I fully appreciated the calculated
+remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold
+determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. I
+guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular
+men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should
+'shift the wires.' One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor
+in which I stood, and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper
+end. I saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door,
+and I heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he had gone, I ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after
+another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble
+steps being raised. When the last man had vanished, the slab that made
+the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. It
+was the seventh step from the bottom, as I took care to count: and a
+splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a
+fairly heavy hammer, as I found later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and
+quietly as possible, and back to the inn. The police came without any
+coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. We
+entered the park and the Manor in the same way that I had done. Yet, when
+we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. This
+must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room
+which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness
+of the walls, we found no one.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my
+part, I did not care either way. I had 'laid the ghost,' as you might
+say, and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of
+being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken
+in'; and in the end, I had scored, without their help.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an
+exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well,
+out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a
+little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The 'blood-drip' was
+merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the
+ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out, I do not
+know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which
+held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' Perhaps it was too
+difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which
+might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may
+possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but
+how suspended, I have no idea.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. There was also, did I
+tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered
+the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall, I
+should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned
+them had I gone in through the gateway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was on the negative?" I asked, with much curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook
+that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the
+crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for
+lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone would make
+use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine
+to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight
+'picked it out.' Do you see?
+</p>
+<p>
+"The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have
+guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else I should soon have found
+them, when I made my search.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed, of
+course, by the men direct. You see, they made the place as dark as
+possible, first. Of course, if I had managed to take a flashlight just at
+that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed.
+But Fate just ordered it the other way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the tramps?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the Manor," said
+Carnacki. "Well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the
+other. Perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a
+hypodermic. Or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of
+their dying, and just died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many
+tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. We rose also, and went for
+our coats and hats.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" said Carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. And
+we went out on to the Embankment, and presently through the darkness to
+our various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 3&mdash;THE WHISTLING ROOM
+</h2>
+<p>
+Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
+the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us&mdash;Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and myself&mdash;in to dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
+silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
+usual positions, and Carnacki&mdash;having got himself comfortable in his big
+chair&mdash;began without any preliminary:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
+chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
+the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
+this, though, at the beginning&mdash;up to the present moment, I have been
+utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
+peculiar cases of 'haunting'&mdash;or devilment of some sort&mdash;that I have come
+against. Now listen.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
+miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
+Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
+only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
+drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
+I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
+American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
+all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
+they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
+about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
+different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
+Case was very queer, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
+shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
+haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
+on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
+not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
+replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
+infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
+playing a trick on me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
+playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
+in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
+wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
+so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
+There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
+years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
+against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
+all this affects the room?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
+out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
+her&mdash;one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
+she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
+must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
+were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
+found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
+this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
+market again, after a trial.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
+after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
+twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
+talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
+Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
+were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
+something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
+others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
+guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
+mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
+castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
+been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
+frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
+had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
+for the talk up at Arlestrae&mdash;Miss Donnehue's place&mdash;had made me wonder a
+bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
+wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
+the talk about it, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
+said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
+whistling, coming along the East Corridor&mdash;The room is in the East
+Wing, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
+off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
+along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
+queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
+rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
+That's how it makes you feel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
+then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
+said he got it the same way&mdash;sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
+looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
+locked the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
+began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
+the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
+Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
+visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
+and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
+had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
+You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
+house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
+queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
+of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
+a rise out of me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' he said&mdash;'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
+chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
+We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
+nerves; so we sent for you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
+suddenly called out:&mdash;'Ssh! Hark!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
+hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
+corridors to my right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By G&mdash;d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
+candles, both of you, and come along.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
+Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
+candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
+near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
+of some wanton Immense Force&mdash;a sense of an actual taint, as you might
+say, of monstrosity all about us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
+back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
+us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
+it&mdash;with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
+darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
+glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
+and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
+you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:&mdash;That's Hell. And you
+knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
+and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
+came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
+with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
+ear, something seemed to be saying to me:&mdash;'Get out of here&mdash;quick!
+Quick! Quick!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
+be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
+warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
+Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
+others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, <i>out</i> quick.' And in an instant I
+had them into the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
+and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
+and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
+were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
+there we stood a moment, silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
+a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
+man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
+downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
+and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
+said. And directly afterward:&mdash;'What on earth made you hustle us all out
+like that, Carnacki?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
+bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
+sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
+laughed at.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
+that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
+rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
+going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
+dangerous about this thing.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
+we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
+ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
+after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
+on the morrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
+the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
+the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
+old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
+more modern doors of the various rooms.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
+instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
+or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
+extraordinary whistling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
+my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
+of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
+down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
+pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
+light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
+of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
+know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
+of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
+produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
+prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
+astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
+abnormal in them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
+garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
+room, I hoped to be safe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
+had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
+if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
+gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
+revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
+with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
+Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
+empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
+realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
+understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
+of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
+I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
+that same <i>malevolent</i> silence&mdash;the beastly quietness of a thing that is
+looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
+Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
+as to have light over the <i>whole</i> room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
+sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
+sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
+tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
+can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
+there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
+was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
+Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case&mdash;you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
+a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
+projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
+human hairs&mdash;the seventh crossing the six others.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
+room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
+from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
+extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
+human&mdash;as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
+As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
+doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
+the <i>Inanimate</i> reproducing the functions of the <i>Animate</i>, I made a
+grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
+shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
+I got my hand upon the handle&mdash;a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
+piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
+slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
+wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
+squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
+when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
+the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
+business. There is no protection against this particular form of
+monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
+reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
+material which you may use, and has the power to '<i>forme</i> wythine the
+pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
+of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
+too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
+then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
+harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
+whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
+there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
+off down the great passage, and so to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
+Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
+coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
+and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
+terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
+mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
+and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
+and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
+said. '<i>I</i> can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
+time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
+toward the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No!' I said. 'By Jove&mdash;<i>no!</i> I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
+believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Haunted&mdash;<i>really</i> haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
+frequent banter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite <i>yes</i> or <i>no</i> to
+such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
+Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
+Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
+particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
+subject of a manifestation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
+went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
+another spell of sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
+intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
+the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
+thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
+having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
+broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
+instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
+would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
+just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
+It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
+open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
+Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
+breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
+all the way; but I found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room&mdash;floor, ceiling,
+and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
+hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
+thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
+when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
+whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
+to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
+within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
+as you must allow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
+mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
+been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
+years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
+would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
+Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
+someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
+to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
+would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
+nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
+all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
+'haunting.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
+hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
+intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
+and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
+extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
+along&mdash;tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet&mdash;to the sealed door (for
+I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
+often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
+note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
+door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
+whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
+about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
+hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
+hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
+the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
+wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
+arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
+exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
+entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
+nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
+risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
+Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
+getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
+look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
+come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
+in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
+sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
+down my spine. You know the feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
+something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
+walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
+under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
+vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
+Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
+low, but evidently in glee:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
+that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
+rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
+had spotted me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
+<i>they</i> were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
+made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
+and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
+genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
+details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
+natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
+whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
+East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
+the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
+hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
+which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
+simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
+watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
+was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
+sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
+yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
+it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
+after dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
+be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
+mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
+back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
+way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
+phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
+impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
+feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
+microphone will not magnify the sound&mdash;will not even transmit it; seems
+to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
+absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
+to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. <i>I</i>
+cannot&mdash;not yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rose to his feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
+without offence, into the night.
+</p>
+<p>
+A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
+I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
+dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
+began again, where he had left off:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
+you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
+had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
+the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
+whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
+outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
+could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
+it, and gone off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
+whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
+night. It had a queer note in it, I remember&mdash;low and constant, queerly
+meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
+sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
+look into the Room, through the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
+straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
+though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
+first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
+ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
+larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
+had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
+conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
+itself&mdash;can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
+note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct&mdash;a mighty parody of
+the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
+lips of a monster with a man's soul.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
+huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
+soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
+pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
+heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
+as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
+and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
+dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
+enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
+moonlight....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
+stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
+moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
+same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
+that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
+then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
+undisturbed floor of the room&mdash;smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
+to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
+I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide <i>quietly</i> down
+the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
+voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, <i>help</i>. My God! but I
+got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
+that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
+taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
+window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
+had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
+across to it; but there was no one there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
+apartment; and then, in a flash, <i>I knew that Tassoc had never called</i>. I
+whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
+frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
+the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
+black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
+mad instant at my revolver; not for <i>it</i>, but myself; for the danger was
+a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
+Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
+Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
+sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
+life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
+vertigo of unseeable things. Then <i>that</i> ended, and I knew that I might
+live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
+dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
+I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
+on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
+way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
+with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
+of the Room, there was a low whistling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
+and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
+good whisky&mdash;for I was shaken to pieces&mdash;and I explained things as much
+as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
+every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
+pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
+thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
+a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
+great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
+that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
+old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
+Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
+King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
+tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
+library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
+Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
+countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
+one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
+was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
+job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
+Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
+nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
+until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
+sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
+Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
+it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
+his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
+the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
+tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
+him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
+purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
+her prettiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
+morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
+sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
+power to sing it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace&mdash;probably from
+that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
+died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
+he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
+heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
+in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
+seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
+translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
+you think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
+a tremendous manifestation?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
+upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
+development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
+produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
+manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
+spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
+itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
+the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
+plainer in a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
+too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
+men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
+secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
+become the talk of the whole countryside.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
+use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
+that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
+but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
+and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
+extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
+may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
+case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
+taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
+other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
+inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
+soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
+the material expression of the ancient Jester&mdash;that his soul, rotten with
+hatred, had bred into a monster&mdash;eh?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
+neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
+descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
+think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
+Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
+<i>It</i> had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
+that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
+a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, <i>if</i> ever she
+had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
+took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
+friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
+had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 4&mdash;THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+</h2>
+<p>
+I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached
+his place I found him sitting alone. As I came into the room he rose with
+a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. His face seemed
+to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. He shook
+hands and offered me his paper, which I refused. Then he passed me a
+handful of photographs and returned to his reading.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, that is just Carnacki. Not a word had come from him and not a
+question from me. He would tell us all about it later. I spent about half
+an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by
+flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the
+photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so
+frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to
+believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent
+and overwhelming danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
+passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
+the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
+portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
+evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
+first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
+surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something <i>definitely</i>
+extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
+in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
+turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
+noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
+the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.
+</p>
+<p>
+I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
+than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
+was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
+held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
+and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
+the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
+Carnacki began:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
+at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
+strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
+finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
+have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
+Also I know <i>now</i> that I never considered it seriously&mdash;in spite of my
+rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
+that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
+himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
+horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
+understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
+haunted by the Horse during her courtship.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
+always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
+an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven
+generations the Hisgins family have had men children for their first-born
+and even the Hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be
+little more than a myth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is
+a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her
+friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest
+for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men
+friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape
+the haunting. And this, I think, shows us how thoroughly the tale
+had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious
+thought. Don't you think so?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two months ago Miss Hisgins became engaged to Beaumont, a young Naval
+Officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it
+was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which
+resulted in Captain Hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately
+going down to their place to look into the thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me I
+found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like
+a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and
+disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way.
+In the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five
+first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. Each
+of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each
+one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling
+from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure,
+owing to sudden shock through fright). The fifth girl was killed one
+evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be
+no <i>exact</i> knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had
+been kicked by a horse. She was dead when found. Now, you see, all of
+these deaths might be attributed in a way&mdash;even the suicides&mdash;to natural
+causes, I mean as distinct from supernatural. You see? Yet, in every
+case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and
+terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the
+records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or
+of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other
+peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. You begin to understand
+now, I think, just how extraordinary a business it was that I was asked
+to look into.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so
+constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from
+their ladyloves. And I think it was this, more than anything else, that
+made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere
+succession of uncomfortable coincidences.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got hold of these facts before I had been many hours in the house and
+after this I went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that
+happened on the night of Miss Hisgins's engagement to Beaumont. It seems
+that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just
+after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a
+sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. Immediately
+afterward Beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his
+right forearm. Then the rest of the family and the servants came running
+to know what was wrong. Lights were brought and the corridor and,
+afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous,
+half believing talk about the old legend. Then, later, in the middle of
+the night the old Captain was waked by the sound of a great horse
+galloping 'round and 'round the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Several times after this both Beaumont and the girl said that they had
+heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the
+rooms and corridors.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Three nights later Beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the
+nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
+He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
+They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
+the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
+were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
+details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
+evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
+had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
+that had happened the evening before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
+whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
+and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
+yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
+girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it&mdash;the sound of a horse
+outside of the front door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
+not riding.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
+Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see
+whether anyone was at the entrance. It was pretty dark in the hall and he
+could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the
+darkness of the hall. He walked over to the glass and looked through into
+the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to
+the carriage-circle. Almost directly afterward the great hall door swung
+to with a crash behind him. He told me that he had a sudden awful feeling
+of having been trapped in some way&mdash;that is how he put it. He whirled
+'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it
+with a vast grip on the other side. Then, before he could be fixed in his
+mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had
+hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really
+frightened or not. Then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of
+the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him
+from the boudoir. He blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway,
+meaning to go to her. And then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening
+knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that
+kiss. He knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the
+darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. He jumped back and
+in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. He
+called out at the top of his voice: 'Mary, stay in the boudoir. Don't
+move out of the boudoir until I come to you.' He heard her call something
+in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or
+so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the
+hall. There was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there
+came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse
+galloping; but when I questioned more closely I found that the aunt had
+heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further
+back in the room. Of course, both he and Miss Hisgins had been in an
+extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. The door might have
+been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being
+opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing
+more than the snick catching.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, I
+pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they
+had been only cool enough to reason. As I told him, and as he knew, the
+sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he
+had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some
+distance away. And as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises&mdash;the rustle of
+a paper or a leaf&mdash;have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in
+an overstrung condition and imagining things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria
+as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. But neither
+Beaumont nor Miss Hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on
+their parts.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along
+the passage and I was still doing my best to make both of them see the
+ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my
+pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard
+room we had just left.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back
+of my head. Miss Hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and
+ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. Beaumont, however,
+ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. I gave back
+too, a bit, as you can understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'Perhaps you'll
+believe now.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There's certainly something,' I whispered, never taking my gaze off the
+closed door of the billiard room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'H'sh!' he muttered. 'There it is again.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the
+billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. A horrible cold fright took me
+so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
+and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
+suddenly at the opening of the long passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
+horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
+malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
+occupied. Do you understand just what I mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
+excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
+sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
+'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
+about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
+realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
+see what's there.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck.
+I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
+my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
+and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
+not stop me from being able to work my flashlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
+his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
+shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all.
+He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
+in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
+went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
+we were a pretty nervous couple.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
+within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
+of a hoof on the solid <i>parquet</i> floor of the billiard room. In the
+instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
+ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, <i>coming toward the door</i>. Both
+Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
+our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
+to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
+silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
+and temples almost deafened me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
+restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
+right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
+the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
+the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
+clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
+between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
+I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
+body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
+breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
+could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
+danger abroad. Do you understand?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
+of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
+quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
+Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
+and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
+landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
+nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
+'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
+the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
+landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
+the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
+where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
+anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
+that infernal thing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
+passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
+if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
+thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
+down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
+follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
+came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
+me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
+girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
+room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
+no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
+anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
+and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
+so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle.
+I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
+and that he had better be armed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
+miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
+him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
+'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
+the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
+like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
+feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
+wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
+that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
+least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
+for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
+whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
+foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
+particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
+remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
+outside. Poor devil!
+</p>
+<p>
+"The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
+we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
+house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
+queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
+the bedroom. I knocked at the door, for I was uneasy, and the Captain
+came. I asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and
+immediately asked me whether I had heard the galloping, so that I knew he
+had heard them also. I suggested that it might be well to leave the
+bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly
+something abroad. This was done and he went back into the room, to be
+near his wife and daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had better say here that I was doubtful whether there was any value in
+the 'Defense' about Miss Hisgins, for what I term the 'personal sounds'
+of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that I was inclined
+to parallel the case with that one of Harford's where the hand of the
+child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. As
+you will remember, that was a hideous business.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had
+fully come we all went off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont knocked me up about midday and I went down and made breakfast
+into lunch. Miss Hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits,
+considering. She told me that I had made her feel almost safe for the
+first time for days. She told me also that her cousin, Harry Parsket, was
+coming down from London and she knew that he would do anything to help
+fight the ghost. And after that she and Beaumont went out into the
+grounds to have a little time together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no
+traces of hoof marks and after that I spent the rest of the day making an
+examination of the house, but found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for
+dinner. When I got down the cousin had just arrived and I found him one
+of the nicest men I have met for a long time. A chap with a tremendous
+amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man I like to have with me in
+a bad case like the one I was on. I could see that what puzzled him most
+was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and I found myself
+almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. As
+it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont and Miss Hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk
+and Captain Hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat
+whilst Parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a long conversation with the old Captain in which I pointed out
+that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the
+house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was
+married, the better as it would give Beaumont a right to be with her at
+all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations
+would cease if the marriage were actually performed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and
+reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted'
+had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. And then
+in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption,
+for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most
+extraordinarily pale:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
+the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse&mdash;'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
+sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
+snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
+Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
+sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
+of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
+of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
+The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
+tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
+and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
+shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
+for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
+blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
+was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
+staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
+don't know.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
+toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
+darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
+game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
+immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
+carried by some of the men-servants.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
+standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
+saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
+the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
+the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
+one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
+strange to be seen anywhere.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
+Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
+four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched
+'round the home park. But we found nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
+Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
+straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
+guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
+soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
+I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
+They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
+order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
+of the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
+got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
+seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
+the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
+'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
+nothing for a little. Then he caught it&mdash;the sound of a horse, seemingly
+a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
+that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
+was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
+close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
+caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
+heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
+at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
+right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
+looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
+last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
+tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
+butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
+glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
+however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
+him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
+him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
+for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
+anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
+each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont
+and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun. In addition to my weapon
+I had my camera and flashlight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of
+the bedroom to have a word with us. About half-past one we had all grown
+very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand,
+silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. I
+knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I
+whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse. For some time we
+stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it;
+but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont. Yet afterward, I thought
+I heard it again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and
+leave the door a little open and this he did. But from that time onward
+we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very
+thankfully to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain
+Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to
+take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than
+possible. Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special
+License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the
+extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
+investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
+was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
+Miss Hisgins and her <i>surroundings</i>. Sometimes the camera sees things
+that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
+company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
+experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
+her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
+impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
+we chanced to be at the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
+whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
+cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
+for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
+darkness without help and companionship at hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
+carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
+lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
+Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
+off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
+the experiment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
+extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss
+Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding
+the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the
+trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling
+neighing that I had heard out in the Park. It seemed to come from
+somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light I saw that
+she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. And then in the
+succeeding comparative darkness, I was shouting to the Captain and
+Parsket to run Miss Hisgins out into the daylight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This was done instantly and I shut and locked the door afterward making
+the First and Eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual opposite to each post
+and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the meanwhile Parsket and Captain Hisgins carried the girl to her
+mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst I stayed
+on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for I knew
+that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling
+there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know,
+because I had exposed Miss Hisgins to the danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had got the Captain's shotgun and when he and Parsket came down again
+they were each carrying guns and lanterns. I could not possibly tell you
+the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when I heard them
+coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of
+that cellar. Can you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I remember noticing, just before I went to unlock the door, how white
+and ghastly Parsket looked and the old Captain was grey-looking and I
+wondered whether my face was like theirs. And this, you know, had its own
+distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness
+of the thing crashing down on to me in a fresh way. I know it was only sheer
+will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide
+open and held my lantern over my head. Parsket and the Captain came one
+on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was
+absolutely empty. Of course, I did not trust to a casual look of this
+kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding
+every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, in the end I had to admit that the place itself was absolutely
+normal and so we came away. But I sealed the door and outside, opposite
+each doorpost I made the First and Last signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+joined them as before, with a triple line. Can you imagine what it was
+like, searching that cellar?
+</p>
+<p>
+"When we got upstairs I inquired very anxiously how Miss Hisgins was
+and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and
+that I was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as I told her I
+had been doing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was
+done, Parsket and I took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives
+that I had been taking. Yet none of the plates had anything to tell us
+until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. Parsket was
+developing and I had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the
+lamplight to examine them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had just gone carefully through the lot when I heard a shout from
+Parsket and when I ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed
+negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. It showed the girl
+plainly, looking upward as I had seen her, but the thing that astonished
+me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were
+coming down upon her out of the shadows. And you know, I had run her
+bang into that danger. That was the thought that was chief in my mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as the developing was complete I fixed the plate and examined it
+carefully in a good light. There was no doubt about it at all, the thing
+above Miss Hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. Yet I was no nearer to
+coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing I could do was to
+warn Parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only
+increase her fright, but I showed the thing to her father for I
+considered it right that he should know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night we took the same precaution for Miss Hisgins's safety as on
+the two previous nights and Parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in
+without anything unusual having happened and I went off to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got down to lunch I learnt that Beaumont had wired to say that he
+would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the
+Rector. And it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a
+tremendous fluster.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even
+then the Rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to
+say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away
+unexpectedly. Twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down,
+but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until
+the next day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night I arranged the 'Defense' 'round the girl's bed and the
+Captain and his wife sat up with her as before. Beaumont, as I expected,
+insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened
+mood; not for himself, you know, but for Miss Hisgins. He had a horrible
+feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his
+sweetheart that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This, of course, I told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made
+me feel very anxious; for I have seen too much not to know that under
+such circumstances a premonitory <i>conviction</i> of impending danger is not
+necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. In fact, Beaumont was so
+simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some
+extraordinary manifestation that I got Parsket to rig up a long cord from
+the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To the butler himself I gave directions not to undress and to give the
+same order to two of the footmen. If I rang he was to come instantly,
+with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept
+ready lit all night. If for any reason the bell did not ring and I blew
+my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had arranged all these minor details I drew a pentacle about
+Beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever
+happened. And when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and
+pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense
+and nervous so that at last Parsket got up and began to walk up and
+down the corridor to steady himself a bit. Presently I slipped off my
+pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally
+for something over an hour, until in turning I caught my foot in the
+bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or
+making a noise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got up Parsket nudged me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Jove!' I said, 'you're right.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Wait a minute,' he answered. 'I'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in
+the cord.' He left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the
+top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying Beaumont's revolver ready
+in his right hand. He was a plucky chap, I remember thinking then, and
+again, later.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just then Beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. Directly afterward
+I heard the thing for which he listened&mdash;the sound of a horse galloping,
+out in the night. I think that I may say I fairly shivered. The sound
+died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you
+know. I put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping Parsket had got it
+clear. Then I waited, glancing before and behind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly
+quiet. And then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there
+sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown
+with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. I tugged hard on the
+cord and blew the whistle; then I raised my snapshot and fired the
+flashlight. The corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was
+nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. I heard the Captain at
+the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, <i>quick</i>; but
+instead something started to kick the door and I heard the Captain
+shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. I had a
+sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in
+the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile,
+gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. I blew
+the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to
+Beaumont to stay in the Pentacle, whatever happened. I yelled again to
+the Captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against
+the bedroom door. Then I had my matches in my hand, to get some light
+before that incredible, unseen Monster was upon us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant
+I heard a faint sound behind me. I whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror
+and saw something in the light of the match&mdash;a monstrous horse-head close
+to Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Look out, Beaumont!' I shouted in a sort of scream. 'It's behind you!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of
+Parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently
+single-handed by Beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. I caught a
+momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof
+amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon Beaumont.
+In the same instant I fired three chambers of my revolver. There was the
+sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out
+close to me. I fired twice at the sound. Immediately afterward something
+struck me and I was knocked backward. I got on to my knees and shouted
+for help at the top of my voice. I heard the women screaming behind the
+closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being
+smashed from the inside, and directly afterward I knew that Beaumont was
+struggling with some hideous thing near to me. For an instant I held
+back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of
+rigid chill of goose flesh I went to help him, shouting his name. I can
+tell you, I was nearly sick with the naked fear I had on me. There came a
+little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that I jumped forward
+into the dark. I gripped a vast, furry ear. Then something struck me
+another great blow knocking me sick. I hit back, weak and blind and
+gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. Abruptly I was dimly
+aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. There
+were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. My
+hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; I shut my eyes stupidly
+and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher
+chopping meat and then something fell upon me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was helped to my knees by the Captain and the butler. On the floor lay
+an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. On
+the wrists were fixed great hoofs. It was the monster. The Captain cut
+something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted
+off the mask, for that is what it was. I saw the face then of the man who
+had worn it. It was Parsket. He had a bad wound across the forehead where
+the Captain's sword had bit through the mask. I looked bewilderedly from
+him to Beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the
+corridor. Then I stared at Parsket again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'By Jove!' I said at last, and then I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
+the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
+you know, I had grown so to like him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
+looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
+happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
+corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
+that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
+face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
+terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
+stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
+from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
+the corridor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
+the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
+immediately afterward the clungk, clunk&mdash;clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
+coming down the passage toward us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
+Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
+doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
+shouted out:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a <i>sense</i> that there was
+something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
+that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
+was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
+the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
+afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
+the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
+in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
+seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
+sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
+halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
+that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
+across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
+extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
+wound in his forehead; and then I noticed that he seemed to be looking at
+something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly
+masterful gaze. But there was really nothing to be seen. And suddenly the
+clungk, clunk&mdash;clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the
+passage. In the same moment Parsket pitched forward out of the doorway
+on to his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two
+footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the
+Captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was
+carrying over his head. The dull tread of the Horse went past him, and
+left him unharmed and I heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and
+away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with
+an extraordinarily grey face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me. We turned him
+over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can
+imagine what a feeling it sent through me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'That&mdash;That&mdash;That&mdash;' and I know that he was trying to tell me that
+Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone
+down the passage. I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very
+steady myself. And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to
+his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child. Then the women
+came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to
+them, whilst I over to Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to
+me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and
+this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. He was
+doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact I
+think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what
+I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket's intention was to
+frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I
+think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. I hate to
+say this, but the facts force me to think so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont's arm. He knew
+all the details of the so-called 'Horse Legend,' and got the idea to work
+upon the old story for his own end. He evidently had some method of
+slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French
+windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and
+when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet
+and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous
+imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that
+the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to
+explain away. But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this
+point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by
+Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling
+with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. I proved this by an
+examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made
+also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation
+nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how
+he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. In any case, I
+don't feel perfect certainty on this point. I failed to find any hoof
+marks, as you remember.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on
+the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by
+him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been
+outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.
+This is almost probable. I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it
+had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his
+foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. I cannot
+imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action
+of which I have just told you. He was enormously without fear of any
+kind for himself as you can see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse
+galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. No one was
+very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage
+the belief.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first
+suspicion into Parsket's mind that there was something more at work than
+his sham haunting. The neighing was done by him in the same way that he
+did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure
+that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which
+frightened the man himself. Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he
+had been getting fanciful. Of course, I must not forget that the effect
+upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it
+was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was
+at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve
+his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for
+he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away. I hate to think
+this, but I'm bound to. Anyway, it is obvious that the man was
+temporarily a bit off his normal balance. Love's a queer disease!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the
+butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away
+naturally to clear it. This also gave him the opportunity to remove one
+of the passage lamps. Then he had only to smash the other and the passage
+was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took
+the key (it was in his pocket). This prevented the Captain from bringing
+a light and coming to the rescue. But Captain Hisgins broke down the door
+with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded
+so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is
+one of the things that I am less sure about. It might have been faked by
+Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy
+enough, to anyone who knew how. But, you know, it does not look like a
+fake. Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as
+against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a
+definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the
+other. It is certainly a horrible photograph.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now I come to that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further
+manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary
+uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and
+if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this
+case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact,
+as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be
+cleared up, but I see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last
+and the fear that Parsket showed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"His death&mdash;no, that proves nothing. At the inquest it was described
+somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and
+leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood
+between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The look on Parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the
+great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the
+sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a
+horrible suspicion. And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous
+danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then
+he did the one fine, great thing!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki shook his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "If that
+thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which
+would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. Yet I have
+thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get
+you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket had produced what I might term
+a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental
+conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to
+make it clearer in a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the old story!" I said. "Why may not there have been something
+in <i>that</i>?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There may have been something in it," said Carnacki. "But I do not think
+it had anything to do with this. I have not clearly thought out my
+reasons, yet; but later I may be able to tell you why I think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the marriage? And the cellar&mdash;was there anything found there?"
+asked Taylor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy,"
+Carnacki told us. "It was the wisest thing to do considering the things
+that I cannot explain. Yes, I had the floor of that big cellar up, for I
+had a feeling I might find something there to give me some light. But
+there was nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. I shall
+never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting
+sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house."
+</p>
+<p>
+Carnacki stood up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+</p>
+<p>
+And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to
+our homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 5&mdash;THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+</h2>
+<p>
+It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
+silent in his great chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which&mdash;as you
+know&mdash;we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
+now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
+had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
+have hinted.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
+memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
+have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
+a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
+what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
+outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
+row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
+and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
+smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
+doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
+complete niceness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
+that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
+not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, something happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
+that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
+top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
+that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
+room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
+heard me safe up to my room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
+upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
+was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
+should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
+dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
+into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
+momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
+the passage; but it was not until the following night that I <i>realized</i> I
+had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
+that&mdash;one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
+consciousness, perhaps a year before.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
+she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
+she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
+the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
+must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
+accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
+me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
+but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
+my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
+down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
+properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
+subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
+but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
+I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
+immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
+to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
+made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
+of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
+as I had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
+to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
+a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
+mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
+understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
+and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
+not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
+believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
+her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
+the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
+over to look at her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
+a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
+and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
+what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
+you must see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
+the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
+strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
+though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
+that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
+<i>expected really</i> to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
+explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
+banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
+about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
+happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
+thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
+not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
+that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
+associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
+talking about. You will understand that I am able <i>now</i> to analyze and
+put the thing into words; but <i>then</i> I did not even know my chief reason
+for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
+into words:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
+looking at me. Then:&mdash;'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
+at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
+expectancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
+been walking about in your sleep.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The smell,' she said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
+the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
+bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
+underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
+I was more nervous than I would admit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
+bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
+believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
+been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
+fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
+knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
+bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
+difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
+queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
+of my mother's room, from the back garden, or&mdash;for that matter&mdash;from the
+little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
+ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
+could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
+and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
+really were.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
+again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
+had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
+felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
+into it; but very human.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
+after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
+found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
+with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
+the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
+was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
+twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
+and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
+poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
+really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
+getting hold of me; and all the <i>apparently</i> reasonable explanations
+seemed futile.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
+also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
+made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
+that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
+that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
+I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
+hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
+all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
+inside of us, we did not believe this.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
+mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
+get to sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
+by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
+heard:&mdash;bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
+that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
+and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
+open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
+shut off from me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
+one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
+one. 'Who's there?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I heard my mother saying:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
+hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
+been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
+wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
+knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
+with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
+search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
+will understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
+because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
+However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
+bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
+the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
+whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
+only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
+beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
+taint of that disgusting odor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
+something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
+my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
+landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
+twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
+from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
+long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
+on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
+peculiar. The landlord's idea&mdash;as he told me frankly&mdash;was to free the
+house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
+and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
+</p>
+<p>
+"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
+no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
+five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
+so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
+supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
+the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
+night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
+first month's tenancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
+ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
+seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
+himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
+indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
+with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
+the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
+affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
+getting about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
+thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
+Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
+drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
+sitting up all night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
+nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
+it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
+the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
+we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
+and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
+afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
+as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
+lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
+the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
+was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
+reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
+darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
+violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
+blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
+violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
+Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
+distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
+concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
+which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
+make clear to you; but try to understand it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
+of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
+was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
+the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
+shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
+fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
+and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
+glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
+shown solid.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
+heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
+close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
+lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
+darkness, for my warning to come true.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
+side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
+belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
+thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
+And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
+what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
+think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
+often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
+from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
+lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
+then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
+known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
+seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
+of Maetheson's, which you know about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
+left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
+landlord shout out:&mdash;'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
+disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
+aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
+frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
+saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
+looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
+came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
+the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
+these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
+unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
+violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
+me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
+hoarse sort of cry:&mdash;'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
+clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
+showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
+chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
+mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
+the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
+but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
+passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
+saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
+over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
+with sweat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
+his words:&mdash;'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
+over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
+voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
+I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
+go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
+stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
+beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
+most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
+so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
+ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
+question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
+seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
+adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. <i>I</i> had
+not seen this Woman. <i>I</i> had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
+Something or Someone. <i>He</i> had not seen the Child, or the other
+things&mdash;only the Woman. And <i>I</i> had not seen her. What did it all mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
+bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
+explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
+the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
+there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
+streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
+mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
+answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
+I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
+Smell! Do <i>you</i> smell it?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I shook
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
+shaking lantern at the stair head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
+gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
+alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
+that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
+it makes rags of your courage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
+afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
+and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
+should know which had been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
+beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
+had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
+horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
+shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
+courage, I went down the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
+passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
+on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
+soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
+extraordinary horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
+saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
+closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
+swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
+against me, in his fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
+put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
+through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
+be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
+yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
+hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
+garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
+fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
+afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
+heard the shot.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
+and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
+very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
+path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
+I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
+mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
+for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
+went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
+how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
+door had been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
+top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
+which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
+room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
+then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
+one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
+rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
+permeated with the horrible odor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
+room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
+or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
+through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
+oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
+trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
+or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
+each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
+toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
+windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
+by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
+and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
+flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
+looked strange and bewildered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
+the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
+sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
+monotonously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
+his breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:&mdash;'I hope you held the door open
+politely for the lady.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Are you mad&mdash;' began Johnstone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
+enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
+his control again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
+than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
+again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
+saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
+cellar door; and the last print showed <i>under</i> the door; yet the
+policeman said the door had not been opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
+saying, I asked the landlord:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'What were the feet like?'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
+open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
+order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
+the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
+horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
+steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
+unnatural footprints.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
+there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
+inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
+disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
+backed suddenly out of the doorway:
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
+that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
+shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
+darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
+back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
+for a weapon of some kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
+hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
+empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
+cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
+and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
+and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
+screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
+gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
+heard the landlord.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
+his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
+the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
+stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
+from the horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
+Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
+went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
+thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
+you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
+</p>
+<p>
+"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
+found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
+erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
+some blind scent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
+the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
+water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
+the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
+about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
+light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
+plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
+the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
+turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
+across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
+belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
+as it were, a menace&mdash;the material expression that some monstrous thing
+was there with us, invisible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I think&mdash;' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
+stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
+for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
+waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
+same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
+locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
+sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
+and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
+watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
+just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
+and went over to his place for a sleep.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
+arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
+relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
+the previous night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
+thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
+them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
+everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
+in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
+piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
+height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
+sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
+and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
+when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
+see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
+rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
+wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
+Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
+or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
+cellar stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
+the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
+ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
+like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
+which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
+pitchforks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
+rather white all at once.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
+I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
+into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
+it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
+hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
+well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
+hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
+a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
+the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
+table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
+when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
+him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
+to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
+nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
+help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
+that night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
+front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
+carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
+and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
+not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
+arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
+he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
+detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
+appreciated all my precautions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
+pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
+the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
+quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
+which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
+the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
+took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
+which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
+out every lamp.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
+lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
+keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
+lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
+able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
+absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
+extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
+night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
+the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
+faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
+hold of it, in readiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
+in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
+to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
+conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
+but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
+to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
+from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
+again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
+violet night in which it ran.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
+it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
+brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
+table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
+to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
+to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
+nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
+our world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
+distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
+sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
+Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
+little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
+There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
+was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
+landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
+to catch my arm:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
+color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
+saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
+straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
+half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
+table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
+fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
+the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
+had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
+something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
+same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
+absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
+eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
+of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
+cotton wool.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
+oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
+lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
+another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
+might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
+forces that I was unable to comprehend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
+stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
+light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
+was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
+which I had screwed into the ceiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
+vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
+remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
+there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
+indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
+glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
+of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
+fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
+collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
+consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
+whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
+attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
+into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
+nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
+as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
+sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
+the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
+nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
+absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
+table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
+of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
+it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
+instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
+There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
+and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
+my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
+do the same.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
+from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
+the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
+thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
+leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
+of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
+coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
+felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
+the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
+big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
+rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the detective there came a sudden shout:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
+instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
+followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
+mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
+inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
+their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
+dancing all over the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
+trying to speak plainly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
+The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
+to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
+had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
+floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
+leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
+ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
+which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
+a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
+been so much water.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
+tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
+the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
+Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
+smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
+couple of weeks earlier.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
+house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
+bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
+the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
+mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
+of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
+unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
+warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
+had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
+for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
+something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
+get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
+drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
+artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
+rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
+time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
+there was a passage&mdash;as he showed me afterward&mdash;connecting the dummy well
+with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
+were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
+beach beyond the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
+my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
+it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
+should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
+hushed up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
+house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
+seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
+the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
+only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
+from the Revenue people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
+mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
+about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
+woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
+he found them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
+an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
+delighted to learn how it had affected us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
+the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
+contributions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
+of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
+was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
+made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
+Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
+thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
+should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
+policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
+landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can only surmise that <i>fear</i> was in every case the key, as I might
+say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
+was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
+the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. <i>I</i> saw nothing, until
+I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
+running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
+later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
+was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
+theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
+the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
+the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
+Force present in the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
+visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
+why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why <i>you</i> didn't
+see the Woman, and why <i>they</i> didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
+same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
+Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
+but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
+child '<i>still</i>born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
+but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
+let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
+physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
+possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
+Element&mdash;the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
+waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
+Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
+tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
+that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
+forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
+thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
+other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
+thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
+so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
+half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
+incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
+discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
+fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
+there is a Mother Spirit&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
+other side?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
+not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
+and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
+and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
+on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
+the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
+told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
+interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
+house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
+<i>en rapport</i>, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
+produced the tragedy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
+the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There may be other houses&mdash;" I began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
+five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
+various homes.
+</p>
+<a name="2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+
+<div style="height: 4em;"><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+<h2>
+    No. 6&mdash;THE THING INVISIBLE
+</h2>
+<p>
+Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this
+interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
+which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself
+at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki
+had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends
+knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we
+had no knowledge. Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
+only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his
+three other friends&mdash;Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor&mdash;would receive a card
+or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed, for
+after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down
+into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
+ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would
+begin to talk.
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found
+Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me
+firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never
+having uttered a word.
+</p>
+<p>
+For my part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him
+with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
+Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a
+comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I
+have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
+directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express
+it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. A minute
+or so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks,
+and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in
+South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most
+extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
+Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I
+could help to clear matters up a bit. I went.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I got there, I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the
+castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is
+popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I
+managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable
+occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always
+content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It sounds almost laughable, I know, to hear of a long-respected
+supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
+the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth,
+except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what I might
+term the Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly
+dangerous&mdash;deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to
+death one night in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the
+Chapel. At least, there has been always a story handed down in the family
+that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into
+the Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this had been taken with
+just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost
+tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly <i>real</i> nature. I mean that
+most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of
+matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an
+opportunity to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I am as big a
+skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to
+meet; only I am what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am not given
+to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as I have
+found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
+to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven
+until I have examined into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
+cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. But the
+hundredth! Well, if it were not for the hundredth, I should have few
+stories to tell you&mdash;eh?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there
+was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and I
+found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really
+strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
+found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some
+invisible thing or monster of the Outer World!
+</p>
+<p>
+"From considerable experience, I knew that it was much more likely that
+the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human
+agency, and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the
+people who knew most about the tragedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for
+it left me with very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
+of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of
+a Force from the Outside. In more popular phraseology&mdash;a genuine case
+of haunting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"These are the facts: On the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred
+Jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the Chapel.
+You see, the Rector goes over to officiate twice each Sunday, after
+concluding his duties at the public Church about three miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the end of the service in the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his
+son Mr. George Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
+minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went 'round, putting
+out the candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly, the Rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book
+on the Communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to
+get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I have particularly called your attention to this because it is
+important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an
+extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector's turning to speak to Bellett
+had naturally caused both Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the
+direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst
+all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed&mdash;there,
+full in the candlelight, before their eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took the opportunity to call early upon the Rector, after I had
+questioned Mr. George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition
+as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling
+upon the scene as much as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
+the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me the whole
+affair&mdash;Bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and
+absolutely alone; and then the <i>blow</i>, out of the Void, he described it;
+and the <i>force</i> prodigious&mdash;the old man being driven headlong into the
+body of the Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector said, his
+benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually
+witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when
+I appeared. I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
+sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear old chap, and I should
+certainly like to have heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The last man I visited was the butler. He was, of course, in a
+frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that
+did not point to there being a Power abroad in the Chapel. He told the
+same tale, in every minute particle, that I had learned from the others.
+He had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the
+Rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the
+left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger&mdash;of which I
+will tell you more in a moment&mdash;that hung always above the altar. The
+weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
+the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the
+blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out
+through the scapula behind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The poor old fellow could not talk much, and I soon left him; but what
+he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
+person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as I knew,
+this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses,
+independent of Bellett himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The thing now was to search the Chapel, which is small and extremely
+old. It is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which
+leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, the butler having no duplicate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The shape of the Chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the
+usual fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in
+the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the
+chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
+which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as I had learned it was
+named. I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which
+describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. I took the
+dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
+inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but
+sharp point, rather peculiar. It is double-edged.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with
+the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of
+the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a
+cross. That this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
+Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in Latin, is the
+inscription: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay.' A quaint and rather
+terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade of the dagger is graven in
+old English capitals: I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt there is
+carved deeply a Pentacle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that
+has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of
+its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike
+murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family who may chance to enter the
+Chapel after nightfall. I may tell you here and now, that before I left,
+I had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for I tested the
+deadliness of the thing myself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As you know, however, at this point of my investigation, I was still at
+that stage where I considered the existence of a supernatural Force
+unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the Chapel drastically, sounding
+and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
+foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the end of this search, I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of
+the groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening
+of the third day I had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no
+place in the whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
+hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the
+Chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of
+which was always kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
+himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course, that this doorway is the
+only entrance practicable to material people.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, as you will see, even had I discovered some other opening, secret
+or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of
+the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. For the butler, as you know,
+was struck in full sight of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
+Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... <i>'Out of
+the Void,'</i> the Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'Out of
+the Void!' A strange feeling it gives one&mdash;eh?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And this is the thing that I had been called in to bottom!
+</p>
+<p>
+"After considerable thought, I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
+Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the Chapel, and keep a
+constant watch upon the dagger. But to this, the old knight&mdash;a little,
+wizened, nervous man&mdash;would not listen for a moment. He, at least, I felt
+assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural Force
+a roam at night in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been his habit
+every evening to lock the Chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or
+heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
+that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had
+happened to the butler.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could see that Sir Alfred Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would
+evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the
+experiment and any harm come to me; so I said nothing in argument; and
+presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said
+goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite
+but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That night, however, whilst I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve
+the thing I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark, without
+making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On the morrow, when I borrowed the
+key, I would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then, with my
+private key, I could do just what I liked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the morning I carried out my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to
+take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When I had done this I
+locked up the Chapel and handed the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having
+first taken an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
+plate&mdash;in its slide&mdash;with me; but the camera I had left exactly as it
+was, as I wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
+from the same position.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took the dark slide into Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the
+impress. The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was something of
+a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if I
+would call in two hours. This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a
+photographer where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him
+I would call next day. At the end of the two hours I went for my key and
+found it ready, much to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After dinner that evening, I played billiards with young Jarnock for
+a couple of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went off to my
+room, telling him I was feeling awfully tired. He nodded and told me
+he felt the same way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle as
+soon as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I locked the door of my room, then from under the bed&mdash;where I had
+hidden them earlier in the evening&mdash;I drew out several fine pieces of
+plate armor, which I had removed from the armory. There was also a shirt
+of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily
+uncomfortable, and over all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
+about armor, but from what I have learned since, I must have put on parts
+of two suits. Anyway, I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to
+move my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the thing I was thinking
+of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. Over the armor I
+pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side
+pockets&mdash;and my repeating flash-light into the other. My dark lantern I
+carried in my hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as I was ready I went out into the passage and listened. I had
+been some considerable time making my preparations and I found that now
+the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed
+quiet. I stepped back and closed and locked my door. Then, very slowly
+and silently I went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage
+that led to the Chapel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I reached the door and tried my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment
+later I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about
+me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of
+the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and
+lonesomeness almost the more apparent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now it would be silly to say I did not feel queer. I felt very queer
+indeed. You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in
+the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to
+the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little
+while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could believe that
+something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I
+had got to go through with the business, and I just took hold of my
+little bit of courage and set to work.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First of all I switched on my light, then I began a careful tour of the
+place; examining every corner and nook. I found nothing unusual. At the
+chancel gate I held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. It
+hung there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember thinking of the
+word 'demure,' as I looked at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
+what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness
+of its utter chill and unkind desolation&mdash;an atmosphere of cold
+dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the conclusion of my search I walked across to where I had left my
+camera focused upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had put beneath
+the tripod I took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing
+the shutter. After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
+apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was an intense, brilliant
+flash, that made the whole of the interior of the Chapel jump into sight,
+and disappear as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern, I inserted
+the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh
+plate ready to expose at any time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After I had done this I shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the
+pews near to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
+an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
+horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
+faint chime of a clock that had been erected over the stables. I was
+beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
+furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
+sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
+of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
+And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
+my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
+if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
+then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
+the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
+intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
+imagine how I felt?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
+wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
+was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
+if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
+something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
+might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. I sat
+immovable. I was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. I
+could not take my arms down from over my face, but I knew that I was
+getting hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly I made a mighty
+effort and lowered my arms. I held my face up in the darkness. And, I
+tell you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought truly at that
+moment that I was going to die. But I think, just then, by the slow
+revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
+that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of
+the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits,
+for a time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do I make myself clear? You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of
+respect, which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you
+see, I am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. I mean that if
+I had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
+revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much more worthy of
+mention. But, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of
+respect. You follow me, don't you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, you know, nothing touched me, after all! So that, in a little
+while, I had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go
+through with the business without any more funking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the
+chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
+cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen. And suddenly the thought
+came that the sound I heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the
+altar. It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
+too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
+understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
+time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
+animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
+possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
+invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
+the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... <i>of the
+void</i>. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
+'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
+thoughts were running.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
+me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
+light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
+could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
+light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
+side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
+floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
+thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
+and eternally silent. You know the feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
+pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
+switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
+my constant watch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
+after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
+grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
+place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal&mdash;it had
+given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
+child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
+just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
+of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
+was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
+butler, it had certainly not been visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
+and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
+other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
+intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
+in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
+listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
+a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
+moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
+my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
+I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
+of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
+shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
+There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
+just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
+repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
+coming slowly down the aisle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
+more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
+<i>stiffened</i>. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel.
+And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
+it&mdash;that I had never heard it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
+nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
+of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders <i>ached</i>, with
+the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
+myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
+might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
+around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
+respite&mdash;a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
+impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
+more clearly than this, myself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
+nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
+normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
+with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
+This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
+when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
+moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
+sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
+<i>tense</i>. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
+and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
+desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off.
+If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
+of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
+'creep' busy at my spine....
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
+soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
+little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
+was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
+booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
+place where my camera stood&mdash;a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
+then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
+snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
+conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
+I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
+was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
+great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
+there, but it showed me nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
+sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
+the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
+here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
+was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
+prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
+of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
+of terror and horror. I tell you, that no one who has not been through
+these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical
+pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that
+ghostly fright sets up in the human system. I stood there feeling
+positively ill. But I got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a
+minute, and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin
+man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and
+over my head continually. And the hand that held my revolver sweated so
+much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does not sound very
+heroic, does it?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to
+the small gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from my lantern
+upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it's all right. Abruptly, it seemed to
+me that there was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
+chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. My suspicion was hideously
+correct. <i>The dagger had gone.</i> Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
+above the altar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, I pictured the thing
+adrift in the Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
+volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly beyond
+visibility. I turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing
+frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. In the
+same instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and
+hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging
+loudly in the horrible silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
+on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the corner of a pew front,
+and brought me up, half stunned. I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick
+and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the
+moment. I was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as
+to just where I was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling run
+in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. I jumped back,
+staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the
+aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
+hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the font, and reeled back.
+Then I was at the exit. I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for
+the key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the
+keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and
+was into the passage. I slammed the door and leant hard against it,
+gasping, whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock
+the door upon what was in the Chapel. I succeeded, and began to feel my
+way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come to the
+big hall, and so in a little to my room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In my room, I sat for a while, until I had steadied down something
+to the normal. After a time I commenced to strip off the armor. I saw
+then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced
+over the breast. And, suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had
+struck for my heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stripping rapidly, I found that the skin of the breast over the heart
+had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt,
+nothing more. Only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely
+painful. You can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn the
+armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I was not knocked senseless.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking,
+and waiting for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before Sir Alfred
+Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide from him the fact that I had
+managed a duplicate key.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently
+to show me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly down to
+the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense nerves, I opened the door. The
+chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place&mdash;everything seeming
+instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. Can you get the feeling? I
+waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and
+likewise my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun threw an odd
+beam right in through the big, East window, making colored sunshine all
+the length of the Chapel. And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced
+myself to enter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I went up the aisle to where I had overthrown my camera in the darkness.
+The legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and I
+expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the
+ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I replaced the camera in the position from which I had taken the
+previous photography; but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
+flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that
+I had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when I heard those
+strange sounds up in the chancel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Having tidied my photographic apparatus, I went to the chancel to
+recover my lantern and revolver, which had both&mdash;as you know&mdash;been
+knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found the lantern lying,
+hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. My revolver I
+must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there
+in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned into the pew corner.
+It was quite undamaged.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Having secured these two articles, I walked up to the chancel rail to
+see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
+above the altar. Before, however, I reached the chancel rail, I had a
+slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away
+from where I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the
+polished marble pavement. I wonder whether you will, any of you,
+understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. With a
+sudden, unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot on it, to
+hold it there. Can you understand? Do you? And, you know, I could not
+stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I should
+think. Afterward, when I had done so, however, and handled it a little,
+this feeling passed away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
+made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass. Quite natural,
+though, I assure you! Yet it was a new kind of fear to me. I'm taking no
+notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking about the
+curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear
+that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
+interest you?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands
+and never&mdash;as I suddenly discovered&mdash;holding it loosely. It was as if I
+were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even
+this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. The curious weapon
+showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color&mdash;of the blade was
+slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Presently, when I had made an end of staring at the dagger, I went up
+the chancel step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling upon the
+altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail
+again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable
+because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. I
+suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, I had an unreasoned
+and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of
+danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when
+it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don't think this is a very good
+explanation, when I remember the <i>demure</i> look the thing seemed to have
+when I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only I know this, that
+when I had replaced the dagger I had quite a touch of nerves and I
+stopped only to pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst I
+examined the weapon, after which I went down the quiet aisle at a pretty
+quick walk, and so got out of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That the nerve tension had been considerable, I realized, when I had
+locked the door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think of old Sir
+Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming
+precautions regarding the Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
+might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the
+dagger had been concerned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
+awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
+sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
+walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
+reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
+photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
+until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
+his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
+dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
+used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
+develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
+into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
+camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
+lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
+been, as it were, under observation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
+that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
+direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
+this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results&mdash;nothing more
+than a vague hope that it might show me something.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
+absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
+developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
+part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
+the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
+almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
+lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
+me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
+make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
+represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
+they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
+shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
+be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
+the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I carried development a little further, then put the negative into the
+hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. This came up nicely, and
+very soon I had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every
+respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
+taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate, then having washed both
+it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them
+into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which I carried them
+into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and I made an
+enlargement from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then we did the
+same with the two that I had just developed, washing them as quickly as
+possible, for I was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
+drying them with spirits.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this was done I took them to the window and made a thorough
+examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy
+daggers in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged, I was still
+unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything
+abnormal; and because of this, I put it on one side, determined not to
+let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of
+the indefinite outlines.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will
+remember, and commenced to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
+without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they
+portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw something in which they varied. In
+the second enlargement&mdash;the one made from the flashlight negative&mdash;the
+dagger was not in its sheath. Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few
+minutes before I took the photograph.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After this discovery I began to compare the two enlargements in a very
+different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers
+from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and
+exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suddenly I came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement.
+I threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through
+the shop into the street. The three enlargements I took with me, making
+them into a roll as I went. At the corner of the street I had the luck to
+get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hurried up to my room and put the photographs away; then I went down to
+see whether I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock, who
+met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer
+that no one entered the Chapel unless he were about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young Jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking
+that Sir Alfred Jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
+but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for
+his carefulness had been justified. He added, also, that even before the
+horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular,
+always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except
+when the place was in use for Divine Service, and for an hour each
+forenoon when the cleaners were in.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To all this I nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young
+man left me I took my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
+I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried out some
+intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. These proved
+successful to such an extent that I came out of the place in a perfect
+fever of excitement. I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
+he was in the morning room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Come along,' I said, when I had found him. 'Please give me a lift. I've
+something exceedingly strange to show you.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. As we strode along
+he asked me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook my head,
+asking him to wait a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I led the way to the Armory. Here I suggested that he should take one
+side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the other.
+He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried
+the thing to the Chapel door. When he saw me take out my key and open
+the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in,
+evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered the Chapel and I locked
+the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle
+to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round,
+wooden stand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Stand back!' I shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
+open the gate. 'My God, man! you mustn't do that!'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words
+and manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One minute," I said. "Just stand to the side a moment, and watch."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stepped to the left whilst I took the dummy in my arms and turned it
+to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
+well away on the right side, I pressed the back of the thing so that it
+leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. In the same
+instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the
+aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good God!" shouted young Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail,
+his face very white.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come and look at the thing," I said, and led the way to where the dummy
+lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. I
+stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel
+breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The
+thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of
+the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never
+budged an inch.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come and see how it was done," I said, and led the way back to the
+chancel rail. From the wall to the left of the altar I took down a long,
+curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. The
+sharp end of this I inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
+chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor
+upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom.
+Down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. As I bent
+the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the
+floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to
+enclose the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove the post down
+into the niche. Immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch
+snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring.
+</p>
+<p>
+I went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to
+wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and
+placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted
+loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave
+another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom
+of the cavity, catching there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
+and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and
+looking no different from the surrounding surface.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then I shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. I
+took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
+opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the
+air, striking the bottom wall of the Chapel. It was the dagger. I
+showed Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back
+into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the
+right-hand side of the gate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There!" I said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post.
+"There's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is
+the person who sets the trap?" I looked at him keenly as I spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My father is the only one who has a key," he said. "So it's practically
+impossible for anyone to get in and meddle."
+</p>
+<p>
+I looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out
+to any conclusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"See here, Mr. Jarnock," I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have
+done, considering what I had to say. "Are you quite sure that Sir Alfred
+is quite balanced&mdash;mentally?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. I realized
+then how badly I put it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'I&mdash;I don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent,
+except for one or two incoherent half remarks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tell the truth,' I said. 'Haven't you suspected something, now and
+again? You needn't be afraid to tell me.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Well,' he answered slowly, 'I'll admit I've thought Father a little&mdash;a
+little strange, perhaps, at times. But I've always tried to think I was
+mistaken. I've always hoped no one else would see it. You see, I'm very
+fond of the old guvnor.'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I nodded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Quite right, too,' I said. 'There's not the least need to make any kind
+of scandal about this. We must do something, though, but in a quiet way.
+No fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with your father, and tell
+him we've found out about this thing.' I touched the divided post.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young Jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my
+hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel. He came
+back in about an hour, looking rather upset. He told me that my
+conclusions were perfectly correct. It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set
+the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the
+past night. Indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every
+night for many years. He had learnt of its existence from an old
+manuscript book in the Castle library. It had been planned and used in an
+earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which
+were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his
+wife's jewelry. She had died some twelve years back, and the young man
+told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mentioned to young Jarnock how puzzled I was that the trap had been
+set <i>before</i> the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for,
+if I understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting
+the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone
+entered the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit of temporary
+forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set
+it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is about all there is to tell. The old man is not (so far as I
+could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word.
+He is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the
+whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
+on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to
+overmuch of his own company and thoughts. Indeed, young Jarnock told me
+that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the
+Chapel." Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you've never told us just <i>how</i> you discovered the secret of the
+divided post and all that," I said, speaking for the four of us.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that!" replied Carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "I
+found&mdash;on comparing the&mdash;photos, that the one&mdash;taken in the&mdash;daytime,
+showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the
+flashlight. That put me on to the track. I saw at once that there might
+be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and
+nothing at all of an abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
+was simple enough, you know.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may
+be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' Young
+Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my
+adventure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before
+the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Jarnock and I made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a
+few moments. "I've got the dagger, as you see, and old Bellett's getting
+about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. All
+the same I fancy the Chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous
+place. Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's two things you haven't explained yet," I said. "What do you
+think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the Chapel in the
+dark? And do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a
+fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't know for certain about the clangs," replied Carnacki.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've puzzled quite a bit about them. I can only think that the spring
+which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in
+the catch. If it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a
+ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the
+night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' You can understand that&mdash;eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," I agreed. "And the other sounds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, the same thing&mdash;I mean the extraordinary quietness&mdash;may help to
+explain these a bit. They may have been some usual enough sound that
+would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have
+been only fancy. It is just impossible to say. They were disgustingly
+real to me. As for the slithery noise, I am pretty sure that one of the
+tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it
+may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would
+account for that queer little tap which I heard directly after."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar
+when you first examined it that night?" I asked. "How could it be there,
+when at that very moment it was set in the trap?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was my mistake," replied Carnacki. "The dagger could not possibly
+have been in its sheath at the time, though I thought it was. You see,
+the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete
+weapon, as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger protrudes very
+little above the continued portion of the sheath&mdash;a most inconvenient
+arrangement for drawing quickly!" He nodded sagely at the lot of us and
+yawned, then glanced at the clock.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+"I want a sleep."
+</p>
+<p>
+We rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and
+the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes.
+</p>
+
+
+<div style="height: 6em;"><br><br><br><br><br><br></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope Hodgson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10832-h.htm or 10832-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/3/10832/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/10832.txt b/old/10832.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3f85945
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10832.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5538 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope Hodgson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Carnacki, The Ghost Finder
+
+Author: William Hope Hodgson
+
+Release Date: January 25, 2004  [eBook #10832]
+Last Updated: October 5, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER
+
+By William Hope Hodgson
+
+1910, 1912
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+No. 1--THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+
+
+In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and
+listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the
+three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there
+before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I
+were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining.
+
+"You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my
+soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to
+skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he
+would not stint words.
+
+"That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject,
+remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he
+gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely
+good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.
+
+Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably
+down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with
+very little circumlocution:--
+
+"As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and
+for a very good reason too--I've only been away a short distance. The
+exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than
+twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't
+spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary
+things ever I have run against.
+
+"I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson,
+asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found
+that he wished me to investigate and see whether I could not clear up a
+long-standing and well--too well--authenticated case of what he termed
+'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
+seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.
+
+"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
+very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had
+left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
+and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
+butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
+thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
+old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
+detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
+Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
+door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
+slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
+key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
+always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
+
+"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
+and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
+with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
+after time--thud! thud! thud!--so that sleep was impossible.
+
+"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
+over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it--an
+ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
+very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
+feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
+dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
+
+"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
+me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
+one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
+fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
+and then he could accompany me himself.
+
+"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
+explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
+affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
+But he shook his head when I said that.
+
+"'There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful
+pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.
+
+"I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.
+He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently
+in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my
+examination until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told
+him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.
+
+"'It never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn
+manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have
+the 'creeps' right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.
+
+"I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well
+furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with
+its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and
+two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and
+after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind
+you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.
+
+"After I had taken a good look 'round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon
+across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the
+fireplace and the wall closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler
+stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter;
+though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here
+and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say:--'You'll
+excuse me, I'm sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair
+in a quake for you.'
+
+"I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what
+he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all
+alone there. He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize
+the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a
+pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I
+should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother
+me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on
+my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it
+any nastier.
+
+"For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and
+sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were
+anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of
+playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had
+anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken
+off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had
+practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to
+the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when
+the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came
+sharp and frightened:--'Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to
+happen!' Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the
+candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind,
+or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to
+make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before
+I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing
+there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein'
+brave, y'know.' So I just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles
+off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I
+saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to
+those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door,
+the old man called again:--'Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!'
+
+"'All right, Peter,' I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as
+I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work not to
+start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine.
+Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the
+room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little.
+I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of
+instinctive way. 'Collar the candles, Peter!' I said, pretty sharply,
+and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and
+slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so,
+I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only
+fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the
+door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I
+put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I
+pocketed the key, and went downstairs--with Peter; who was nervous and
+silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until
+that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the
+last two or three hours.
+
+"About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor
+upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between
+it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can
+understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to
+undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and
+sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I
+should know just which one.
+
+"I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked
+suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage.
+I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I
+was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door
+being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got
+my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding
+my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing
+happened. I could not go a step toward the Grey Room. You all know I am
+not really a cowardly chap. I've gone into too many cases connected with
+ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply
+funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy
+in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked
+the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal
+thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all
+the house.
+
+"Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not
+slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt
+ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're
+meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes.
+And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight.
+Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it
+is something warning you, and fighting _for_ you. But, all the same, I
+always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.
+
+"When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver
+handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the
+stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old
+butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt
+into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.
+
+"'Hullo, Peter!' I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as
+any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'Where are you off
+to with the refreshments?'
+
+"The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up
+at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up
+the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'I'm very thankful
+indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'I feared, one time, you
+might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I've lain awake all night, with
+the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I'd make you a
+cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it
+seems safer if there's two, sir.'
+
+"'Peter,' I said, 'you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.' And I
+drank the coffee. 'Come along,' I told him, and handed him back the tray.
+'I'm going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply
+hadn't the pluck to in the night.'
+
+"'I'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'Flesh and blood can do nothing,
+sir, against devils; and that's what's in the Grey Room after dark.'
+
+"I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them
+right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the
+card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the
+door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole
+room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light.
+I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old
+butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:--'The
+bedclothes, sir!'
+
+"I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in
+the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I
+felt. Something _had_ been in the room. I stared for a while, from the
+bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to
+touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He
+went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as,
+doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped
+him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This,
+I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up
+the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was
+getting on my nerves.
+
+"I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own
+man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of
+the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed--even
+the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with
+probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I
+can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible
+thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up
+everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.
+
+"After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my
+camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a
+string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if
+the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there
+would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The
+last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I
+went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight;
+and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my
+candle burning.
+
+"The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and
+slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my
+door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it
+would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty
+feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so
+that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark
+passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my
+revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where I knew my
+camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.
+
+"I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when,
+suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately
+conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and
+my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of
+the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight.
+There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the
+corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint
+glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with
+the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped
+forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door
+of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
+corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
+horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
+stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and
+then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
+kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
+corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a
+yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
+thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I _thought_ I
+heard a sound in the passage, and quite _near_ me. I made one backward
+spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed,
+and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
+abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
+of that door. For some unknown reason I _knew_ it was pressed up against
+the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
+extraordinary thing to think.
+
+"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
+hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it
+almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of
+the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a
+miserable, brutal night.
+
+"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to
+an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
+corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you,
+it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
+been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
+room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had
+been sitting.
+
+"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
+coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we
+went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
+untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was
+the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
+keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
+unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
+the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
+left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very
+queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that
+not one had been broken.
+
+"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me,
+nodding his head.
+
+"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
+enter, without proper protection.'
+
+"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
+
+"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
+of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
+certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
+to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.
+
+"I got back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
+Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
+the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat
+which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward the
+bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, 'Yes,
+sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which
+was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me
+and himself, if he had known what I intended.
+
+"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried
+back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work,
+for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
+
+"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried
+the cat--still fastened in its basket--over toward the far wall, and left
+it. I returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
+twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a 'broom of hyssop.'
+About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the
+circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right
+around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among
+my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the
+parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in
+the little jar, I went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor,
+just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can
+tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle'
+complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and
+placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each Crescent. After that, I
+drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star
+touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five
+portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,'
+five opened jars of the water I had used to make the 'water circle.' And
+now I had my first protective barrier complete.
+
+"Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of
+investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish
+superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I
+believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst
+Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea
+from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th
+century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of
+the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it
+occurred to me to test his 'Defense,' which I did, as I've just said, in
+that horrible Black Veil business. You know how _that_ turned out. Later,
+I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that
+Moving Fur case. It was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and I nearly
+died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's
+'Experiments with a Medium.' When they surrounded the Medium with a
+current, in vacuum, he lost his power--almost as if it cut him off from
+the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make
+the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'Defense' against
+certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this
+protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is
+some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a
+Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I
+never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap
+laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.
+
+"In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a
+supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the
+danger is abominable.
+
+"I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of
+its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales'
+of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery,
+and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum
+tubes shone out.
+
+"I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and
+realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and
+unfriendly. Then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier
+of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of
+weirdness thrust upon me--in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of
+something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised
+garlic, a smell I hate.
+
+"I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in
+order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought
+that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialization of an
+ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can
+say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel
+the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized
+monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never
+forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me,
+and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt
+that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.
+
+"By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with
+the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly,
+and then all 'round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to
+come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over
+me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly
+feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself 'round with
+a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It
+seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed--the
+place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I
+could see nothing unusual; no opening--nothing!...
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that
+unnatural wind.... I believe I just squatted there and stared in a
+horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able
+to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile,
+cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the
+outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room,
+and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.
+
+"A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me;
+and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the
+left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward,
+unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius
+glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I
+stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight--a moving shadow, a
+little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the
+vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side,
+with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was
+directed to the bed. All the covering's were being drawn steadily off,
+with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging
+slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.
+I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the
+'creep' had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been
+for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating
+coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my
+right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze
+or my attention from those moving clothes.
+
+"The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense
+silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet,
+immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being
+dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the
+camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed.
+And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were
+torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as
+they were hurled into the corner.
+
+"There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of
+minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been
+thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of
+the thing that had just been done before me!
+
+"Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise--a sort of crickling
+sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill
+swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head;
+for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was
+there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was
+impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination
+supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... And
+then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered
+there among the shadows.
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I
+reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was
+slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of
+hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a
+power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were 'out.' Can
+you understand?
+
+"The door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the
+basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all
+along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether
+whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose
+suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then--too late--I
+snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had
+been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half
+in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of
+the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had
+power to destroy.
+
+"During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable
+quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the
+time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be
+pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most
+horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to
+see whether anything was coming at me.
+
+"My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and
+abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the 'water circle.'
+It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of
+a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It
+passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but
+only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living
+person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.
+
+"'Round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round I turned. Then, just
+opposite to one of the Vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as
+though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the
+glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to
+gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign
+determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees,
+and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild
+endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was
+grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing
+came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water
+circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then,
+just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by
+some mighty, invisible force.
+
+"It must have been some moments before I realized that I was safe; and
+then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling
+horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but
+the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that
+the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.
+
+"Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the
+monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the
+pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the
+thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale'
+had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways'
+unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had
+found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. And I began to hope
+again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so
+nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the
+'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a
+Force. You can understand?
+
+"For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I
+saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the
+door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the
+dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows
+against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.
+
+"A minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with
+tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart
+at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from
+it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where--for a
+wickedly careless moment--I had placed it. The monster was hurled off
+from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though--owing to my inconceivable
+foolishness--it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer
+barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved
+right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making
+myself as small and compact as possible.
+
+"As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two
+'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I
+being _influenced_ to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me?
+The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I
+stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some
+was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright
+and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I
+did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the
+shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it
+approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether
+enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which
+it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if
+some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only
+upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a
+strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this
+more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was
+simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I
+can put it no other way.
+
+"I knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more
+fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded
+myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my
+own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?
+
+"I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense
+that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear
+that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the
+Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that
+ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at
+me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I
+heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the
+horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left
+of the bed.
+
+"Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural
+wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The
+dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and
+made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it
+was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave
+the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in
+the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.
+
+"At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look
+'round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy
+fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on
+the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the
+coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I
+had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly, and after
+I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.
+
+"I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I
+switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my
+hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not
+want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful
+search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several
+holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with
+my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on
+metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the
+second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window.
+I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The
+curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon;
+that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without
+the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. It was free
+from all chasing or engraving.
+
+"You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure
+I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which,
+indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the
+history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son
+through generations, and always--in obedience to some ancient family
+tradition--each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I
+may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar
+circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.
+
+"It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson's, made a
+bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did
+so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the
+bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem,
+thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken
+anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night
+in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no
+one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had
+been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most
+extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you
+can understand.
+
+"It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.
+Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway--You see what I mean? A sort
+of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was
+not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come
+from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it.
+Then the shape--the inside of a pentacle. It had no 'mounts,' and without
+mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills
+of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to
+fayvor the Evill Thynge.' You see, the very shape of the ring was
+significant; and I determined to test it.
+
+"I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh _and around_ the one
+to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left
+the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier'
+must be used a second time. I returned about seven thirty, and as soon as
+the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I
+dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before.
+When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and
+sealed the door. I went to the place in the center of the room where all
+the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct
+a barrier about me and the ring.
+
+"I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned
+that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were
+enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it
+loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression
+as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab
+from the Normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility.
+
+"As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed
+about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
+that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
+effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
+strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
+You will see whether I was right.
+
+"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
+of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
+once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
+quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
+a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
+happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
+queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
+come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
+The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
+me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
+I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
+Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
+queer about the ring--funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
+at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
+up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
+seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
+Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
+convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
+was forming _within_ the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
+brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
+through--pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
+mouth of a pipe.
+
+"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.
+Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to
+hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible,
+living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet,
+in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal
+force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came
+at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I
+gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning
+candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and
+ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that
+was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The hand was plunging toward me;
+yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring
+was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass
+out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were
+chains riveted upon it.
+
+"Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken
+with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned,
+I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked
+it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could
+hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get
+the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or
+two, and so I got steadied.
+
+"I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee.
+When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along
+with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and
+peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and
+behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And
+there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying
+demure and ordinary.
+
+"Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never
+managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.
+
+"After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the
+afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two
+cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey
+Room, and there, in the center of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the
+little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck,' but
+now the 'bane,' of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid
+splash of hot metal."
+
+Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue
+paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of
+greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.
+
+"Well?" I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to
+the others. "Did that stop the haunting?"
+
+Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room,
+before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but
+by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and
+ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
+
+Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "Out you go!" he said,
+genially. And presently we went, pondering, to our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 2--THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+
+
+"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as
+after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy
+dining room.
+
+"I have just got back from the West of Ireland," he continued.
+"Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy,
+in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside
+of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has
+been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the
+case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
+
+"It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession, he found the
+place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I
+know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the
+big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable
+feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the
+natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long
+uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone.
+
+"When he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village,
+meaning to see the one-time Agent of the Estate, and arrange for someone
+to go in as caretaker. The Agent, who proved by the way to be a
+Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the Estate once
+more; but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as
+caretaker; and that his--the Agent's--advice was to have the house pulled
+down, and a new one built.
+
+"This, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the
+village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems
+that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in
+the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven
+years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they
+had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and
+had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free
+lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the
+method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been
+found in the great entrance hall.
+
+"By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he
+told the Agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the
+haunting, by staying a night or two in the Manor himself. The death of
+the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural
+agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents, spread over a
+large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural
+enough in a little place like Korunton. Tramps had to die some time, and
+in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds
+who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity
+to die under shelter.
+
+"But the Agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the
+landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his
+'sowl's sake,' Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because
+of his 'life's sake,' the Scotchman was equally in earnest.
+
+"It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me, it was warm
+and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking
+seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his
+mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that
+very night, in the Manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them
+that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered
+to come up along with him, and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was
+quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion; and though Tabbit, the
+Agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it.
+
+"It seems that Wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when
+the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing
+to tackle.
+
+"A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this
+time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him, and
+a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would
+not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at
+sight.' And then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered
+the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great
+bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company.
+Wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his
+head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for
+him to get away from the castle. For it was obvious that he did not
+consider the gun would prove of any use.
+
+"Wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. He told me that, already,
+he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would
+go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of
+men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were
+keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the Manor, and
+then went right over the whole place with him.
+
+"It was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk;
+and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt
+ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that,
+by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back
+with them. And then, abruptly, an idea came to him. He suggested that
+they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. For a
+time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but
+finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that
+they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen
+bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles.
+Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place,
+light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and
+make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got them to agree.
+
+"They set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey
+was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, Dennis was
+doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible
+man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. You
+see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth.
+
+"'I tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter
+reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther
+pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to
+shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the
+bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all
+the gold in the worrld was offered ye.'
+
+"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip.
+
+"'Shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back
+in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to
+patch up, an' he invited thim--the O'Haras they was--siventy av thim. An'
+he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to
+shlape with him. Thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered
+thim wan an' all as they slep'. 'Tis from me father's grandfather ye have
+the sthory. An' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the
+night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'Twill put out candle
+an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the Virgin Herself would be powerless
+to protect ye.'
+
+"Wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put
+it:--'One always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you
+feel inside.' He asked old Dennis whether he expected him to believe it.
+
+"'Yes, sorr,' said Dennis, 'I do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please God,
+if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' The man's serious
+simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand. But, for all
+that, he went; and I must admire his pluck.
+
+"There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the Manor--or
+castle as the villagers always call it--they were not long in getting a
+big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. They had
+all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot
+to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, Wentworth had his
+gun. He kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them
+sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to
+make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. If you once let a
+crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to
+fancy things.
+
+"The big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which
+shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so
+this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a
+jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. He had opened a second lot
+of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the
+men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. And
+then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous
+main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible
+hand, and shut with a sharp click.
+
+"Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the
+men, and looked 'round at them. Several had ceased their talk, and were
+staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had
+never noticed, and were talking and yarning. He reached for his gun, and
+the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking,
+which drew the attention of the whole company.
+
+"The hall I should tell you is oblong. The south wall is all windows; but
+the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the
+west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading
+into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
+north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
+suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
+passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
+and for a minute there was an absolute silence.
+
+"Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
+the doorway.
+
+"'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
+came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
+report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
+moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
+into the black shapes of the empty doorways.
+
+"Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
+was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
+frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
+happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
+and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
+candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners.
+
+"The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
+together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
+ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
+on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
+with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
+near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:--'The
+bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
+same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
+of:--'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
+candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
+let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
+with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
+rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
+dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
+in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
+one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me.
+
+"Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
+connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
+and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
+Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
+me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house.
+The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
+growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
+look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
+even by daylight.
+
+"The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
+sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
+one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
+with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
+whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
+some force exceedingly dangerous to life.
+
+"Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
+examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
+drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
+candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
+general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
+examination of every square foot of the place--not only of the hall, in
+this case, but of the whole interior of the castle.
+
+"I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
+kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
+have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
+stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
+perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
+whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
+shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
+after dusk.
+
+"I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
+hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
+attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing.
+However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
+persuade him to be present.
+
+"With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
+arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
+policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
+and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment.
+
+"When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
+good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
+donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
+boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
+the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
+all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
+doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
+to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
+influence.
+
+"By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
+and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
+lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
+took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
+entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
+dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
+figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
+with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
+more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
+doors make the angle.
+
+"When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
+of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
+into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
+open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
+the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
+each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
+then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
+the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
+took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Theyre must
+noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure.
+
+"I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
+in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth
+were tremendously interested, and I took the opportunity to warn them
+that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a
+definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human
+thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that, as they
+valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must
+on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I
+was making.
+
+"After I had drawn the circle, I took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged
+it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. When this was
+complete, I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the
+police to lighting them, and as they were lit, I took them, and sealed
+them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart.
+As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took
+sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and I need hardly say that
+every number and measurement has a significance.
+
+"Then, from candle to candle I took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it
+alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was
+completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into
+the wax of the sixty-sixth candle.
+
+"It had now been dark some time, and I made haste to get the 'Defense'
+complete. To this end, I got the men well together, and began to fit the
+Electric Pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the
+Defensive Star came just within the Hair Circle. This did not take me
+long, and a minute later I had connected up the batteries, and the weak
+blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. I felt
+happier then; for this Pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful
+'Defense.' I have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading
+Professor Garder's 'Experiments with a Medium.' He found that a current,
+of a certain number of vibrations, _in vacuo,_ 'insulated' the medium. It
+is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are
+really interested you should read Carder's lecture on 'Astral Vibrations
+Compared with Matero-involuted Vibrations below the Six-Billion Limit.'
+
+"As I stood up from my work, I could hear outside in the night a constant
+drip from the laurels, which as I have said, come right up around the
+house, very thick. By the sound, I knew that a 'soft' rain had set in;
+and there was absolutely no wind, as I could tell by the steady flames of
+the candles.
+
+"I stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my
+arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. By his tone, I
+could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all;
+and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid
+they were beginning to get shaky.
+
+"I set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center;
+so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating
+outward. Then, by compass, I laid their legs to the eight chief points,
+and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to
+their feet, I made the Eight Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual. The eighth
+place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment;
+for I had omitted to make the Sealing Sign to that point, until I had
+finished all my preparations, and could enter the Inner Star.
+
+"I took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big
+hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. The fire
+was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt
+steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went 'round
+the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever
+happened; but to trust to the 'Defense'; and to let nothing tempt or
+drive them to cross the Barriers. Also, I told them to watch their
+movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. For the rest,
+there was to be no shooting, unless I gave the word.
+
+"And now at last, I went to my place, and, sitting down, made the Eighth
+sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy,
+and examined my revolver.
+
+"Wentworth sat behind the First Sign, and as the numbering went 'round
+reversed, that put him next to me on my left. I asked him, in a low
+voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt
+confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the
+matter, whatever happened.
+
+"We settled down to wait. There was no talking, except that, once or
+twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks
+concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense
+silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and
+only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great
+entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace.
+
+"It was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our
+legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the
+Pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of
+lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty
+hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone
+before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest
+mass of flame. And the feeling of mystery! Can you picture it all?
+
+"It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was
+aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the
+air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with
+us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to
+happen any moment.
+
+"Abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and I
+felt the star of men move suddenly. 'Steady! Keep steady!' I shouted, and
+they quietened. I looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon
+their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great
+entrance. I turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned
+their heads to look. Suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and
+I glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the
+big doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be
+listening. In the same instant, I heard a faint chink of metal to my
+left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It
+moved, even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A
+queer, sickening thrill went through me, and I felt all the men about me,
+stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something
+impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but
+overwhelming, Presence. The hall was full of a queer silence, and not a
+sound came from the dogs. _Then I saw the hook slowly raised from out of
+its hasp, without any visible thing touching it._ Then a sudden power of
+movement came to me. I raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and
+snapped it at the door. There came the great blare of the flashlight, and
+a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs.
+
+"The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some
+moments, and in that time of darkness, I heard a jingle in the direction
+of the door, and strained to look. The effect of the bright light passed,
+and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly
+closed. It shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence,
+broken only by the whimpering of the dogs.
+
+"I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me.
+
+"'Just as it did before,' he whispered.
+
+"'Most extraordinary,' I said, and he nodded and looked 'round,
+nervously.
+
+"The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling
+rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think
+that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is
+extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than
+most people.
+
+"I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low
+voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, _whatever happened_; not even
+though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
+them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
+Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
+Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
+kept to our order within the Pentacle.
+
+"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
+the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
+from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
+their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
+sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.
+
+"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
+out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
+before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
+Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
+with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
+actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
+of the hall in general.
+
+"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
+flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
+smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
+the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
+quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
+as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
+room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.
+
+"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
+hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
+now over in the corners.
+
+"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
+visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
+impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
+way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
+watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
+from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
+the Pentacle.
+
+"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
+to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
+in the hall: The steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible.
+The _extent_ of the Power to affect the Material was horrible. The
+extent of the Power to affect the Material was now the one constant,
+anxious questioning in my brain. You can understand?
+
+"Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were
+getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
+quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
+within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
+once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
+state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.
+
+"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
+known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
+would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
+'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.
+
+"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
+of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
+company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
+yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
+him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
+room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
+glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
+again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.
+
+"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
+candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
+seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
+weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.
+
+"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
+solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
+felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
+normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I
+began, however, to feel better, after a while; but I simply had not the
+pluck to move. You can understand?
+
+"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
+flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
+once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
+a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
+eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
+police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
+
+"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
+there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
+the sealing-wax. _The sealed doors were opening._ I raised the camera and
+flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
+me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
+felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
+if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
+brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
+
+"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
+floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
+a sense of a very real and present danger--_imminent._ The 'blood-drip'
+had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
+save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
+
+"Through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an
+increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the Barriers. I
+saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing
+intertwining tubes of the Electric Pentacle; but, strangely enough, I
+could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise
+of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the
+boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of
+agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an
+immediate silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's
+neck, you will know the sound--in miniature! Like lightning, the thought
+sprang into my brain:--_IT has crossed the Pentacle._ For you will
+remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly,
+with a sick apprehension, of our own Barriers. There was something in the
+hall with us that had passed the Barrier of the Pentacle about one of the
+dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And
+suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman,
+and bolted for the door. He fumbled, and had it open in a moment. I
+yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and I
+heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped
+on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter
+darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the
+powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the
+useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the
+night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk.
+
+"The men were a little ahead of me, and I never ceased running, and
+neither did they. Sometimes, I glanced back over my shoulder; and I kept
+glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly
+things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though
+something were keeping parallel with me, among them. The rain had
+stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It
+was disgusting.
+
+"I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside, and
+ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up, waiting for us,
+and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known
+in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all;
+which is not a bad rendering of his remark.
+
+"Fortunately, I had brought my camera away from the house--possibly
+because the strap had happened to be over my head. Yet, I did not go
+straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we
+talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole
+horrible business.
+
+"Later, however, I went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography.
+I was steadier now, and it was just possible, so I hoped, that the
+negatives might show something.
+
+"On two of the plates, I found nothing unusual: but on the third, which
+was the first one that I snapped, I saw something that made me quite
+excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then I put
+it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots.
+
+"The negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and I had made
+up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without
+losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and
+the police, until I was certain; and, also, I believed that I stood a
+greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, I do not
+suppose anything would have taken them up to the Manor again that night.
+
+"I took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. The
+rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When
+I came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going
+through, and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the
+drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels.
+You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled, I jumped.
+
+"I made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a
+little window which I had taken note of during my search; for, of course,
+I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the
+kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, I went to the
+left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the
+doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. I looked up it, and saw a
+faint flicker of light away at the end; and I tiptoed silently toward it,
+holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door, I heard men's
+voices, and then a burst of laughing. I went on, until I could see into
+the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well
+dressed, and one, at least, I saw was armed. They were examining my
+'Barriers' against the Supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter.
+I never felt such a fool in my life.
+
+"It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the
+empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now
+that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the
+traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping
+so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were, I mean
+whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, I could not imagine.
+
+"Presently, they left the Pentacle, and gathered 'round the living
+boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged.
+There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but
+finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of
+them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of
+the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. Then a
+third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. The two men
+with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that I could not see what was
+done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there
+was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, I had heard earlier
+in the night, as you will remember.
+
+"The men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you
+may suppose. For my part, I fully appreciated the calculated
+remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold
+determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. I
+guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular
+men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending.
+
+"A minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should
+'shift the wires.' One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor
+in which I stood, and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper
+end. I saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door,
+and I heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire.
+
+"When he had gone, I ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after
+another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble
+steps being raised. When the last man had vanished, the slab that made
+the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. It
+was the seventh step from the bottom, as I took care to count: and a
+splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a
+fairly heavy hammer, as I found later.
+
+"There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and
+quietly as possible, and back to the inn. The police came without any
+coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. We
+entered the park and the Manor in the same way that I had done. Yet, when
+we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. This
+must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room
+which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness
+of the walls, we found no one.
+
+"The police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my
+part, I did not care either way. I had 'laid the ghost,' as you might
+say, and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of
+being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken
+in'; and in the end, I had scored, without their help.
+
+"We searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an
+exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well,
+out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a
+little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The 'blood-drip' was
+merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the
+ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out, I do not
+know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which
+held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' Perhaps it was too
+difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which
+might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may
+possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but
+how suspended, I have no idea.
+
+"The secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. There was also, did I
+tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered
+the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall, I
+should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned
+them had I gone in through the gateway."
+
+"What was on the negative?" I asked, with much curiosity.
+
+"A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook
+that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the
+crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for
+lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone would make
+use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine
+to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight
+'picked it out.' Do you see?
+
+"The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have
+guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else I should soon have found
+them, when I made my search.
+
+"I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed, of
+course, by the men direct. You see, they made the place as dark as
+possible, first. Of course, if I had managed to take a flashlight just at
+that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed.
+But Fate just ordered it the other way."
+
+"And the tramps?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the Manor," said
+Carnacki. "Well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the
+other. Perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a
+hypodermic. Or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of
+their dying, and just died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many
+tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another."
+
+Carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. We rose also, and went for
+our coats and hats.
+
+"Out you go!" said Carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. And
+we went out on to the Embankment, and presently through the darkness to
+our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 3--THE WHISTLING ROOM
+
+
+Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
+the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us--Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and myself--in to dinner.
+
+We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
+silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
+usual positions, and Carnacki--having got himself comfortable in his big
+chair--began without any preliminary:--
+
+"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
+chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
+the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
+this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, I have been
+utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
+peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that I have come
+against. Now listen.
+
+"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
+miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
+Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
+only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
+
+"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
+drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
+I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
+American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
+all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
+they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
+
+"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
+about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
+different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
+Case was very queer, too.
+
+"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
+shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
+haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
+on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
+not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
+
+"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
+
+"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
+replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
+infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
+playing a trick on me.'
+
+"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
+
+"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
+playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
+in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
+wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
+so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
+There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
+years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
+against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
+
+"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
+all this affects the room?'
+
+"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
+out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
+her--one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
+she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
+must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
+were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
+found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
+this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
+market again, after a trial.
+
+"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
+after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
+twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
+talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
+Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
+were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
+something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
+
+"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
+others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
+guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
+mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
+
+"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
+castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
+been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
+frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
+
+"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
+had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
+for the talk up at Arlestrae--Miss Donnehue's place--had made me wonder a
+bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
+wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
+the talk about it, you know.
+
+"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
+said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
+whistling, coming along the East Corridor--The room is in the East
+Wing, you know.
+
+"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
+off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
+along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
+queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
+rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
+That's how it makes you feel.
+
+"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
+then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
+said he got it the same way--sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
+looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
+locked the door.
+
+"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
+began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
+the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
+Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
+
+"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
+visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
+and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
+had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
+You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
+
+"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
+house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
+queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
+of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
+a rise out of me.'
+
+"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said--'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
+chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
+We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
+nerves; so we sent for you.'
+
+"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
+suddenly called out:--'Ssh! Hark!'
+
+"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
+hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
+corridors to my right.
+
+"'By G--d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
+candles, both of you, and come along.'
+
+"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
+Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
+candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
+near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
+of some wanton Immense Force--a sense of an actual taint, as you might
+say, of monstrosity all about us.
+
+"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
+back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
+us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
+it--with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
+darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
+glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
+and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
+you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:--That's Hell. And you
+knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
+
+"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
+and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
+came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
+with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
+ear, something seemed to be saying to me:--'Get out of here--quick!
+Quick! Quick!'
+
+"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
+be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
+warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
+Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
+others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, _out_ quick.' And in an instant I
+had them into the passage.
+
+"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
+and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
+and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
+were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
+there we stood a moment, silent.
+
+"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
+a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
+man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
+downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
+and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
+
+"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
+said. And directly afterward:--'What on earth made you hustle us all out
+like that, Carnacki?'
+
+"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
+bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
+sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
+laughed at.'
+
+"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
+that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
+rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
+going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
+dangerous about this thing.'
+
+"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
+we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
+ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
+after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
+on the morrow.
+
+"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
+the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
+the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
+old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
+more modern doors of the various rooms.
+
+"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
+instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
+or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
+extraordinary whistling.
+
+"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
+my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
+of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
+down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
+pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
+light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
+
+"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
+of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
+know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
+of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
+produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
+prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
+astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
+abnormal in them.
+
+"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
+garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
+room, I hoped to be safe.
+
+"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
+had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
+if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
+gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
+revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
+
+"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
+with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
+Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
+empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
+realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
+understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
+of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
+I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
+that same _malevolent_ silence--the beastly quietness of a thing that is
+looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
+Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
+as to have light over the _whole_ room.
+
+"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
+sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
+sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
+tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
+can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
+there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
+was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
+Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case--you know.
+
+"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
+a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
+projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
+human hairs--the seventh crossing the six others.
+
+"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
+room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
+from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
+extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
+human--as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
+As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
+doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
+the _Inanimate_ reproducing the functions of the _Animate_, I made a
+grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
+shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
+I got my hand upon the handle--a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
+piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
+slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
+wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
+squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
+when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
+the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
+business. There is no protection against this particular form of
+monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
+reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
+material which you may use, and has the power to '_forme_ wythine the
+pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
+of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
+too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
+then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
+harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
+
+"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
+whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
+there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
+
+"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
+off down the great passage, and so to bed.
+
+"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
+Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
+coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
+and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
+terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
+mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
+
+"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
+and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
+and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
+
+"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
+said. '_I_ can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
+
+"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
+time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
+
+"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:--
+
+"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
+toward the door.
+
+"'No!' I said. 'By Jove--_no!_ I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
+believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
+
+"'Haunted--_really_ haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
+frequent banter.
+
+"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite _yes_ or _no_ to
+such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
+Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
+Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
+particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
+subject of a manifestation.
+
+"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
+went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
+another spell of sleep.
+
+"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
+intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
+the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
+thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
+having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
+broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
+instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
+would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
+just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
+
+"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
+It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
+open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
+Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
+breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
+all the way; but I found nothing.
+
+"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room--floor, ceiling,
+and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
+hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
+
+"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
+thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
+when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
+whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
+to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
+within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
+as you must allow.
+
+"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
+mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
+been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
+years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
+would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
+Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
+someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
+to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
+would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
+nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
+all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
+'haunting.'
+
+"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
+hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
+intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
+and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
+extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
+along--tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet--to the sealed door (for
+I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
+often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
+note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
+door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
+whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
+about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
+
+"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
+hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
+hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
+the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
+wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
+arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
+exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
+
+"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
+entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
+nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
+risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
+Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
+getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
+
+"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
+look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
+come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
+in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
+sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
+down my spine. You know the feeling.
+
+"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
+something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
+walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
+under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
+vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
+Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
+low, but evidently in glee:--
+
+"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
+that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
+
+"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
+rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
+had spotted me.
+
+"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
+_they_ were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
+made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
+and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
+genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
+details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
+natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
+
+"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
+whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
+East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
+the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
+hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
+
+"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
+which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
+simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
+watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
+was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
+sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
+yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
+it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
+after dark.
+
+"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
+be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
+mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
+back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
+way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
+phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
+impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
+feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
+microphone will not magnify the sound--will not even transmit it; seems
+to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
+absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
+to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. _I_
+cannot--not yet."
+
+He rose to his feet.
+
+"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
+without offence, into the night.
+
+A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
+I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
+dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
+began again, where he had left off:--
+
+"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
+you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
+had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
+the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
+whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
+outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
+could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
+it, and gone off to bed.
+
+"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
+whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
+night. It had a queer note in it, I remember--low and constant, queerly
+meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
+sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
+look into the Room, through the window.
+
+"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
+straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
+though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
+first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
+ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
+larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
+had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
+
+"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
+conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
+itself--can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
+note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct--a mighty parody of
+the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
+lips of a monster with a man's soul.
+
+"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
+huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
+soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
+pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
+heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
+as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
+and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
+dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
+enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
+moonlight....
+
+"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
+stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
+moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
+same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
+that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
+then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
+undisturbed floor of the room--smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
+to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
+
+"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
+I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide _quietly_ down
+the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
+voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, _help_. My God! but I
+got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
+that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
+taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
+window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
+had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
+across to it; but there was no one there.
+
+"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
+apartment; and then, in a flash, _I knew that Tassoc had never called_. I
+whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
+frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
+the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
+black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
+mad instant at my revolver; not for _it_, but myself; for the danger was
+a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
+Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
+Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
+sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
+life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
+vertigo of unseeable things. Then _that_ ended, and I knew that I might
+live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
+dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
+I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
+on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
+way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
+with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
+of the Room, there was a low whistling.
+
+"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
+and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
+good whisky--for I was shaken to pieces--and I explained things as much
+as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
+every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
+pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
+
+"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
+thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
+
+"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
+a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
+great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
+that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
+old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
+Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
+King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
+
+"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
+tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
+library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
+Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
+countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
+one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
+was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
+
+"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
+job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
+Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
+nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
+until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
+sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
+Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
+
+"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
+it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
+his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
+the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
+tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
+him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
+purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
+her prettiness.
+
+"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
+morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
+sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
+power to sing it.
+
+"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace--probably from
+that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
+died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
+he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
+heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
+in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
+seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
+
+"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
+translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
+a tremendous manifestation?"
+
+"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
+upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
+development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
+produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
+manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
+spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
+itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
+the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
+plainer in a few words."
+
+"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
+
+But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
+too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
+men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
+secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
+become the talk of the whole countryside.
+
+"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
+use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
+that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
+but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
+
+"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
+and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
+extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
+may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
+case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
+taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
+other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
+inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
+soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
+the material expression of the ancient Jester--that his soul, rotten with
+hatred, had bred into a monster--eh?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
+neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
+descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
+think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
+Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
+_It_ had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
+that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
+a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, _if_ ever she
+had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
+
+He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
+took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
+friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
+
+"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
+had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.
+
+
+
+
+No. 4--THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+
+
+I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached
+his place I found him sitting alone. As I came into the room he rose with
+a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. His face seemed
+to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. He shook
+hands and offered me his paper, which I refused. Then he passed me a
+handful of photographs and returned to his reading.
+
+Now, that is just Carnacki. Not a word had come from him and not a
+question from me. He would tell us all about it later. I spent about half
+an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by
+flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the
+photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so
+frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to
+believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent
+and overwhelming danger.
+
+The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
+passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
+the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
+portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
+evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
+first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
+surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.
+
+Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something _definitely_
+extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
+in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
+turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
+noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
+the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.
+
+I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
+than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
+was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
+held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
+and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
+the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
+Carnacki began:
+
+"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
+at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
+strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
+finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
+have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
+Also I know _now_ that I never considered it seriously--in spite of my
+rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!
+
+"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
+that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
+himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
+horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
+understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
+haunted by the Horse during her courtship.
+
+"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
+always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
+an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven
+generations the Hisgins family have had men children for their first-born
+and even the Hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be
+little more than a myth.
+
+"To come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is
+a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her
+friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest
+for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men
+friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape
+the haunting. And this, I think, shows us how thoroughly the tale
+had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious
+thought. Don't you think so?
+
+"Two months ago Miss Hisgins became engaged to Beaumont, a young Naval
+Officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it
+was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which
+resulted in Captain Hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately
+going down to their place to look into the thing.
+
+"From the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me I
+found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like
+a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and
+disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way.
+In the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five
+first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. Each
+of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each
+one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling
+from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure,
+owing to sudden shock through fright). The fifth girl was killed one
+evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be
+no _exact_ knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had
+been kicked by a horse. She was dead when found. Now, you see, all of
+these deaths might be attributed in a way--even the suicides--to natural
+causes, I mean as distinct from supernatural. You see? Yet, in every
+case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and
+terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the
+records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or
+of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other
+peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. You begin to understand
+now, I think, just how extraordinary a business it was that I was asked
+to look into.
+
+"I gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so
+constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from
+their ladyloves. And I think it was this, more than anything else, that
+made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere
+succession of uncomfortable coincidences.
+
+"I got hold of these facts before I had been many hours in the house and
+after this I went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that
+happened on the night of Miss Hisgins's engagement to Beaumont. It seems
+that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just
+after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a
+sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. Immediately
+afterward Beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his
+right forearm. Then the rest of the family and the servants came running
+to know what was wrong. Lights were brought and the corridor and,
+afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found.
+
+"You can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous,
+half believing talk about the old legend. Then, later, in the middle of
+the night the old Captain was waked by the sound of a great horse
+galloping 'round and 'round the house.
+
+"Several times after this both Beaumont and the girl said that they had
+heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the
+rooms and corridors.
+
+"Three nights later Beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the
+nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
+He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
+They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
+the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.
+
+"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
+were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.
+
+"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
+details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
+evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
+had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
+that had happened the evening before.
+
+"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
+whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
+and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
+yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.
+
+"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
+girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'
+
+"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it--the sound of a horse
+outside of the front door.
+
+"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
+not riding.
+
+"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
+Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see
+whether anyone was at the entrance. It was pretty dark in the hall and he
+could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the
+darkness of the hall. He walked over to the glass and looked through into
+the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight.
+
+"He felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to
+the carriage-circle. Almost directly afterward the great hall door swung
+to with a crash behind him. He told me that he had a sudden awful feeling
+of having been trapped in some way--that is how he put it. He whirled
+'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it
+with a vast grip on the other side. Then, before he could be fixed in his
+mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door.
+
+"He paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had
+hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really
+frightened or not. Then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of
+the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him
+from the boudoir. He blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway,
+meaning to go to her. And then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening
+knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that
+kiss. He knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the
+darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. He jumped back and
+in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. He
+called out at the top of his voice: 'Mary, stay in the boudoir. Don't
+move out of the boudoir until I come to you.' He heard her call something
+in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or
+so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the
+hall. There was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there
+came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive.
+
+"Now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse
+galloping; but when I questioned more closely I found that the aunt had
+heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further
+back in the room. Of course, both he and Miss Hisgins had been in an
+extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. The door might have
+been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being
+opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing
+more than the snick catching.
+
+"With regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, I
+pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they
+had been only cool enough to reason. As I told him, and as he knew, the
+sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he
+had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some
+distance away. And as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises--the rustle of
+a paper or a leaf--have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in
+an overstrung condition and imagining things.
+
+"I finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria
+as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. But neither
+Beaumont nor Miss Hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on
+their parts.
+
+"We had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along
+the passage and I was still doing my best to make both of them see the
+ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my
+pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard
+room we had just left.
+
+"I felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back
+of my head. Miss Hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and
+ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. Beaumont, however,
+ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. I gave back
+too, a bit, as you can understand.
+
+"'There it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'Perhaps you'll
+believe now.'
+
+"'There's certainly something,' I whispered, never taking my gaze off the
+closed door of the billiard room.
+
+"'H'sh!' he muttered. 'There it is again.'
+
+"There was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the
+billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. A horrible cold fright took me
+so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
+and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
+suddenly at the opening of the long passage.
+
+"We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
+horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
+malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
+occupied. Do you understand just what I mean?
+
+"Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
+excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
+sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
+'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her.
+
+"I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
+about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
+realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
+see what's there.'
+
+"'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck.
+I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
+my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
+and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
+not stop me from being able to work my flashlight.
+
+"Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
+his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
+shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all.
+He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
+in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
+went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
+we were a pretty nervous couple.
+
+"All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
+within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
+of a hoof on the solid _parquet_ floor of the billiard room. In the
+instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
+ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, _coming toward the door_. Both
+Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
+our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
+to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
+silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
+and temples almost deafened me.
+
+"I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
+restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
+right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
+the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
+the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
+clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
+between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
+I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
+body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
+breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
+could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
+danger abroad. Do you understand?
+
+"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
+of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
+quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
+Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
+and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'
+
+"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
+landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
+nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.
+
+"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
+'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
+the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
+landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
+the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
+where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
+anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
+that infernal thing.
+
+"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
+passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
+if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
+thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
+down the stairs.
+
+"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
+follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
+came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
+me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
+girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
+room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.
+
+"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
+no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
+anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
+and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
+so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle.
+I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
+and that he had better be armed.
+
+"When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
+miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
+him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
+'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
+the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
+like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
+feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
+wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
+that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
+least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later.
+
+"I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
+for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
+whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
+foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
+particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
+remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
+outside. Poor devil!
+
+"The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
+we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
+house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
+queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
+the bedroom. I knocked at the door, for I was uneasy, and the Captain
+came. I asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and
+immediately asked me whether I had heard the galloping, so that I knew he
+had heard them also. I suggested that it might be well to leave the
+bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly
+something abroad. This was done and he went back into the room, to be
+near his wife and daughter.
+
+"I had better say here that I was doubtful whether there was any value in
+the 'Defense' about Miss Hisgins, for what I term the 'personal sounds'
+of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that I was inclined
+to parallel the case with that one of Harford's where the hand of the
+child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. As
+you will remember, that was a hideous business.
+
+"Yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had
+fully come we all went off to bed.
+
+"Beaumont knocked me up about midday and I went down and made breakfast
+into lunch. Miss Hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits,
+considering. She told me that I had made her feel almost safe for the
+first time for days. She told me also that her cousin, Harry Parsket, was
+coming down from London and she knew that he would do anything to help
+fight the ghost. And after that she and Beaumont went out into the
+grounds to have a little time together.
+
+"I had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no
+traces of hoof marks and after that I spent the rest of the day making an
+examination of the house, but found nothing.
+
+"I made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for
+dinner. When I got down the cousin had just arrived and I found him one
+of the nicest men I have met for a long time. A chap with a tremendous
+amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man I like to have with me in
+a bad case like the one I was on. I could see that what puzzled him most
+was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and I found myself
+almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. As
+it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance.
+
+"Beaumont and Miss Hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk
+and Captain Hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat
+whilst Parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him.
+
+"I had a long conversation with the old Captain in which I pointed out
+that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the
+house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was
+married, the better as it would give Beaumont a right to be with her at
+all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations
+would cease if the marriage were actually performed.
+
+"The old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and
+reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted'
+had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. And then
+in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption,
+for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most
+extraordinarily pale:
+
+"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
+the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse--'
+
+"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
+sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
+snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
+Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.
+
+"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
+sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
+of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
+of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
+The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
+tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
+and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
+shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.
+
+"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
+for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
+blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
+was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
+staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
+don't know.'
+
+"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
+toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
+darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
+game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
+immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
+carried by some of the men-servants.
+
+"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
+standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
+saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
+the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
+the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
+one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
+strange to be seen anywhere.
+
+"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
+Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
+four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched
+'round the home park. But we found nothing.
+
+"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
+Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
+straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
+guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
+soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
+I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
+They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
+order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
+of the door.
+
+"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
+got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
+seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
+the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
+'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
+nothing for a little. Then he caught it--the sound of a horse, seemingly
+a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
+that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
+was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
+close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
+caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
+heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
+at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
+right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
+looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
+last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
+tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
+butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
+
+"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
+glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
+however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
+him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
+him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
+for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
+anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
+
+"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
+each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont
+and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun. In addition to my weapon
+I had my camera and flashlight.
+
+"Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of
+the bedroom to have a word with us. About half-past one we had all grown
+very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand,
+silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. I
+knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I
+whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse. For some time we
+stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it;
+but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont. Yet afterward, I thought
+I heard it again.
+
+"I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and
+leave the door a little open and this he did. But from that time onward
+we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very
+thankfully to bed.
+
+"When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain
+Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to
+take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than
+possible. Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special
+License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.
+
+"This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the
+extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
+investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
+was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.
+
+"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
+Miss Hisgins and her _surroundings_. Sometimes the camera sees things
+that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.
+
+"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
+company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
+experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
+her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
+impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
+we chanced to be at the moment.
+
+"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
+whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
+cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
+for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
+darkness without help and companionship at hand.
+
+"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
+carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
+lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
+Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
+off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
+the experiment.
+
+"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
+extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss
+Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding
+the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the
+trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling
+neighing that I had heard out in the Park. It seemed to come from
+somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light I saw that
+she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. And then in the
+succeeding comparative darkness, I was shouting to the Captain and
+Parsket to run Miss Hisgins out into the daylight.
+
+"This was done instantly and I shut and locked the door afterward making
+the First and Eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual opposite to each post
+and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line.
+
+"In the meanwhile Parsket and Captain Hisgins carried the girl to her
+mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst I stayed
+on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for I knew
+that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling
+there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know,
+because I had exposed Miss Hisgins to the danger.
+
+"I had got the Captain's shotgun and when he and Parsket came down again
+they were each carrying guns and lanterns. I could not possibly tell you
+the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when I heard them
+coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of
+that cellar. Can you?
+
+"I remember noticing, just before I went to unlock the door, how white
+and ghastly Parsket looked and the old Captain was grey-looking and I
+wondered whether my face was like theirs. And this, you know, had its own
+distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness
+of the thing crashing down on to me in a fresh way. I know it was only sheer
+will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key.
+
+"I paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide
+open and held my lantern over my head. Parsket and the Captain came one
+on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was
+absolutely empty. Of course, I did not trust to a casual look of this
+kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding
+every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls.
+
+"Yet, in the end I had to admit that the place itself was absolutely
+normal and so we came away. But I sealed the door and outside, opposite
+each doorpost I made the First and Last signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+joined them as before, with a triple line. Can you imagine what it was
+like, searching that cellar?
+
+"When we got upstairs I inquired very anxiously how Miss Hisgins was
+and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and
+that I was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as I told her I
+had been doing.
+
+"I felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was
+done, Parsket and I took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives
+that I had been taking. Yet none of the plates had anything to tell us
+until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. Parsket was
+developing and I had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the
+lamplight to examine them.
+
+"I had just gone carefully through the lot when I heard a shout from
+Parsket and when I ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed
+negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. It showed the girl
+plainly, looking upward as I had seen her, but the thing that astonished
+me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were
+coming down upon her out of the shadows. And you know, I had run her
+bang into that danger. That was the thought that was chief in my mind.
+
+"As soon as the developing was complete I fixed the plate and examined it
+carefully in a good light. There was no doubt about it at all, the thing
+above Miss Hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. Yet I was no nearer to
+coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing I could do was to
+warn Parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only
+increase her fright, but I showed the thing to her father for I
+considered it right that he should know.
+
+"That night we took the same precaution for Miss Hisgins's safety as on
+the two previous nights and Parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in
+without anything unusual having happened and I went off to bed.
+
+"When I got down to lunch I learnt that Beaumont had wired to say that he
+would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the
+Rector. And it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a
+tremendous fluster.
+
+"Beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even
+then the Rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to
+say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away
+unexpectedly. Twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down,
+but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until
+the next day.
+
+"That night I arranged the 'Defense' 'round the girl's bed and the
+Captain and his wife sat up with her as before. Beaumont, as I expected,
+insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened
+mood; not for himself, you know, but for Miss Hisgins. He had a horrible
+feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his
+sweetheart that night.
+
+"This, of course, I told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made
+me feel very anxious; for I have seen too much not to know that under
+such circumstances a premonitory _conviction_ of impending danger is not
+necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. In fact, Beaumont was so
+simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some
+extraordinary manifestation that I got Parsket to rig up a long cord from
+the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy.
+
+"To the butler himself I gave directions not to undress and to give the
+same order to two of the footmen. If I rang he was to come instantly,
+with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept
+ready lit all night. If for any reason the bell did not ring and I blew
+my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell.
+
+"After I had arranged all these minor details I drew a pentacle about
+Beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever
+happened. And when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and
+pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before.
+
+"We scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense
+and nervous so that at last Parsket got up and began to walk up and
+down the corridor to steady himself a bit. Presently I slipped off my
+pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally
+for something over an hour, until in turning I caught my foot in the
+bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or
+making a noise.
+
+"When I got up Parsket nudged me.
+
+"'Did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered.
+
+"'Jove!' I said, 'you're right.'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' he answered. 'I'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in
+the cord.' He left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the
+top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying Beaumont's revolver ready
+in his right hand. He was a plucky chap, I remember thinking then, and
+again, later.
+
+"Just then Beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. Directly afterward
+I heard the thing for which he listened--the sound of a horse galloping,
+out in the night. I think that I may say I fairly shivered. The sound
+died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you
+know. I put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping Parsket had got it
+clear. Then I waited, glancing before and behind.
+
+"Perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly
+quiet. And then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there
+sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown
+with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. I tugged hard on the
+cord and blew the whistle; then I raised my snapshot and fired the
+flashlight. The corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was
+nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. I heard the Captain at
+the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, _quick_; but
+instead something started to kick the door and I heard the Captain
+shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. I had a
+sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in
+the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile,
+gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. I blew
+the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to
+Beaumont to stay in the Pentacle, whatever happened. I yelled again to
+the Captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against
+the bedroom door. Then I had my matches in my hand, to get some light
+before that incredible, unseen Monster was upon us.
+
+"The match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant
+I heard a faint sound behind me. I whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror
+and saw something in the light of the match--a monstrous horse-head close
+to Beaumont.
+
+"'Look out, Beaumont!' I shouted in a sort of scream. 'It's behind you!'
+
+"The match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of
+Parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently
+single-handed by Beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. I caught a
+momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof
+amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon Beaumont.
+In the same instant I fired three chambers of my revolver. There was the
+sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out
+close to me. I fired twice at the sound. Immediately afterward something
+struck me and I was knocked backward. I got on to my knees and shouted
+for help at the top of my voice. I heard the women screaming behind the
+closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being
+smashed from the inside, and directly afterward I knew that Beaumont was
+struggling with some hideous thing near to me. For an instant I held
+back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of
+rigid chill of goose flesh I went to help him, shouting his name. I can
+tell you, I was nearly sick with the naked fear I had on me. There came a
+little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that I jumped forward
+into the dark. I gripped a vast, furry ear. Then something struck me
+another great blow knocking me sick. I hit back, weak and blind and
+gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. Abruptly I was dimly
+aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. There
+were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. My
+hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; I shut my eyes stupidly
+and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher
+chopping meat and then something fell upon me.
+
+"I was helped to my knees by the Captain and the butler. On the floor lay
+an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. On
+the wrists were fixed great hoofs. It was the monster. The Captain cut
+something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted
+off the mask, for that is what it was. I saw the face then of the man who
+had worn it. It was Parsket. He had a bad wound across the forehead where
+the Captain's sword had bit through the mask. I looked bewilderedly from
+him to Beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the
+corridor. Then I stared at Parsket again.
+
+"'By Jove!' I said at last, and then I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
+the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
+you know, I had grown so to like him.
+
+"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
+looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
+happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
+corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
+that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
+face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
+terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
+stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
+from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
+the corridor.
+
+"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
+the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
+immediately afterward the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
+coming down the passage toward us.
+
+"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
+Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
+doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
+shouted out:
+
+"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'
+
+"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a _sense_ that there was
+something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:
+
+"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'
+
+"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
+that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
+was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
+the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
+afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
+the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
+in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
+seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
+sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
+halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
+that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
+across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
+extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
+wound in his forehead; and then I noticed that he seemed to be looking at
+something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly
+masterful gaze. But there was really nothing to be seen. And suddenly the
+clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the
+passage. In the same moment Parsket pitched forward out of the doorway
+on to his face.
+
+"There were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two
+footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the
+Captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was
+carrying over his head. The dull tread of the Horse went past him, and
+left him unharmed and I heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and
+away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence.
+
+"Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with
+an extraordinarily grey face.
+
+"I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me. We turned him
+over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can
+imagine what a feeling it sent through me.
+
+"I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said:
+
+"'That--That--That--' and I know that he was trying to tell me that
+Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone
+down the passage. I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very
+steady myself. And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to
+his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child. Then the women
+came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to
+them, whilst I over to Beaumont.
+
+"That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to
+me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.
+
+"Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and
+this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. He was
+doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact I
+think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what
+I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.
+
+"In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket's intention was to
+frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I
+think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. I hate to
+say this, but the facts force me to think so.
+
+"I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont's arm. He knew
+all the details of the so-called 'Horse Legend,' and got the idea to work
+upon the old story for his own end. He evidently had some method of
+slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French
+windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and
+when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet
+and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.
+
+"The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous
+imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that
+the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to
+explain away. But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this
+point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.
+
+"The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by
+Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling
+with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. I proved this by an
+examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.
+
+"The sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made
+also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation
+nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how
+he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. In any case, I
+don't feel perfect certainty on this point. I failed to find any hoof
+marks, as you remember.
+
+"The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on
+the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by
+him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been
+outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.
+This is almost probable. I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it
+had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his
+foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. I cannot
+imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action
+of which I have just told you. He was enormously without fear of any
+kind for himself as you can see.
+
+"The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse
+galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. No one was
+very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage
+the belief.
+
+"The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first
+suspicion into Parsket's mind that there was something more at work than
+his sham haunting. The neighing was done by him in the same way that he
+did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure
+that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which
+frightened the man himself. Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he
+had been getting fanciful. Of course, I must not forget that the effect
+upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.
+
+"Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it
+was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was
+at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve
+his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for
+he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away. I hate to think
+this, but I'm bound to. Anyway, it is obvious that the man was
+temporarily a bit off his normal balance. Love's a queer disease!
+
+"Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the
+butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away
+naturally to clear it. This also gave him the opportunity to remove one
+of the passage lamps. Then he had only to smash the other and the passage
+was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.
+
+"In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took
+the key (it was in his pocket). This prevented the Captain from bringing
+a light and coming to the rescue. But Captain Hisgins broke down the door
+with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded
+so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.
+
+"The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is
+one of the things that I am less sure about. It might have been faked by
+Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy
+enough, to anyone who knew how. But, you know, it does not look like a
+fake. Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as
+against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a
+definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the
+other. It is certainly a horrible photograph.
+
+"And now I come to that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further
+manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary
+uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and
+if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this
+case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact,
+as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be
+cleared up, but I see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last
+and the fear that Parsket showed.
+
+"His death--no, that proves nothing. At the inquest it was described
+somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and
+leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood
+between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity.
+
+"The look on Parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the
+great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the
+sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a
+horrible suspicion. And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous
+danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then
+he did the one fine, great thing!"
+
+"And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?"
+
+Carnacki shook his head.
+
+"God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "If that
+thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which
+would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. Yet I have
+thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get
+you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket had produced what I might term
+a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental
+conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to
+make it clearer in a few words."
+
+"But the old story!" I said. "Why may not there have been something
+in _that_?"
+
+"There may have been something in it," said Carnacki. "But I do not think
+it had anything to do with this. I have not clearly thought out my
+reasons, yet; but later I may be able to tell you why I think so."
+
+"And the marriage? And the cellar--was there anything found there?"
+asked Taylor.
+
+"Yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy,"
+Carnacki told us. "It was the wisest thing to do considering the things
+that I cannot explain. Yes, I had the floor of that big cellar up, for I
+had a feeling I might find something there to give me some light. But
+there was nothing.
+
+"You know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. I shall
+never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting
+sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house."
+
+Carnacki stood up.
+
+"Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+
+And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to
+our homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 5--THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+
+
+It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
+silent in his great chair.
+
+We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which--as you
+know--we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
+now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
+had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
+have hinted.
+
+However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
+memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:--
+
+"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
+have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
+a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
+what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
+
+"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
+outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
+row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
+and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
+smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
+doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
+complete niceness.
+
+"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
+that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
+not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
+
+"And then, something happened.
+
+"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
+that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
+top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
+
+"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
+that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
+room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
+heard me safe up to my room.
+
+"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
+upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
+was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
+should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
+dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
+into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
+momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
+the passage; but it was not until the following night that I _realized_ I
+had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
+that--one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
+consciousness, perhaps a year before.
+
+"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
+she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
+she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
+the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
+must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
+accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
+me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
+but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
+my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
+down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
+properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
+subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
+but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
+
+"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
+I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
+immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
+to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
+made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
+of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
+as I had said.
+
+"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
+to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
+a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
+mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
+understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
+and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
+
+"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
+not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
+believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
+her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
+the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
+over to look at her.
+
+"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
+a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
+and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
+what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
+you must see.
+
+"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
+the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
+strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
+
+"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
+though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
+that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
+_expected really_ to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
+
+"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
+explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
+banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
+about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
+happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
+thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
+
+"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
+not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
+that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
+associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
+talking about. You will understand that I am able _now_ to analyze and
+put the thing into words; but _then_ I did not even know my chief reason
+for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
+
+"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
+into words:--
+
+"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
+looking at me. Then:--'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
+at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
+expectancy.
+
+"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
+been walking about in your sleep.'
+
+"'The smell,' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
+the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
+
+"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
+bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
+underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
+I was more nervous than I would admit.
+
+"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
+bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
+believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
+been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
+fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
+knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
+bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
+difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
+queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
+of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the
+little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
+
+"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
+
+"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
+ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
+could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
+and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
+really were.
+
+"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
+again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
+had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
+felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
+into it; but very human.
+
+"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
+after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
+found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
+with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
+the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
+was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
+
+"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
+twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
+and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
+poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
+really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
+getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations
+seemed futile.
+
+"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
+also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
+made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
+that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
+that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
+I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
+hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
+all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
+inside of us, we did not believe this.
+
+"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
+mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
+get to sleep.
+
+"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
+by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
+heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
+that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
+
+"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
+and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
+open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
+shut off from me.
+
+"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
+one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
+one. 'Who's there?'
+
+"Then I heard my mother saying:--
+
+"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
+
+"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
+hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
+been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
+
+"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
+wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
+knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
+with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
+search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
+will understand.
+
+"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
+because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
+However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
+bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
+the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
+whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
+only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
+beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
+taint of that disgusting odor.
+
+"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
+something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
+my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
+
+"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
+landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
+twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
+from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
+long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
+on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
+peculiar. The landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the
+house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
+and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
+
+"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
+no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
+five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
+so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
+supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
+the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
+night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
+first month's tenancy.
+
+"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
+ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
+seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
+himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
+indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
+
+"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
+with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
+the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
+affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
+getting about.
+
+"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
+thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
+Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
+drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
+sitting up all night.
+
+"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
+nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
+it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
+the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
+we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
+
+"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
+and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
+afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
+
+"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
+as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
+lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
+the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
+was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
+reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
+darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
+violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
+blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
+violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
+Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
+distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
+concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
+which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
+make clear to you; but try to understand it.
+
+"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
+of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
+was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
+the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
+shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
+fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
+and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
+glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
+shown solid.
+
+"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
+heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
+close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
+lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
+darkness, for my warning to come true.
+
+"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
+side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
+belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
+thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
+And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
+what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
+think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
+often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
+from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
+lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
+then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
+known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
+seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
+of Maetheson's, which you know about.
+
+"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
+left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
+landlord shout out:--'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
+disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
+aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
+frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
+saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
+looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
+came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
+the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
+these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
+unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
+violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
+me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
+hoarse sort of cry:--'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
+clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
+showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
+chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
+
+"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
+mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
+the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
+but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
+passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
+saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
+over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
+with sweat.
+
+"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
+his words:--'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
+over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
+voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
+I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
+go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
+stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
+beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
+most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
+so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
+ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
+question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
+seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
+adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
+
+"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. _I_ had
+not seen this Woman. _I_ had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
+Something or Someone. _He_ had not seen the Child, or the other
+things--only the Woman. And _I_ had not seen her. What did it all mean?
+
+"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
+bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
+explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
+the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
+there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
+streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
+mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
+
+"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
+answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
+I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
+
+"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
+Smell! Do _you_ smell it?'
+
+"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I shook
+him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
+shaking lantern at the stair head.
+
+"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
+gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
+alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
+that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
+it makes rags of your courage.
+
+"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
+afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
+and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
+should know which had been opened.
+
+"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
+beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
+had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
+horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
+shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
+courage, I went down the stairs.
+
+"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
+passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
+on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
+soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
+extraordinary horror.
+
+"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
+saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
+closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
+swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
+against me, in his fear.
+
+"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
+put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
+through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
+be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
+yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
+
+"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
+hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
+garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
+fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
+afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
+heard the shot.
+
+"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
+and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
+very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
+path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
+I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
+mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
+for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
+went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
+how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
+door had been opened.
+
+"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
+top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
+which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
+room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
+then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
+one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
+rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
+permeated with the horrible odor.
+
+"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
+room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
+or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
+through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
+oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
+
+"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
+trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
+or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
+each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
+toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
+windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
+by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
+
+"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
+and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
+flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
+looked strange and bewildered.
+
+"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
+
+"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
+the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
+sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
+
+"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
+
+"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
+monotonously.
+
+"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
+his breath.
+
+"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:--'I hope you held the door open
+politely for the lady.'
+
+"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
+
+"'Are you mad--' began Johnstone.
+
+"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
+enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
+his control again.
+
+"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
+than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
+
+"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
+again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
+saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
+cellar door; and the last print showed _under_ the door; yet the
+policeman said the door had not been opened.
+
+"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
+saying, I asked the landlord:--
+
+"'What were the feet like?'
+
+"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
+open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
+order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
+the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
+horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
+
+"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
+steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
+unnatural footprints.
+
+"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
+there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
+inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
+disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
+backed suddenly out of the doorway:
+
+"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
+
+"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
+that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
+shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
+darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
+back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
+for a weapon of some kind.
+
+"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
+hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
+empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
+cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
+and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:--
+
+"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
+
+"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
+
+"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
+and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
+screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
+gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
+heard the landlord.
+
+"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
+his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
+the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
+stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
+from the horror.
+
+"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
+Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
+went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
+thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
+you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
+
+"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
+found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
+erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
+some blind scent.
+
+"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
+the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
+water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
+the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
+about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
+
+"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
+light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
+plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
+the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
+turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
+
+"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
+across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
+belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
+as it were, a menace--the material expression that some monstrous thing
+was there with us, invisible.
+
+"'I think--' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
+stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
+for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
+
+"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
+waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
+same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
+locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
+
+"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
+sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
+and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
+watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
+just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
+and went over to his place for a sleep.
+
+"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
+arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
+relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
+the previous night.
+
+"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
+thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
+them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
+everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
+in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
+piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
+height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
+
+"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
+sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
+and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
+
+"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
+when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
+see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
+rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
+wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
+Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
+or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
+cellar stairs.
+
+"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
+the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
+ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
+like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
+which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
+pitchforks.
+
+"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
+rather white all at once.
+
+"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
+I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
+into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
+it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
+hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
+well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
+hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
+a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
+
+"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
+the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
+table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
+
+"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
+when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
+him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
+to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
+nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
+help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
+that night.
+
+"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
+front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
+carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
+and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
+
+"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
+not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
+arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
+he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
+detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
+appreciated all my precautions.
+
+"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
+pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
+
+"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
+
+"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
+the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
+quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
+which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
+the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
+took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
+which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
+out every lamp.
+
+"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
+lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
+keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
+lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
+
+"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
+able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
+absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
+
+"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
+extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
+night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
+the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
+faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
+hold of it, in readiness.
+
+"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
+in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
+to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
+conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
+but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
+to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
+from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
+again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
+violet night in which it ran.
+
+"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
+it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
+brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
+table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
+to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
+to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
+nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
+our world.
+
+"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
+distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
+sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
+Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
+
+"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
+little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
+There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
+was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
+landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
+to catch my arm:--
+
+"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
+
+"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
+color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
+
+"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
+saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
+straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
+half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
+table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
+fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
+the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
+had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
+something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
+same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
+absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
+eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
+of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
+cotton wool.
+
+"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
+oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
+lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
+another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
+might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
+forces that I was unable to comprehend.
+
+"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
+stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
+light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
+was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
+which I had screwed into the ceiling.
+
+"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
+vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
+remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
+there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
+indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
+glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
+of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
+fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
+collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
+consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
+
+"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
+whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
+attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
+into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
+nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
+
+"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
+as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
+sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
+the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
+nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
+
+"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
+absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
+table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
+of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
+it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
+instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
+
+"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
+There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
+and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
+my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
+do the same.
+
+"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
+from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
+the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
+thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
+leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
+of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
+coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
+felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
+the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
+big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
+rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
+
+"From the detective there came a sudden shout:--
+
+"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
+instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
+
+"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
+followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
+mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
+
+"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
+inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
+their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
+dancing all over the place.
+
+"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
+trying to speak plainly.
+
+"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
+The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
+to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
+had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
+floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
+leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
+ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
+
+"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
+which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
+a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
+been so much water.
+
+"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
+tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
+the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
+Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
+smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
+couple of weeks earlier.
+
+"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
+house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
+bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
+the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
+mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
+of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
+unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
+
+"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
+warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
+had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
+for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
+something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
+get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
+drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
+artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
+rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
+time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
+there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
+with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
+were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
+beach beyond the church.
+
+"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
+my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
+it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
+should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
+hushed up.
+
+"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
+house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
+seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
+the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
+only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
+from the Revenue people.
+
+"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
+mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
+about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
+woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
+he found them.
+
+"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
+an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
+delighted to learn how it had affected us.
+
+"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
+the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
+contributions.
+
+"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
+of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
+was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
+made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
+Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
+thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
+should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
+policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
+landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
+
+"I can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as I might
+say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
+was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
+the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. _I_ saw nothing, until
+I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
+running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
+later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
+was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
+theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
+the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
+the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
+Force present in the house.
+
+"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
+visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
+why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
+
+"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why _you_ didn't
+see the Woman, and why _they_ didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
+same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
+
+"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
+Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
+but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
+
+"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
+child '_still_born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
+but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
+let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
+physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
+possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
+Element--the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
+waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
+Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
+tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
+that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
+forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
+thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
+other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
+thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
+so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
+half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
+incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
+
+"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
+discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
+fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
+there is a Mother Spirit--"
+
+"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
+other side?"
+
+"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
+not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
+and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
+and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
+on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
+the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
+told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
+
+"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
+interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
+house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
+_en rapport_, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
+produced the tragedy?"
+
+"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
+the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
+
+"There may be other houses--" I began.
+
+"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
+
+"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
+five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
+various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 6--THE THING INVISIBLE
+
+
+Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this
+interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
+which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself
+at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki
+had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends
+knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we
+had no knowledge. Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
+only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his
+three other friends--Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor--would receive a card
+or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed, for
+after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down
+into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
+ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would
+begin to talk.
+
+Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found
+Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me
+firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never
+having uttered a word.
+
+For my part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him
+with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
+Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a
+comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
+
+Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I
+have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
+directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express
+it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. A minute
+or so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks,
+and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell:
+
+"I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in
+South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most
+extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
+Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I
+could help to clear matters up a bit. I went.
+
+"When I got there, I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the
+castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is
+popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I
+managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable
+occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always
+content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental.
+
+"It sounds almost laughable, I know, to hear of a long-respected
+supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
+the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth,
+except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming.
+
+"But however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what I might
+term the Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly
+dangerous--deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to
+death one night in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
+
+"It is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the
+Chapel. At least, there has been always a story handed down in the family
+that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into
+the Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this had been taken with
+just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost
+tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly _real_ nature. I mean that
+most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of
+matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an
+opportunity to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I am as big a
+skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to
+meet; only I am what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am not given
+to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as I have
+found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
+to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven
+until I have examined into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
+cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. But the
+hundredth! Well, if it were not for the hundredth, I should have few
+stories to tell you--eh?
+
+"Of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there
+was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and I
+found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really
+strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
+found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some
+invisible thing or monster of the Outer World!
+
+"From considerable experience, I knew that it was much more likely that
+the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human!
+
+"Naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human
+agency, and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the
+people who knew most about the tragedy.
+
+"The result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for
+it left me with very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
+of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of
+a Force from the Outside. In more popular phraseology--a genuine case
+of haunting.
+
+"These are the facts: On the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred
+Jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the Chapel.
+You see, the Rector goes over to officiate twice each Sunday, after
+concluding his duties at the public Church about three miles away.
+
+"At the end of the service in the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his
+son Mr. George Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
+minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went 'round, putting
+out the candles.
+
+"Suddenly, the Rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book
+on the Communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to
+get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
+
+"Now I have particularly called your attention to this because it is
+important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an
+extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector's turning to speak to Bellett
+had naturally caused both Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the
+direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst
+all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed--there,
+full in the candlelight, before their eyes.
+
+"I took the opportunity to call early upon the Rector, after I had
+questioned Mr. George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition
+as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling
+upon the scene as much as possible.
+
+"The Rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
+the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me the whole
+affair--Bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and
+absolutely alone; and then the _blow_, out of the Void, he described it;
+and the _force_ prodigious--the old man being driven headlong into the
+body of the Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector said, his
+benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually
+witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed.
+
+"When I left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when
+I appeared. I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
+sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear old chap, and I should
+certainly like to have heard it.
+
+"The last man I visited was the butler. He was, of course, in a
+frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that
+did not point to there being a Power abroad in the Chapel. He told the
+same tale, in every minute particle, that I had learned from the others.
+He had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the
+Rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the
+left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
+
+"Examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger--of which I
+will tell you more in a moment--that hung always above the altar. The
+weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
+the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the
+blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out
+through the scapula behind.
+
+"The poor old fellow could not talk much, and I soon left him; but what
+he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
+person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as I knew,
+this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses,
+independent of Bellett himself.
+
+"The thing now was to search the Chapel, which is small and extremely
+old. It is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which
+leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, the butler having no duplicate.
+
+"The shape of the Chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the
+usual fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in
+the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the
+chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
+which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
+
+"Above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as I had learned it was
+named. I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which
+describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. I took the
+dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
+inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but
+sharp point, rather peculiar. It is double-edged.
+
+"The metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with
+the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of
+the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a
+cross. That this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
+Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in Latin, is the
+inscription: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay.' A quaint and rather
+terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade of the dagger is graven in
+old English capitals: I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt there is
+carved deeply a Pentacle.
+
+"This is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that
+has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of
+its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike
+murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family who may chance to enter the
+Chapel after nightfall. I may tell you here and now, that before I left,
+I had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for I tested the
+deadliness of the thing myself.
+
+"As you know, however, at this point of my investigation, I was still at
+that stage where I considered the existence of a supernatural Force
+unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the Chapel drastically, sounding
+and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
+foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
+
+"At the end of this search, I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of
+the groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening
+of the third day I had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no
+place in the whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
+hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the
+Chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of
+which was always kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
+himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course, that this doorway is the
+only entrance practicable to material people.
+
+"Yes, as you will see, even had I discovered some other opening, secret
+or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of
+the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. For the butler, as you know,
+was struck in full sight of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
+Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... _'Out of
+the Void,'_ the Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'Out of
+the Void!' A strange feeling it gives one--eh?
+
+"And this is the thing that I had been called in to bottom!
+
+"After considerable thought, I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
+Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the Chapel, and keep a
+constant watch upon the dagger. But to this, the old knight--a little,
+wizened, nervous man--would not listen for a moment. He, at least, I felt
+assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural Force
+a roam at night in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been his habit
+every evening to lock the Chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or
+heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
+that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had
+happened to the butler.
+
+"I could see that Sir Alfred Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would
+evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the
+experiment and any harm come to me; so I said nothing in argument; and
+presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said
+goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite
+but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
+
+"That night, however, whilst I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve
+the thing I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark, without
+making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On the morrow, when I borrowed the
+key, I would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then, with my
+private key, I could do just what I liked.
+
+"In the morning I carried out my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to
+take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When I had done this I
+locked up the Chapel and handed the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having
+first taken an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
+plate--in its slide--with me; but the camera I had left exactly as it
+was, as I wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
+from the same position.
+
+"I took the dark slide into Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the
+impress. The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was something of
+a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if I
+would call in two hours. This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a
+photographer where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him
+I would call next day. At the end of the two hours I went for my key and
+found it ready, much to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
+
+"After dinner that evening, I played billiards with young Jarnock for
+a couple of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went off to my
+room, telling him I was feeling awfully tired. He nodded and told me
+he felt the same way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle as
+soon as possible.
+
+"I locked the door of my room, then from under the bed--where I had
+hidden them earlier in the evening--I drew out several fine pieces of
+plate armor, which I had removed from the armory. There was also a shirt
+of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head.
+
+"I buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily
+uncomfortable, and over all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
+about armor, but from what I have learned since, I must have put on parts
+of two suits. Anyway, I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to
+move my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the thing I was thinking
+of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. Over the armor I
+pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side
+pockets--and my repeating flash-light into the other. My dark lantern I
+carried in my hand.
+
+"As soon as I was ready I went out into the passage and listened. I had
+been some considerable time making my preparations and I found that now
+the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed
+quiet. I stepped back and closed and locked my door. Then, very slowly
+and silently I went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage
+that led to the Chapel.
+
+"I reached the door and tried my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment
+later I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about
+me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of
+the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and
+lonesomeness almost the more apparent.
+
+"Now it would be silly to say I did not feel queer. I felt very queer
+indeed. You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in
+the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to
+the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little
+while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could believe that
+something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I
+had got to go through with the business, and I just took hold of my
+little bit of courage and set to work.
+
+"First of all I switched on my light, then I began a careful tour of the
+place; examining every corner and nook. I found nothing unusual. At the
+chancel gate I held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. It
+hung there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember thinking of the
+word 'demure,' as I looked at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
+what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts.
+
+"I completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness
+of its utter chill and unkind desolation--an atmosphere of cold
+dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable.
+
+"At the conclusion of my search I walked across to where I had left my
+camera focused upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had put beneath
+the tripod I took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing
+the shutter. After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
+apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was an intense, brilliant
+flash, that made the whole of the interior of the Chapel jump into sight,
+and disappear as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern, I inserted
+the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh
+plate ready to expose at any time.
+
+"After I had done this I shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the
+pews near to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
+an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
+horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
+
+"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
+faint chime of a clock that had been erected over the stables. I was
+beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
+furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
+sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
+of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
+And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
+my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
+if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
+then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
+the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
+intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
+imagine how I felt?
+
+"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
+wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
+was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
+if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
+something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
+might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. I sat
+immovable. I was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. I
+could not take my arms down from over my face, but I knew that I was
+getting hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly I made a mighty
+effort and lowered my arms. I held my face up in the darkness. And, I
+tell you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought truly at that
+moment that I was going to die. But I think, just then, by the slow
+revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
+that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of
+the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits,
+for a time.
+
+"Do I make myself clear? You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of
+respect, which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you
+see, I am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. I mean that if
+I had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
+revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much more worthy of
+mention. But, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of
+respect. You follow me, don't you?
+
+"And, you know, nothing touched me, after all! So that, in a little
+while, I had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go
+through with the business without any more funking.
+
+"I daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the
+chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
+cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen. And suddenly the thought
+came that the sound I heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the
+altar. It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
+too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
+understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
+time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
+animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
+possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
+invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
+the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... _of the
+void_. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
+'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
+thoughts were running.
+
+"I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
+me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
+light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
+could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
+light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
+side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
+floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
+thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
+and eternally silent. You know the feeling.
+
+"I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
+pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
+switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
+my constant watch.
+
+"It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
+after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
+grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
+place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal--it had
+given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
+child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
+just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
+of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
+was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
+butler, it had certainly not been visible.
+
+"And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
+and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
+other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
+intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
+in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
+listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
+a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
+moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
+my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
+I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
+of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
+shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
+There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
+just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
+repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
+coming slowly down the aisle.
+
+"Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
+more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
+_stiffened_. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel.
+And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
+it--that I had never heard it.
+
+"Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
+nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
+of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders _ached_, with
+the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
+myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
+might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
+around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
+respite--a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
+impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
+more clearly than this, myself.
+
+"Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
+nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
+normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
+with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
+This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances.
+
+"I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
+when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
+moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
+sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
+_tense_. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
+and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
+desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off.
+If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
+of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
+'creep' busy at my spine....
+
+"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
+soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
+little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
+was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
+booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
+place where my camera stood--a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
+then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
+snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
+conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
+I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
+was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
+great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
+there, but it showed me nothing.
+
+"I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
+sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
+the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
+here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
+was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
+prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
+of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
+of terror and horror. I tell you, that no one who has not been through
+these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical
+pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that
+ghostly fright sets up in the human system. I stood there feeling
+positively ill. But I got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a
+minute, and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin
+man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and
+over my head continually. And the hand that held my revolver sweated so
+much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does not sound very
+heroic, does it?
+
+"I passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to
+the small gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from my lantern
+upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it's all right. Abruptly, it seemed to
+me that there was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
+chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. My suspicion was hideously
+correct. _The dagger had gone._ Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
+above the altar.
+
+"In a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, I pictured the thing
+adrift in the Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
+volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly beyond
+visibility. I turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing
+frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. In the
+same instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and
+hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging
+loudly in the horrible silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
+on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the corner of a pew front,
+and brought me up, half stunned. I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick
+and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the
+moment. I was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as
+to just where I was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling run
+in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. I jumped back,
+staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the
+aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
+hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the font, and reeled back.
+Then I was at the exit. I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for
+the key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the
+keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and
+was into the passage. I slammed the door and leant hard against it,
+gasping, whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock
+the door upon what was in the Chapel. I succeeded, and began to feel my
+way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come to the
+big hall, and so in a little to my room.
+
+"In my room, I sat for a while, until I had steadied down something
+to the normal. After a time I commenced to strip off the armor. I saw
+then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced
+over the breast. And, suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had
+struck for my heart.
+
+"Stripping rapidly, I found that the skin of the breast over the heart
+had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt,
+nothing more. Only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely
+painful. You can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn the
+armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I was not knocked senseless.
+
+"I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking,
+and waiting for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before Sir Alfred
+Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide from him the fact that I had
+managed a duplicate key.
+
+"So soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently
+to show me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly down to
+the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense nerves, I opened the door. The
+chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place--everything seeming
+instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. Can you get the feeling? I
+waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and
+likewise my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun threw an odd
+beam right in through the big, East window, making colored sunshine all
+the length of the Chapel. And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced
+myself to enter.
+
+"I went up the aisle to where I had overthrown my camera in the darkness.
+The legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and I
+expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the
+ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done.
+
+"I replaced the camera in the position from which I had taken the
+previous photography; but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
+flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that
+I had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when I heard those
+strange sounds up in the chancel.
+
+"Having tidied my photographic apparatus, I went to the chancel to
+recover my lantern and revolver, which had both--as you know--been
+knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found the lantern lying,
+hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. My revolver I
+must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there
+in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned into the pew corner.
+It was quite undamaged.
+
+"Having secured these two articles, I walked up to the chancel rail to
+see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
+above the altar. Before, however, I reached the chancel rail, I had a
+slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away
+from where I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the
+polished marble pavement. I wonder whether you will, any of you,
+understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. With a
+sudden, unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot on it, to
+hold it there. Can you understand? Do you? And, you know, I could not
+stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I should
+think. Afterward, when I had done so, however, and handled it a little,
+this feeling passed away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
+made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass. Quite natural,
+though, I assure you! Yet it was a new kind of fear to me. I'm taking no
+notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking about the
+curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear
+that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
+interest you?
+
+"I examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands
+and never--as I suddenly discovered--holding it loosely. It was as if I
+were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even
+this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. The curious weapon
+showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color--of the blade was
+slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
+
+"Presently, when I had made an end of staring at the dagger, I went up
+the chancel step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling upon the
+altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail
+again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable
+because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. I
+suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, I had an unreasoned
+and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of
+danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when
+it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don't think this is a very good
+explanation, when I remember the _demure_ look the thing seemed to have
+when I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only I know this, that
+when I had replaced the dagger I had quite a touch of nerves and I
+stopped only to pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst I
+examined the weapon, after which I went down the quiet aisle at a pretty
+quick walk, and so got out of the place.
+
+"That the nerve tension had been considerable, I realized, when I had
+locked the door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think of old Sir
+Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming
+precautions regarding the Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
+might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the
+dagger had been concerned.
+
+"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
+awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
+sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
+
+"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
+walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
+reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
+photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
+until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
+his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
+dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.
+
+"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
+used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
+develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
+into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
+camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
+lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
+been, as it were, under observation.
+
+"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
+that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
+direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
+this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results--nothing more
+than a vague hope that it might show me something.
+
+"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
+absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
+developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
+part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
+the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
+almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
+lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
+me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.
+
+"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
+make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
+represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
+they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
+shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
+be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
+the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me.
+
+"I carried development a little further, then put the negative into the
+hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. This came up nicely, and
+very soon I had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every
+respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
+taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate, then having washed both
+it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them
+into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which I carried them
+into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven.
+
+"Whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and I made an
+enlargement from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then we did the
+same with the two that I had just developed, washing them as quickly as
+possible, for I was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
+drying them with spirits.
+
+"When this was done I took them to the window and made a thorough
+examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy
+daggers in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged, I was still
+unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything
+abnormal; and because of this, I put it on one side, determined not to
+let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of
+the indefinite outlines.
+
+"I took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will
+remember, and commenced to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
+without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they
+portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw something in which they varied. In
+the second enlargement--the one made from the flashlight negative--the
+dagger was not in its sheath. Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few
+minutes before I took the photograph.
+
+"After this discovery I began to compare the two enlargements in a very
+different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers
+from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and
+exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs.
+
+"Suddenly I came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement.
+I threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through
+the shop into the street. The three enlargements I took with me, making
+them into a roll as I went. At the corner of the street I had the luck to
+get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
+
+"I hurried up to my room and put the photographs away; then I went down to
+see whether I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock, who
+met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer
+that no one entered the Chapel unless he were about.
+
+"Young Jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking
+that Sir Alfred Jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
+but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for
+his carefulness had been justified. He added, also, that even before the
+horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular,
+always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except
+when the place was in use for Divine Service, and for an hour each
+forenoon when the cleaners were in.
+
+"To all this I nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young
+man left me I took my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
+I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried out some
+intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. These proved
+successful to such an extent that I came out of the place in a perfect
+fever of excitement. I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
+he was in the morning room.
+
+"'Come along,' I said, when I had found him. 'Please give me a lift. I've
+something exceedingly strange to show you.'
+
+"He was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. As we strode along
+he asked me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook my head,
+asking him to wait a little.
+
+"I led the way to the Armory. Here I suggested that he should take one
+side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the other.
+He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried
+the thing to the Chapel door. When he saw me take out my key and open
+the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in,
+evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered the Chapel and I locked
+the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle
+to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round,
+wooden stand.
+
+"'Stand back!' I shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
+open the gate. 'My God, man! you mustn't do that!'
+
+"Do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words
+and manner.
+
+"One minute," I said. "Just stand to the side a moment, and watch."
+
+He stepped to the left whilst I took the dummy in my arms and turned it
+to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
+well away on the right side, I pressed the back of the thing so that it
+leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. In the same
+instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the
+aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor.
+
+"Good God!" shouted young Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail,
+his face very white.
+
+"Come and look at the thing," I said, and led the way to where the dummy
+lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. I
+stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel
+breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.'
+
+"Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The
+thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!"
+
+"Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of
+the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never
+budged an inch.
+
+"Come and see how it was done," I said, and led the way back to the
+chancel rail. From the wall to the left of the altar I took down a long,
+curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. The
+sharp end of this I inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
+chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor
+upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom.
+Down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. As I bent
+the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the
+floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to
+enclose the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove the post down
+into the niche. Immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch
+snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring.
+
+I went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to
+wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and
+placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted
+loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave
+another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom
+of the cavity, catching there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
+and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and
+looking no different from the surrounding surface.
+
+Then I shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. I
+took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
+opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the
+air, striking the bottom wall of the Chapel. It was the dagger. I
+showed Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back
+into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the
+right-hand side of the gate.
+
+"There!" I said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post.
+"There's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is
+the person who sets the trap?" I looked at him keenly as I spoke.
+
+"My father is the only one who has a key," he said. "So it's practically
+impossible for anyone to get in and meddle."
+
+I looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out
+to any conclusion.
+
+"See here, Mr. Jarnock," I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have
+done, considering what I had to say. "Are you quite sure that Sir Alfred
+is quite balanced--mentally?"
+
+"He looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. I realized
+then how badly I put it.
+
+"'I--I don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent,
+except for one or two incoherent half remarks.
+
+"'Tell the truth,' I said. 'Haven't you suspected something, now and
+again? You needn't be afraid to tell me.'
+
+"'Well,' he answered slowly, 'I'll admit I've thought Father a little--a
+little strange, perhaps, at times. But I've always tried to think I was
+mistaken. I've always hoped no one else would see it. You see, I'm very
+fond of the old guvnor.'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'Quite right, too,' I said. 'There's not the least need to make any kind
+of scandal about this. We must do something, though, but in a quiet way.
+No fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with your father, and tell
+him we've found out about this thing.' I touched the divided post.
+
+"Young Jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my
+hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel. He came
+back in about an hour, looking rather upset. He told me that my
+conclusions were perfectly correct. It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set
+the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the
+past night. Indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every
+night for many years. He had learnt of its existence from an old
+manuscript book in the Castle library. It had been planned and used in an
+earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which
+were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
+
+"This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his
+wife's jewelry. She had died some twelve years back, and the young man
+told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since.
+
+"I mentioned to young Jarnock how puzzled I was that the trap had been
+set _before_ the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for,
+if I understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting
+the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone
+entered the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit of temporary
+forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set
+it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
+
+"That is about all there is to tell. The old man is not (so far as I
+could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word.
+He is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the
+whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
+on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to
+overmuch of his own company and thoughts. Indeed, young Jarnock told me
+that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the
+Chapel." Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill.
+
+"But you've never told us just _how_ you discovered the secret of the
+divided post and all that," I said, speaking for the four of us.
+
+"Oh, that!" replied Carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "I
+found--on comparing the--photos, that the one--taken in the--daytime,
+showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the
+flashlight. That put me on to the track. I saw at once that there might
+be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and
+nothing at all of an abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
+was simple enough, you know.
+
+"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may
+be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' Young
+Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my
+adventure."
+
+He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before
+the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
+
+"Jarnock and I made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a
+few moments. "I've got the dagger, as you see, and old Bellett's getting
+about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. All
+the same I fancy the Chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous
+place. Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in."
+
+"There's two things you haven't explained yet," I said. "What do you
+think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the Chapel in the
+dark? And do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a
+fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?"
+
+"Don't know for certain about the clangs," replied Carnacki.
+
+"I've puzzled quite a bit about them. I can only think that the spring
+which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in
+the catch. If it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a
+ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the
+night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' You can understand that--eh?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed. "And the other sounds?"
+
+"Well, the same thing--I mean the extraordinary quietness--may help to
+explain these a bit. They may have been some usual enough sound that
+would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have
+been only fancy. It is just impossible to say. They were disgustingly
+real to me. As for the slithery noise, I am pretty sure that one of the
+tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it
+may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would
+account for that queer little tap which I heard directly after."
+
+"How do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar
+when you first examined it that night?" I asked. "How could it be there,
+when at that very moment it was set in the trap?"
+
+"That was my mistake," replied Carnacki. "The dagger could not possibly
+have been in its sheath at the time, though I thought it was. You see,
+the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete
+weapon, as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger protrudes very
+little above the continued portion of the sheath--a most inconvenient
+arrangement for drawing quickly!" He nodded sagely at the lot of us and
+yawned, then glanced at the clock.
+
+"Out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+"I want a sleep."
+
+We rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and
+the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope Hodgson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10832.txt or 10832.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/3/10832/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+  www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
+contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
+Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/old/10832.zip b/old/10832.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aeb7d44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10832.zip
diff --git a/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.txt b/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6686151
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5586 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Carnacki, The Ghost Finder, by William Hope
+Hodgson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Carnacki, The Ghost Finder
+
+Author: William Hope Hodgson
+
+Release Date: January 25, 2004  [eBook #10832]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
+Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER
+
+By William Hope Hodgson
+
+1910, 1912
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+No. 1
+
+THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER
+
+
+In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and
+listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the
+three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there
+before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I
+were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining.
+
+"You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my
+soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to
+skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he
+would not stint words.
+
+"That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject,
+remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he
+gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely
+good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.
+
+Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably
+down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with
+very little circumlocution:--
+
+"As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and
+for a very good reason too--I've only been away a short distance. The
+exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than
+twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't
+spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary
+things ever I have run against.
+
+"I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson,
+asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found
+that he wished me to investigate and see whether I could not clear up a
+long-standing and well--too well--authenticated case of what he termed
+'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
+seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.
+
+"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
+very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had
+left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
+and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
+butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
+thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
+old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
+detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
+Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
+door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
+slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
+key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
+always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
+
+"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
+and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
+with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
+after time--thud! thud! thud!--so that sleep was impossible.
+
+"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
+over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it--an
+ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
+very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
+feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
+dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
+
+"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
+me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
+one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
+fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
+and then he could accompany me himself.
+
+"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
+explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
+affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
+But he shook his head when I said that.
+
+"'There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir,' he assured me, with mournful
+pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.
+
+"I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.
+He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently
+in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my
+examination until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told
+him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.
+
+"'It never comes outside, sir,' he said, in his funny, old, solemn
+manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have
+the 'creeps' right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.
+
+"I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well
+furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with
+its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and
+two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and
+after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind
+you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.
+
+"After I had taken a good look 'round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon
+across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the
+fireplace and the wall closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler
+stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter;
+though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here
+and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say:--'You'll
+excuse me, I'm sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair
+in a quake for you.'
+
+"I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what
+he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all
+alone there. He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize
+the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a
+pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I
+should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother
+me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on
+my nerves, and the 'feel' of the room was bad enough, without making it
+any nastier.
+
+"For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and
+sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were
+anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of
+playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had
+anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken
+off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had
+practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to
+the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when
+the old butler's voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came
+sharp and frightened:--'Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to
+happen!' Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the
+candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind,
+or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to
+make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before
+I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing
+there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on 'bein'
+brave, y'know.' So I just turned right 'round, picked up the two candles
+off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I
+saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to
+those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door,
+the old man called again:--'Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!'
+
+"'All right, Peter,' I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as
+I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work not to
+start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine.
+Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the
+room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little.
+I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of
+instinctive way. 'Collar the candles, Peter!' I said, pretty sharply,
+and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and
+slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so,
+I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only
+fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the
+door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I
+put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I
+pocketed the key, and went downstairs--with Peter; who was nervous and
+silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until
+that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the
+last two or three hours.
+
+"About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor
+upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between
+it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can
+understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to
+undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and
+sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I
+should know just which one.
+
+"I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked
+suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage.
+I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I
+was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door
+being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got
+my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding
+my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing
+happened. I could not go a step toward the Grey Room. You all know I am
+not really a cowardly chap. I've gone into too many cases connected with
+ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply
+funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy
+in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked
+the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal
+thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all
+the house.
+
+"Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not
+slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt
+ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you're
+meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes.
+And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight.
+Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it
+is something warning you, and fighting _for_ you. But, all the same, I
+always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.
+
+"When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver
+handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the
+stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old
+butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt
+into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.
+
+"'Hullo, Peter!' I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as
+any lost child to have a live human being close to me. 'Where are you off
+to with the refreshments?'
+
+"The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up
+at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up
+the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. 'I'm very thankful
+indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,' he said. 'I feared, one time, you
+might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I've lain awake all night, with
+the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I'd make you a
+cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it
+seems safer if there's two, sir.'
+
+"'Peter,' I said, 'you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.' And I
+drank the coffee. 'Come along,' I told him, and handed him back the tray.
+'I'm going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply
+hadn't the pluck to in the night.'
+
+"'I'm very thankful, sir,' he replied. 'Flesh and blood can do nothing,
+sir, against devils; and that's what's in the Grey Room after dark.'
+
+"I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them
+right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the
+card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the
+door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole
+room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light.
+I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old
+butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out:--'The
+bedclothes, sir!'
+
+"I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in
+the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I
+felt. Something _had_ been in the room. I stared for a while, from the
+bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to
+touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He
+went over to the bed coverings, and was going to pick them up, as,
+doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped
+him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This,
+I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up
+the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was
+getting on my nerves.
+
+"I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own
+man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of
+the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed--even
+the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with
+probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I
+can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible
+thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up
+everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.
+
+"After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my
+camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a
+string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if
+the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there
+would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The
+last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I
+went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight;
+and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my
+candle burning.
+
+"The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and
+slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my
+door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it
+would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty
+feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so
+that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark
+passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my
+revolver handy, staring up the passage toward the place where I knew my
+camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.
+
+"I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when,
+suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately
+conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and
+my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of
+the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight.
+There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the
+corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint
+glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with
+the tremendous blaze of the flash-power.... And then, as I stooped
+forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door
+of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
+corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
+horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
+stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and
+then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
+kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
+corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a
+yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
+thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I _thought_ I
+heard a sound in the passage, and quite _near_ me. I made one backward
+spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed,
+and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
+abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
+of that door. For some unknown reason I _knew_ it was pressed up against
+the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
+extraordinary thing to think.
+
+"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
+hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it
+almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of
+the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a
+miserable, brutal night.
+
+"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to
+an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
+corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you,
+it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
+been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
+room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had
+been sitting.
+
+"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
+coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we
+went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
+untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was
+the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
+keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
+unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
+the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
+left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very
+queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that
+not one had been broken.
+
+"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me,
+nodding his head.
+
+"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
+enter, without proper protection.'
+
+"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
+
+"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
+of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
+certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
+to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.
+
+"I go back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
+Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
+the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat
+which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward the
+bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, 'Yes,
+sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which
+was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me
+and himself, if he had known what I intended.
+
+"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried
+back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work,
+for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
+
+"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried
+the cat--still fastened in its basket--over toward the far wall, and left
+it. I returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
+twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a 'broom of hyssop.'
+About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the
+circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right
+around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among
+my stores in the center a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the
+parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in
+the little jar, I went 'round the circle again, making upon the floor,
+just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can
+tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the 'water circle'
+complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and
+placed a lighted candle in the 'valley' of each Crescent. After that, I
+drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star
+touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five
+portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five 'vales,'
+five opened jars of the water I had used to make the 'water circle.' And
+now I had my first protective barrier complete.
+
+"Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of
+investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish
+superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I
+believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst
+Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea
+from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th
+century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of
+the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it
+occurred to me to test his 'Defense,' which I did, as I've just said, in
+that horrible Black Veil business. You know how _that_ turned out. Later,
+I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that
+Moving Fur case. It was only a partial 'defense' therefore, and I nearly
+died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's
+'Experiments with a Medium.' When they surrounded the Medium with a
+current, in vacuum, he lost his power--almost as if it cut him off from
+the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make
+the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvelous 'Defense' against
+certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this
+protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is
+some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a
+Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I
+never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap
+laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.
+
+"In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a
+supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the
+danger is abominable.
+
+"I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of
+its 'points' and 'vales' coincided exactly with the 'points' and 'vales'
+of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery,
+and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum
+tubes shone out.
+
+"I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and
+realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and
+unfriendly. Then 'round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier
+of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of
+weirdness thrust upon me--in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of
+something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised
+garlic, a smell I hate.
+
+"I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in
+order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought
+that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialization of an
+ab-natural creature is possible, given favorable conditions, no one can
+say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel
+the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialized
+monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never
+forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me,
+and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt
+that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.
+
+"By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with
+the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly,
+and then all 'round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to
+come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over
+me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly
+feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself 'round with
+a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It
+seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed--the
+place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I
+could see nothing unusual; no opening--nothing!...
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that
+unnatural wind.... I believe I just squatted there and stared in a
+horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able
+to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile,
+cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles 'round the
+outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room,
+and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.
+
+"A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me;
+and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the
+left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward,
+unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius
+glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I
+stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight--a moving shadow, a
+little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the
+vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side,
+with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was
+directed to the bed. All the covering's were being drawn steadily off,
+with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging
+slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.
+I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the
+'creep' had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been
+for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating
+coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my
+right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze
+or my attention from those moving clothes.
+
+"The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense
+silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet,
+immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being
+dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the
+camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed.
+And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were
+torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as
+they were hurled into the corner.
+
+"There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of
+minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been
+thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of
+the thing that had just been done before me!
+
+"Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise--a sort of crickling
+sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill
+swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head;
+for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was
+there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was
+impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination
+supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls.... And
+then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered
+there among the shadows.
+
+"Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I
+reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was
+slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of
+hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a
+power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were 'out.' Can
+you understand?
+
+"The door was not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the
+basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all
+along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether
+whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose
+suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then--too late--I
+snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had
+been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half
+in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of
+the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had
+power to destroy.
+
+"During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable
+quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the
+time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be
+pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most
+horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled 'round, trying to
+see whether anything was coming at me.
+
+"My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and
+abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the 'water circle.'
+It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of
+a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It
+passed swiftly 'round the circle, and seemed to probe ever toward me; but
+only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living
+person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.
+
+"'Round and 'round it moved, and 'round and 'round I turned. Then, just
+opposite to one of the Vales' in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as
+though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the
+glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight toward me, appearing to
+gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign
+determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees,
+and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand, and hip, in a wild
+endeavor to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was
+grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing
+came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the 'water
+circle,' almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then,
+just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by
+some mighty, invisible force.
+
+"It must have been some moments before I realized that I was safe; and
+then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling
+horribly gone and shaken, and glancing 'round and 'round the barrier; but
+the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that
+the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.
+
+"Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the
+monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the
+pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the
+thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the 'deep' of the 'vale'
+had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the 'five doorways'
+unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had
+found the cause, and the 'defense' was still good. And I began to hope
+again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so
+nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the
+'barriers' could never bring me safe through the night against such a
+Force. You can understand?
+
+"For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I
+saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the
+door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the
+dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows
+against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.
+
+"A minute afterward, the door was opened and slammed twice with
+tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart
+at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from
+it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where--for a
+wickedly careless moment--I had placed it. The monster was hurled off
+from the neighborhood of the pentacles; though--owing to my inconceivable
+foolishness--it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer
+barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved
+right to the center of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making
+myself as small and compact as possible.
+
+"As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two
+'accidents' which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I
+being _influenced_ to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me?
+The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I
+stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some
+was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright
+and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I
+did so, the vast, black, half-materialized hand beat up at me out of the
+shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it
+approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether
+enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which
+it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if
+some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only
+upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a
+strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this
+more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was
+simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I
+can put it no other way.
+
+"I knelt again in the center of the pentacles, watching myself with more
+fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded
+myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my
+own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?
+
+"I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense
+that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear
+that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the
+Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that
+ghastly thing went 'round and 'round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at
+me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I
+heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the
+horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left
+of the bed.
+
+"Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural
+wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The
+dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and
+made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it
+was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave
+the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in
+the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.
+
+"At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look
+'round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy
+fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on
+the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the
+coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I
+had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly, and after
+I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.
+
+"I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I
+switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my
+hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not
+want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful
+search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several
+holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with
+my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on
+metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the
+second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window.
+I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The
+curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon;
+that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without
+the 'mounts,' which form the points of the defensive star. It was free
+from all chasing or engraving.
+
+"You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure
+I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which,
+indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the
+history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son
+through generations, and always--in obedience to some ancient family
+tradition--each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I
+may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar
+circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.
+
+"It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson's, made a
+bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did
+so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the
+bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem,
+thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken
+anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night
+in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no
+one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had
+been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most
+extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you
+can understand.
+
+"It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea.
+Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway--You see what I mean? A sort
+of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was
+not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come
+from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it.
+Then the shape--the inside of a pentacle. It had no 'mounts,' and without
+mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills
+of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow'r to thee daemon; and surelie to
+fayvor the Evill Thynge.' You see, the very shape of the ring was
+significant; and I determined to test it.
+
+"I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh _and around_ the one
+to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left
+the house, to get certain matters, for neither 'yarbs nor fyre nor waier'
+must be used a second time. I returned about seven thirty, and as soon as
+the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I
+dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before.
+When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and
+sealed the door. I went to the place in the center of the room where all
+the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct
+a barrier about me and the ring.
+
+"I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned
+that, if the ring were in any way a 'medium of admission,' and it were
+enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it
+loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression
+as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab
+from the Normal; for the 'gateway' would be removed from accessibility.
+
+"As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed
+about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
+that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
+effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
+strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
+You will see whether I was right.
+
+"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
+of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
+once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
+quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
+a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
+happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
+queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
+come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
+The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
+me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
+I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
+Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
+queer about the ring--funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
+at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
+up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
+seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
+Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
+convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
+was forming _within_ the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
+brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
+through--pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
+mouth of a pipe.
+
+"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.
+Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to
+hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible,
+living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet,
+in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal
+force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came
+at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I
+gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning
+candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and
+ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that
+was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The hand was plunging toward me;
+yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring
+was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass
+out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were
+chains riveted upon it.
+
+"Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken
+with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned,
+I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked
+it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could
+hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get
+the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or
+two, and so I got steadied.
+
+"I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee.
+When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along
+with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and
+peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and
+behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And
+there, in the middle, was the ring ... the gateway of the monster, lying
+demure and ordinary.
+
+"Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never
+managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.
+
+"After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the
+afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two
+cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey
+Room, and there, in the center of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the
+little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the 'luck,' but
+now the 'bane,' of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid
+splash of hot metal."
+
+Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue
+paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of
+greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.
+
+"Well?" I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it 'round to
+the others. "Did that stop the haunting?"
+
+Carnacki nodded. "Yes," he said. "I slept three nights in the Grey Room,
+before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but
+by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and
+ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved."
+
+Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. "Out you go!" he said,
+genially. And presently we went, pondering, to our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 2
+
+THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS
+
+
+"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as
+after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy
+dining room.
+
+"I have just got back from the West of Ireland," he continued.
+"Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy,
+in the shape of a large estate and manor, about a mile and a half outside
+of the village of Korunton. This place is named Gannington Manor, and has
+been empty a great number of years; as you will find is almost always the
+case with Houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed.
+
+"It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession, he found the
+place in very poor repair, and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I
+know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the
+big house by himself, and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable
+feeling about it; but, of course, that might be nothing more than the
+natural dismalness of a big, empty house, which has been long
+uninhabited, and through which you are wandering alone.
+
+"When he had finished his look 'round, he went down to the village,
+meaning to see the one-time Agent of the Estate, and arrange for someone
+to go in as caretaker. The Agent, who proved by the way to be a
+Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the Estate once
+more; but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as
+caretaker; and that his--the Agent's--advice was to have the house pulled
+down, and a new one built.
+
+"This, naturally, astonished my friend, and, as they went down to the
+village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems
+that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in
+the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven
+years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they
+had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and
+had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free
+lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the
+method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been
+found in the great entrance hall.
+
+"By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he
+told the Agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the
+haunting, by staying a night or two in the Manor himself. The death of
+the tramps was certainly curious; but did not prove that any supernatural
+agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents, spread over a
+large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural
+enough in a little place like Korunton. Tramps had to die some time, and
+in some place, and it proved nothing that two, out of possibly hundreds
+who had slept in the empty house, had happened to take the opportunity
+to die under shelter.
+
+"But the Agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the
+landlord of the inn, tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his
+'sowl's sake,' Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing; and because
+of his 'life's sake,' the Scotchman was equally in earnest.
+
+"It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me, it was warm
+and bright, and it seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking
+seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his
+mind he would smash the story of the haunting, at once by staying that
+very night, in the Manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them
+that it would be more to the point and to their credit, if they offered
+to come up along with him, and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was
+quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion; and though Tabbit, the
+Agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it.
+
+"It seems that Wentworth did go; and though, as he said to me, when
+the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing
+to tackle.
+
+"A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off; for by this
+time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him, and
+a big packet of candles; and he made it clear to them all that it would
+not be wise for anyone to play any tricks; as he intended to shoot 'at
+sight.' And then, you know, he got a hint of how serious they considered
+the whole thing; for one of them came up to him, leading a great
+bullmastiff, and offered it to him, to take to keep him company.
+Wentworth patted his gun; but the old man who owned the dog shook his
+head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for
+him to get away from the castle. For it was obvious that he did not
+consider the gun would prove of any use.
+
+"Wentworth took the dog, and thanked the man. He told me that, already,
+he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would
+go; but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of
+men, and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were
+keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the Manor, and
+then went right over the whole place with him.
+
+"It was still daylight when this was finished; though turning to dusk;
+and, for a while, the men stood about, hesitating, as if they felt
+ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that,
+by this time, he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back
+with them. And then, abruptly, an idea came to him. He suggested that
+they should stay with him, and keep him company through the night. For a
+time they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but
+finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that
+they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen
+bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles.
+Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place,
+light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and
+make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got them to agree.
+
+"They set off back, and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey
+was being loaded, and the candles and whisky distributed, Dennis was
+doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back; but he was a sensible
+man in his way, for when he found that it was no use, he stopped. You
+see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth.
+
+"'I tell ye, sorr,' he told him, ''tis of no use at all, thryin' ter
+reclaim ther castle. 'Tis curst with innocent blood, an' ye'll be betther
+pullin' it down, an' buildin' a fine new wan. But if ye be intendin' to
+shtay this night, kape the big dhoor open whide, an' watch for the
+bhlood-dhrip. If so much as a single dhrip falls, don't shtay though all
+the gold in the worrld was offered ye.'
+
+"Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood-drip.
+
+"'Shure,' he said, ''tis the bhlood av thim as ould Black Mick 'way back
+in the ould days kilt in their shlape. 'Twas a feud as he pretendid to
+patch up, an' he invited thim--the O'Haras they was--siventy av thim. An'
+he fed thim, an' shpoke soft to thim, an' thim thrustin' him, sthayed to
+shlape with him. Thin, he an' thim with him, stharted in an' mhurdered
+thim was an' all as they slep'. 'Tis from me father's grandfather ye have
+the sthory. An' sence thin 'tis death to any, so they say, to pass the
+night in the castle whin the bhlood-dhrip comes. 'Twill put out candle
+an' fire, an' thin in the darkness the Virgin Herself would be powerless
+to protect ye.'
+
+"Wentworth told me he laughed at this; chiefly because, as he put
+it:--'One always must laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you
+feel inside.' He asked old Dennis whether he expected him to believe it.
+
+"'Yes, sorr,' said Dennis, 'I do mane ye to b'lieve it; an' please God,
+if ye'll b'lieve, ye may be back safe befor' mornin'.' The man's serious
+simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand. But, for all
+that, he went; and I must admire his pluck.
+
+"There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the Manor--or
+castle as the villagers always call it--they were not long in getting a
+big fire going, and lighted candles all 'round the great hall. They had
+all brought sticks; so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot
+to tackle by anything simply physical; and, of course, Wentworth had his
+gun. He kept the whisky in his own charge; for he intended to keep them
+sober; but he gave them a good strong tot all 'round first, so as to
+make things seem cheerful; and to get them yearning. If you once let a
+crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to
+fancy things.
+
+"The big entrance door had been left wide open, by his orders; which
+shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so
+this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a
+jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. He had opened a second lot
+of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful; so much so that one of the
+men called out aloud to the ghosts to come out and show themselves. And
+then, you know a very extraordinary thing happened; for the ponderous
+main door swung quietly and steadily to, as though pushed by an invisible
+hand, and shut with a sharp click.
+
+"Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the
+men, and looked 'round at them. Several had ceased their talk, and were
+staring in a frightened way at the big door; but the great number had
+never noticed, and were talking and yarning. He reached for his gun, and
+the following instant the great bullmastiff set up a tremendous barking,
+which drew the attention of the whole company.
+
+"The hall I should tell you is oblong. The south wall is all windows; but
+the north and east have rows of doors, leading into the house, whilst the
+west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading
+into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
+north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
+suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
+passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
+and for a minute there was an absolute silence.
+
+"Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
+the doorway.
+
+"'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
+came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
+report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
+moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
+into the black shapes of the empty doorways.
+
+"Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
+was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
+frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
+happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
+and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
+candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners.
+
+"The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
+together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
+ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
+on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
+with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
+near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:--'The
+bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
+same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
+of:--'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
+candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
+let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
+with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
+rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
+dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
+in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
+one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me.
+
+"Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
+connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
+and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
+Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
+me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house.
+The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
+growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
+look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
+even by daylight.
+
+"The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
+sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
+one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
+with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
+whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
+some force exceedingly dangerous to life.
+
+"Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
+examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
+drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
+candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
+general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
+examination of every square foot of the place--not only of the hall, in
+this case, but of the whole interior of the castle.
+
+"I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
+kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
+have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
+stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
+perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
+whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
+shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
+after dusk.
+
+"I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
+hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
+attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing.
+However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
+persuade him to be present.
+
+"With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
+arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
+policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
+and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment.
+
+"When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
+good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
+donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
+boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
+the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
+all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
+doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
+to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
+influence.
+
+"By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
+and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
+lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
+took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
+entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
+dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
+figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
+with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
+more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
+doors make the angle.
+
+"When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
+of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
+into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
+open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
+the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
+each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
+then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
+the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
+took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Theyre must
+noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure.
+
+"I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
+in diameter, and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth
+were tremendously interested, and I took the opportunity to warn them
+that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part; but done with a
+definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any ab-human
+thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that, as they
+valued their lives, and more than their lives it might be, no one must
+on any account whatsoever pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I
+was making.
+
+"After I had drawn the circle, I took a bunch of the garlic, and smudged
+it right 'round the chalk circle, a little outside of it. When this was
+complete, I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the
+police to lighting them, and as they were lit, I took them, and sealed
+them down on the floor, just within the chalk circle, five inches apart.
+As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter, it took
+sixty-six candles to complete the circle; and I need hardly say that
+every number and measurement has a significance.
+
+"Then, from candle to candle I took a 'gayrd' of human hair, entwining it
+alternately to the left and to the right, until the circle was
+completed, and the ends of the hair shod with silver, and pressed into
+the wax of the sixty-sixth candle.
+
+"It had now been dark some time, and I made haste to get the 'Defense'
+complete. To this end, I got the men well together, and began to fit the
+Electric Pentacle right around us, so that the five points of the
+Defensive Star came just within the Hair Circle. This did not take me
+long, and a minute later I had connected up the batteries, and the weak
+blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tubes shone all around us. I felt
+happier then; for this Pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful
+'Defense.' I have told you before, how the idea came to me, after reading
+Professor Garder's 'Experiments with a Medium.' He found that a current,
+of a certain number of vibrations, _in vacuo,_ 'insulated' the medium. It
+is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically, and if you are
+really interested you should read Carder's lecture on 'Astral Vibrations
+Compared with Matero-involuted Vibrations below the Six-Billion Limit.'
+
+"As I stood up from my work, I could hear outside in the night a constant
+drip from the laurels, which as I have said, come right up around the
+house, very thick. By the sound, I knew that a 'soft' rain had set in;
+and there was absolutely no wind, as I could tell by the steady flames of
+the candles.
+
+"I stood a moment or two, listening, and then one of the men touched my
+arm, and asked me in a low voice, what they should do. By his tone, I
+could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all;
+and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid
+they were beginning to get shaky.
+
+"I set-to, then, and arranged them with their backs to one common center;
+so that they were sitting flat upon the floor, with their feet radiating
+outward. Then, by compass, I laid their legs to the eight chief points,
+and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them; and opposite to
+their feet, I made the Eight Signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual. The eighth
+place was, of course, empty; but ready for me to occupy at any moment;
+for I had omitted to make the Sealing Sign to that point, until I had
+finished all my preparations, and could enter the Inner Star.
+
+"I took a last look 'round the great hall, and saw that the two big
+hounds were lying quietly, with their noses between their paws. The fire
+was big and cheerful, and the candles before the two rows of doors, burnt
+steadily, as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went 'round
+the little star of men, and warned them not to be frightened whatever
+happened; but to trust to the 'Defense'; and to let nothing tempt or
+drive them to cross the Barriers. Also, I told them to watch their
+movements, and to keep their feet strictly to their places. For the rest,
+there was to be no shooting, unless I gave the word.
+
+"And now at last, I went to my place, and, sitting down, made the Eighth
+sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy,
+and examined my revolver.
+
+"Wentworth sat behind the First Sign, and as the numbering went 'round
+reversed, that put him next to me on my left. I asked him, in a low
+voice, how he felt; and he told me, rather nervous; but that he felt
+confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the
+matter, whatever happened.
+
+"We settled down to wait. There was no talking, except that, once or
+twice, the police bent toward one another, and whispered odd remarks
+concerning the hall, that appeared queerly audible in the intense
+silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone, and
+only the monotonous drip, drip of the quiet rain without the great
+entrance, and the low, dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace.
+
+"It was a queer group that we made sitting there, back to back, with our
+legs starred outward; and all around us the strange blue glow of the
+Pentacle, and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of
+lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles, the large empty
+hall looked a little gloomy, by contrast, except where the lights shone
+before the sealed doors, and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest
+mass of flame. And the feeling of mystery! Can you picture it all?
+
+"It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was
+aware of an extraordinary sense of dreeness, as it were, come into the
+air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with
+us all the time; but a new feeling, as if there were something going to
+happen any moment.
+
+"Abruptly, there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall, and I
+felt the star of men move suddenly. 'Steady! Keep steady!' I shouted, and
+they quietened. I looked up the hall, and saw that the dogs were upon
+their feet, and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great
+entrance. I turned and stared, also, and felt the men move as they craned
+their heads to look. Suddenly, the dogs set up a tremendous barking, and
+I glanced across to them, and found they were still 'pointing' for the
+big doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly, and seemed to be
+listening. In the same instant, I heard a faint chink of metal to my
+left, that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It
+moved, even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A
+queer, sickening thrill went through me, and I felt all the men about me,
+stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something
+impending: as it might be the impression of an invisible, but
+overwhelming, Presence. The hall was full of a queer silence, and not a
+sound came from the dogs. _Then I saw the hook slowly raised from out of
+its hasp, without any visible thing touching it._ Then a sudden power of
+movement came to me. I raised my camera, with the flashlight fixed, and
+snapped it at the door. There came the great blare of the flashlight, and
+a simultaneous roar of barking from the two dogs.
+
+"The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some
+moments, and in that time of darkness, I heard a jingle in the direction
+of the door, and strained to look. The effect of the bright light passed,
+and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly
+closed. It shut with a sharp snick, and there followed a long silence,
+broken only by the whimpering of the dogs.
+
+"I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me.
+
+"'Just as it did before,' he whispered.
+
+"'Most extraordinary,' I said, and he nodded and looked 'round,
+nervously.
+
+"The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling
+rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think
+that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is
+extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than
+most people.
+
+"I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low
+voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, _whatever happened_; not even
+though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
+them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
+Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
+Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
+kept to our order within the Pentacle.
+
+"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
+the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
+from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
+their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
+sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.
+
+"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
+out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
+before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
+Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
+with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
+actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
+of the hall in general.
+
+"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
+flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
+smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
+the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
+quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
+as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
+room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.
+
+"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
+hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
+now over in the corners.
+
+"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
+visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
+impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
+way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
+watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
+from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
+the Pentacle.
+
+"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
+to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
+in the hall: The steadfast intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible.
+The _extent_ of the Power to affect the Material was the steadfast
+intention to 'make a darkness' was horrible. The extent of the Power to
+affect the Material was now the one constant, anxious questioning in my
+brain. You can understand?
+
+"Behind me, I heard the policemen moving again, and I knew that they were
+getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
+quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
+within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
+once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
+state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.
+
+"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
+known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
+would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
+'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.
+
+"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
+of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
+company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
+yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
+him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
+room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
+glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
+again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.
+
+"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
+candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
+seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
+weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.
+
+"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
+solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
+felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
+normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most given a power of hearing
+that was far beyond the normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most
+extraordinarily loud. I began, however, to feel better, after a while;
+but I simply had not the pluck to move. You can understand?
+
+"Presently, I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and
+flashlight, and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced
+once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched
+a little, his head forward; but though it was motionless, I knew that his
+eyes were not. It is queer how one knows that sort of thing at times. The
+police were just as silent. And thus a while passed.
+
+"A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room
+there came faint noises. I recognized them at once, as the breaking of
+the sealing-wax. _The sealed doors were opening._ I raised the camera and
+flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped
+me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I
+felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder,
+if you can understand, and seemed tenfold. Yet, in the moment of
+brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.
+
+"Suddenly, all around us, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, upon the
+floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion, and
+a sense of a very real and present danger--_imminent._ The 'blood-drip'
+had commenced. And the grim question was now whether the Barriers could
+save us from whatever had come into the huge room.
+
+"Through some awful minutes the 'blood-drip' continued to fall in an
+increasing rain; and presently some began to fall within the Barriers. I
+saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing
+intertwining tubes of the Electric Pentacle; but, strangely enough, I
+could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise
+of the 'drip,' there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the
+boarhound over in the far corner, there came a terrible yelling howl of
+agony, followed instantly by a sickening, breaking noise, and an
+immediate silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit's
+neck, you will know the sound--in miniature! Like lightning, the thought
+sprang into my brain:--_IT has crossed the Pentacle._ For you will
+remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly,
+with a sick apprehension, of our own Barriers. There was something in the
+hall with us that had passed the Barrier of the Pentacle about one of the
+dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And
+suddenly, one of the men behind me, gave out a scream, like any woman,
+and bolted for the door. He fumbled, and had it open in a moment. I
+yelled to the others not to move; but they followed like sheep, and I
+heard them kick the candles flying, in their panic. One of them stepped
+on the Electric Pentacle, and smashed it, and there was an utter
+darkness. In an instant, I realized that I was defenseless against the
+powers of the Unknown World, and with one savage leap I was out of the
+useless Barriers, and instantly through the great doorway, and into the
+night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk.
+
+"The men were a little ahead of me, and I never ceased running, and
+neither did they. Sometimes, I glanced back over my shoulder; and I kept
+glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly
+things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way, as though
+something were keeping parallel with me, among them. The rain had
+stopped, and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It
+was disgusting.
+
+"I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside, and
+ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up, waiting for us,
+and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known
+in his 'sowl' that we should come back, that is, if we came back at all;
+which is not a bad rendering of his remark.
+
+"Fortunately, I had brought my camera away from the house--possibly
+because the strap had happened to be over my head. Yet, I did not go
+straight away to develop; but sat with the rest of the bar, where we
+talked for some hours, trying to be coherent about the whole
+horrible business.
+
+"Later, however, I went up to my room, and proceeded with my photography.
+I was steadier now, and it was just possible, so I hoped, that the
+negatives might show something.
+
+"On two of the plates, I found nothing unusual: but on the third, which
+was the first one that I snapped, I saw something that made me quite
+excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass; then I put
+it to wash, and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots.
+
+"The negative had showed me something very extraordinary, and I had made
+up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate, without
+losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and
+the police, until I was certain; and, also, I believed that I stood a
+greater chance to succeed by myself; though, for that matter, I do not
+suppose anything would have taken them up to the Manor again that night.
+
+"I took my revolver, and went quietly downstairs, and into the dark. The
+rain had commenced again; but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When
+I came to the lodge gates, a sudden, queer instinct stopped me from going
+through, and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the
+drive, and approached the building through the dismal, dripping laurels.
+You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled, I jumped.
+
+"I made my way 'round to the back of the big house, and got in through a
+little window which I had taken note of during my search; for, of course,
+I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the
+kitchen stairs, fairly quivering with funk; and at the top, I went to the
+left, and then into a long corridor that opened, through one of the
+doorways we had sealed, into the big hall. I looked up it, and saw a
+faint flicker of light away at the end; and I tiptoed silently toward it,
+holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door, I heard men's
+voices, and then a burst of laughing. I went on, until I could see into
+the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well
+dressed, and one, at least, I saw was armed. They were examining my
+'Barriers' against the Supernatural, with a good deal of unkind laughter.
+I never felt such a fool in my life.
+
+"It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the
+empty Manor, perhaps for years, for some purpose of their own; and now
+that Wentworth was attempting to take possession, they were acting up the
+traditions of the place, with the view of driving him away, and keeping
+so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were, I mean
+whether coiners, thieves, inventors, or what, I could not imagine.
+
+"Presently, they left the Pentacle, and gathered 'round the living
+boarhound, which seemed curiously quiet, as though it were half-drugged.
+There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live, or not; but
+finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of
+them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth, and the two bights of
+the loop were brought together at the back of the hound's neck. Then a
+third man thrust a thick walking-stick through the two loops. The two men
+with the rope, stooped to hold the dog, so that I could not see what was
+done; but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl, and immediately there
+was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound, I had heard earlier
+in the night, as you will remember.
+
+"The men stood up, and left the dog lying there, quiet enough now, as you
+may suppose. For my part, I fully appreciated the calculated
+remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death, and the cold
+determination with which it had been afterward executed so neatly. I
+guessed that a man who might get into the 'light' of those particular
+men, would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending.
+
+"A minute later, one of the men called out to the rest that they should
+'shift the wires.' One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor
+in which I stood, and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper
+end. I saw the man reach up, and take something from the top of the door,
+and I heard the slight, ringing jangle of steel wire.
+
+"When he had gone, I ran back again, and saw the men passing, one after
+another, through an opening in the stairs, formed by one of the marble
+steps being raised. When the last man had vanished, the slab that made
+the step was shut down, and there was not a sign of the secret door. It
+was the seventh step from the bottom, as I took care to count: and a
+splendid idea; for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow, even to a
+fairly heavy hammer, as I found later.
+
+"There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and
+quietly as possible, and back to the inn. The police came without any
+coaxing, when they knew the 'ghosts' were normal flesh and blood. We
+entered the park and the Manor in the same way that I had done. Yet, when
+we tried to open the step, we failed, and had finally to smash it. This
+must have warned the haunters; for when we descended to a secret room
+which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness
+of the walls, we found no one.
+
+"The police were horribly disgusted, as you can imagine; but for my
+part, I did not care either way. I had 'laid the ghost,' as you might
+say, and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of
+being laughed at by the others; for they had all been thoroughly 'taken
+in'; and in the end, I had scored, without their help.
+
+"We searched right through the secret ways, and found that there was an
+exit, at the end of a long tunnel, which opened in the side of a well,
+out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow, and reached by a
+little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The 'blood-drip' was
+merely colored water, dropped through the minute crevices of the
+ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out, I do not
+know; for the haunters certainly did not act quite up to tradition, which
+held that the lights were put out by the 'blood-drip.' Perhaps it was too
+difficult to direct the fluid, without positively squirting it, which
+might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may
+possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas; but
+how suspended, I have no idea.
+
+"The secret hiding paces were, of course, ancient. There was also, did I
+tell you? a bell which they had rigged up to ring, when anyone entered
+the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall, I
+should have found nothing for my pains; for the bell would have warned
+them had I gone in through the gateway."
+
+"What was on the negative?" I asked, with much curiosity.
+
+"A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook
+that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the
+crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for
+lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone would make
+use of it, and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine
+to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall; but the flashlight
+'picked it out.' Do you see?
+
+"The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires, as you will have
+guessed, which they unshipped after use, or else I should soon have found
+them, when I made my search.
+
+"I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed, of
+course, by the men direct. You see, they made the place as dark as
+possible, first. Of course, if I had managed to take a flashlight just at
+that instant, the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed.
+But Fate just ordered it the other way."
+
+"And the tramps?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the Manor," said
+Carnacki. "Well, of course it is impossible to be sure, one way or the
+other. Perhaps they happened to find out something, and were given a
+hypodermic. Or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of
+their dying, and just died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many
+tramps had slept in the old house, at one time or another."
+
+Carnacki stood up, and knocked out his pipe. We rose also, and went for
+our coats and hats.
+
+"Out you go!" said Carnacki, genially, using the recognized formula. And
+we went out on to the Embankment, and presently through the darkness to
+our various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 3
+
+THE WHISTLING ROOM
+
+
+Carnacki shook a friendly fist at me as I entered, late. Then he opened
+the door into the dining room, and ushered the four of us--Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and myself--in to dinner.
+
+We dined well, as usual, and, equally as usual, Carnacki was pretty
+silent during the meal. At the end, we took our wine and cigars to our
+usual positions, and Carnacki--having got himself comfortable in his big
+chair--began without any preliminary:--
+
+"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you
+chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see
+the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you
+this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, I have been
+utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most
+peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that I have come
+against. Now listen.
+
+"I have been spending the last few weeks at Iastrae Castle, about twenty
+miles northeast of Galway. I got a letter about a month ago from a Mr.
+Sid K. Tassoc, who it seemed had bought the place lately, and moved in,
+only to find that he had bought a very peculiar piece of property.
+
+"When I got there, he met me at the station, driving a jaunting car, and
+drove me up to the castle, which, by the way, he called a 'house shanty.'
+I found that he was 'pigging it' there with his boy brother and another
+American, who seemed to be half-servant and half-companion. It seems that
+all the servants had left the place, in a body, as you might say, and now
+they were managing among themselves, assisted by some day-help.
+
+"The three of them got together a scratch feed, and Tassoc told me all
+about the trouble whilst we were at table. It is most extraordinary, and
+different from anything that I have had to do with; though that Buzzing
+Case was very queer, too.
+
+"Tassoc began right in the middle of his story. 'We've got a room in this
+shanty,' he said, 'which has got a most infernal whistling in it; sort of
+haunting it. The thing starts any time; you never know when, and it goes
+on until it frightens you. All the servants have gone, as you know. It's
+not ordinary whistling, and it isn't the wind. Wait till you hear it.'
+
+"'We're all carrying guns,' said the boy; and slapped his coat pocket.
+
+"'As bad as that?' I said; and the older boy nodded. 'It may be soft,' he
+replied; 'but wait till you've heard it. Sometimes I think it's some
+infernal thing, and the next moment, I'm just as sure that someone's
+playing a trick on me.'
+
+"'Why?' I asked. 'What is to be gained?'
+
+"'You mean,' he said, 'that people usually have some good reason for
+playing tricks as elaborate as this. Well, I'll tell you. There's a lady
+in this province, by the name of Miss Donnehue, who's going to be my
+wife, this day two months. She's more beautiful than they make them, and
+so far as I can see, I've just stuck my head into an Irish hornet's nest.
+There's about a score of hot young Irishmen been courting her these two
+years gone, and now that I'm come along and cut them out, they feel raw
+against me. Do you begin to understand the possibilities?'
+
+"'Yes,' I said. 'Perhaps I do in a vague sort of way; but I don't see how
+all this affects the room?'
+
+"'Like this,' he said. 'When I'd fixed it up with Miss Donnehue, I looked
+out for a place, and bought this little house shanty. Afterward, I told
+her--one evening during dinner, that I'd decided to tie up here. And then
+she asked me whether I wasn't afraid of the whistling room. I told her it
+must have been thrown in gratis, as I'd heard nothing about it. There
+were some of her men friends present, and I saw a smile go 'round. I
+found out, after a bit of questioning, that several people have bought
+this place during the last twenty-odd years. And it was always on the
+market again, after a trial.
+
+"'Well, the chaps started to bait me a bit, and offered to take bets
+after dinner that I'd not stay six months in the place. I looked once or
+twice to Miss Donnehue, so as to be sure I was "getting the note" of the
+talkee-talkee; but I could see that she didn't take it as a joke, at all.
+Partly, I think, because there was a bit of a sneer in the way the men
+were tackling me, and partly because she really believes there is
+something in this yarn of the Whistling Room.
+
+"'However, after dinner, I did what I could to even things up with the
+others. I nailed all their bets, and screwed them down hard and safe. I
+guess some of them are going to be hard hit, unless I lose; which I don't
+mean to. Well, there you have practically the whole yarn.'
+
+"'Not quite,' I told him. 'All that I know, is that you have bought a
+castle with a room in it that is in some way "queer," and that you've
+been doing some betting. Also, I know that your servants have got
+frightened and run away. Tell me something about the whistling?'
+
+"'Oh, that!' said Tassoc; 'that started the second night we were in. I'd
+had a good look 'round the room, in the daytime, as you can understand;
+for the talk up at Arlestrae--Miss Donnehue's place--had made me wonder a
+bit. But it seems just as usual as some of the other rooms in the old
+wing, only perhaps a bit more lonesome. But that may be only because of
+the talk about it, you know.
+
+"'The whistling started about ten o'clock, on the second night, as I
+said. Tom and I were in the library, when we heard an awfully queer
+whistling, coming along the East Corridor--The room is in the East
+Wing, you know.
+
+"'That's that blessed ghost!' I said to Tom, and we collared the lamps
+off the table, and went up to have a look. I tell you, even as we dug
+along the corridor, it took me a bit in the throat, it was so beastly
+queer. It was a sort of tune, in a way; but more as if a devil or some
+rotten thing were laughing at you, and going to get 'round at your back.
+That's how it makes you feel.
+
+"'When we got to the door, we didn't wait; but rushed it open; and
+then I tell you the sound of the thing fairly hit me in the face. Tom
+said he got it the same way--sort of felt stunned and bewildered. We
+looked all 'round, and soon got so nervous, we just cleared out, and I
+locked the door.
+
+"'We came down here, and had a stiff peg each. Then we got fit again, and
+began to think we'd been nicely had. So we took sticks, and went out into
+the grounds, thinking after all it must be some of these confounded
+Irishmen working the ghost-trick on us. But there was not a leg stirring.
+
+"'We went back into the house, and walked over it, and then paid another
+visit to the room. But we simply couldn't stand it. We fairly ran out,
+and locked the door again. I don't know how to put it into words; but I
+had a feeling of being up against something that was rottenly dangerous.
+You know! We've carried our guns ever since.
+
+"'Of course, we had a real turn out of the room next day, and the whole
+house place; and we even hunted 'round the grounds; but there was nothing
+queer. And now I don't know what to think; except that the sensible part
+of me tells me that it's some plan of these Wild Irishmen to try to take
+a rise out of me.'
+
+"'Done anything since?' I asked him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said--'watched outside of the door of the room at nights, and
+chased 'round the grounds, and sounded the walls and floor of the room.
+We've done everything we could think of; and it's beginning to get on our
+nerves; so we sent for you.'
+
+"By this, we had finished eating. As we rose from the table, Tassoc
+suddenly called out:--'Ssh! Hark!'
+
+"We were instantly silent, listening. Then I heard it, an extraordinary
+hooning whistle, monstrous and inhuman, coming from far away through
+corridors to my right.
+
+"'By G--d!' said Tassoc; 'and it's scarcely dark yet! Collar those
+candles, both of you, and come along.'
+
+"In a few moments, we were all out of the door and racing up the stairs.
+Tassoc turned into a long corridor, and we followed, shielding our
+candles as we ran. The sound seemed to fill all the passage as we drew
+near, until I had the feeling that the whole air throbbed under the power
+of some wanton Immense Force--a sense of an actual taint, as you might
+say, of monstrosity all about us.
+
+"Tassoc unlocked the door; then, giving it a push with his foot, jumped
+back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at
+us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard
+it--with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the
+darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile
+glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there
+and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed
+you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:--That's Hell. And you
+knew that they had spoken the truth. Do you get it, even a little bit?
+
+"I stepped back a pace into the room, and held the candle over my head,
+and looked quickly 'round. Tassoc and his brother joined me, and the man
+came up at the back, and we all held our candles high. I was deafened
+with the shrill, piping hoon of the whistling; and then, clear in my
+ear, something seemed to be saying to me:--'Get out of here--quick!
+Quick! Quick!'
+
+"As you chaps know, I never neglect that sort of thing. Sometimes it may
+be nothing but nerves; but as you will remember, it was just such a
+warning that saved me in the 'Grey Dog' Case, and in the 'Yellow Finger'
+Experiments; as well as other times. Well, I turned sharp 'round to the
+others: 'Out!' I said. 'For God's sake, _out_ quick.' And in an instant I
+had them into the passage.
+
+"There came an extraordinary yelling scream into the hideous whistling,
+and then, like a clap of thunder, an utter silence. I slammed the door,
+and locked it. Then, taking the key, I looked 'round at the others. They
+were pretty white, and I imagine I must have looked that way too. And
+there we stood a moment, silent.
+
+"'Come down out of this, and have some whisky,' said Tassoc, at last, in
+a voice he tried to make ordinary; and he led the way. I was the back
+man, and I know we all kept looking over our shoulders. When we got
+downstairs, Tassoc passed the bottle 'round. He took a drink, himself,
+and slapped his glass down on to the table. Then sat down with a thud.
+
+"'That's a lovely thing to have in the house with you, isn't it!' he
+said. And directly afterward:--'What on earth made you hustle us all out
+like that, Carnacki?'
+
+"'Something seemed to be telling me to get out, quick,' I said. 'Sounds a
+bit silly, superstitious, I know; but when you are meddling with this
+sort of thing, you've got to take notice of queer fancies, and risk being
+laughed at.'
+
+"I told him then about the 'Grey Dog' business, and he nodded a lot to
+that. 'Of course,' I said, 'this may be nothing more than those would-be
+rivals of yours playing some funny game; but, personally, though I'm
+going to keep an open mind, I feel that there is something beastly and
+dangerous about this thing.'
+
+"We talked for a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which
+we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an
+ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later,
+after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the room
+on the morrow.
+
+"My bedroom was in the newer part of the castle, and the door opened into
+the picture gallery. At the East end of the gallery was the entrance to
+the corridor of the East Wing; this was shut off from the gallery by two
+old and heavy oak doors, which looked rather odd and quaint beside the
+more modern doors of the various rooms.
+
+"When I reached my room, I did not go to bed; but began to unpack my
+instrument trunk, of which I had retained the key. I intended to take one
+or two preliminary steps at once, in my investigation of the
+extraordinary whistling.
+
+"Presently, when the castle had settled into quietness, I slipped out of
+my room, and across to the entrance of the great corridor. I opened one
+of the low, squat doors, and threw the beam of my pocket searchlight
+down the passage. It was empty, and I went through the doorway, and
+pushed-to the oak behind me. Then along the great passageway, throwing my
+light before and behind, and keeping my revolver handy.
+
+"I had hung a 'protection belt' of garlic 'round my neck, and the smell
+of it seemed to fill the corridor and give me assurance; for, as you all
+know, it is a wonderful 'protection' against the more usual Aeiirii forms
+of semi-materialization, by which I supposed the whistling might be
+produced; though, at that period of my investigation, I was quite
+prepared to find it due to some perfectly natural cause; for it is
+astonishing the enormous number of cases that prove to have nothing
+abnormal in them.
+
+"In addition to wearing the necklet, I had plugged my ears loosely with
+garlic, and as I did not intend to stay more than a few minutes in the
+room, I hoped to be safe.
+
+"When I reached the door, and put my hand into my pocket for the key, I
+had a sudden feeling of sickening funk. But I was not going to back out,
+if I could help it. I unlocked the door and turned the handle. Then I
+gave the door a sharp push with my foot, as Tassoc had done, and drew my
+revolver, though I did not expect to have any use for it, really.
+
+"I shone the searchlight all 'round the room, and then stepped inside,
+with a disgustingly horrible feeling of walking slap into a waiting
+Danger. I stood a few seconds, waiting, and nothing happened, and the
+empty room showed bare from corner to corner. And then, you know, I
+realized that the room was full of an abominable silence; can you
+understand that? A sort of purposeful silence, just as sickening as any
+of the filthy noises the Things have power to make. Do you remember what
+I told you about that 'Silent Garden' business? Well, this room had just
+that same _malevolent_ silence--the beastly quietness of a thing that is
+looking at you and not seeable itself, and thinks that it has got you.
+Oh, I recognized it instantly, and I whipped the top off my lantern, so
+as to have light over the _whole_ room.
+
+"Then I set-to, working like fury, and keeping my glance all about me. I
+sealed the two windows with lengths of human hair, right across, and
+sealed them at every frame. As I worked, a queer, scarcely perceptible
+tenseness stole into the air of the place, and the silence seemed, if you
+can understand me, to grow more solid. I knew then that I had no business
+there without 'full protection'; for I was practically certain that this
+was no mere Aeiirii development; but one of the worst forms, as the
+Saiitii; like that 'Grunting Man' case--you know.
+
+"I finished the window, and hurried over to the great fireplace. This is
+a huge affair, and has a queer gallows-iron, I think they are called,
+projecting from the back of the arch. I sealed the opening with seven
+human hairs--the seventh crossing the six others.
+
+"Then, just as I was making an end, a low, mocking whistle grew in the
+room. A cold, nervous pricking went up my spine, and 'round my forehead
+from the back. The hideous sound filled all the room with an
+extraordinary, grotesque parody of human whistling, too gigantic to be
+human--as if something gargantuan and monstrous made the sounds softly.
+As I stood there a last moment, pressing down the final seal, I had no
+doubt but that I had come across one of those rare and horrible cases of
+the _Inanimate_ reproducing the functions of the _Animate_, I made a
+grab for my lamp, and went quickly to the door, looking over my
+shoulder, and listening for the thing that I expected. It came, just as
+I got my hand upon the handle--a squeal of incredible, malevolent anger,
+piercing through the low hooning of the whistling. I dashed out,
+slamming the door and locking it. I leant a little against the opposite
+wall of the corridor, feeling rather funny; for it had been a narrow
+squeak.... 'Theyr be noe sayfetie to be gained bye gayrds of holieness
+when the monyster hath pow'r to speak throe woode and stoene.' So runs
+the passage in the Sigsand MS., and I proved it in that 'Nodding Door'
+business. There is no protection against this particular form of
+monster, except, possibly, for a fractional period of time; for it can
+reproduce itself in, or take to its purpose, the very protective
+material which you may use, and has the power to '_forme_ wythine the
+pentycle'; though not immediately. There is, of course, the possibility
+of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual being uttered; but it is
+too uncertain to count upon, and the danger is too hideous; and even
+then it has no power to protect for more than 'maybee fyve beats of the
+harte,' as the Sigsand has it.
+
+"Inside of the room, there was now a constant, meditative, hooning
+whistling; but presently this ceased, and the silence seemed worse; for
+there is such a sense of hidden mischief in a silence.
+
+"After a little, I sealed the door with crossed hairs, and then cleared
+off down the great passage, and so to bed.
+
+"For a long time I lay awake; but managed eventually to get some sleep.
+Yet, about two o'clock I was waked by the hooning whistling of the room
+coming to me, even through the closed doors. The sound was tremendous,
+and seemed to beat through the whole house with a presiding sense of
+terror. As if (I remember thinking) some monstrous giant had been holding
+mad carnival with itself at the end of that great passage.
+
+"I got up and sat on the edge of the bed, wondering whether to go along
+and have a look at the seal; and suddenly there came a thump on my door,
+and Tassoc walked in, with his dressing gown over his pajamas.
+
+"'I thought it would have waked you, so I came along to have a talk,' he
+said. '_I_ can't sleep. Beautiful! Isn't it!'
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I said, and tossed him my case.
+
+"He lit a cigarette, and we sat and talked for about an hour; and all the
+time that noise went on, down at the end of the big corridor.
+
+"Suddenly, Tassoc stood up:--
+
+"'Let's take our guns, and go and examine the brute,' he said, and turned
+toward the door.
+
+"'No!' I said. 'By Jove--_no!_ I can't say anything definite, yet; but I
+believe that room is about as dangerous as it well can be.'
+
+"'Haunted--_really_ haunted?' he asked, keenly and without any of his
+frequent banter.
+
+"I told him, of course, that I could not say a definite _yes_ or _no_ to
+such a question; but that I hoped to be able to make a statement, soon.
+Then I gave him a little lecture on the False Re-Materialization of the
+Animate-Force through the Inanimate-Inert. He began then to see the
+particular way in the room might be dangerous, if it were really the
+subject of a manifestation.
+
+"About an hour later, the whistling ceased quite suddenly, and Tassoc
+went off again to bed. I went back to mine, also, and eventually got
+another spell of sleep.
+
+"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door
+intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but
+the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me
+thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my
+having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been
+broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for
+instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one
+would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but
+just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence.
+
+"I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney.
+It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big,
+open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners.
+Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after
+breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding
+all the way; but I found nothing.
+
+"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room--floor, ceiling,
+and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both
+hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
+
+"Afterward, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same
+thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night,
+when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the
+whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident
+to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed
+within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination,
+as you must allow.
+
+"Of course, I did not think that any of Tassoc's rivals had fixed up any
+mechanical contrivance; but I thought it just possible that there had
+been some such thing for producing the whistling, made away back in the
+years, perhaps with the intention of giving the room a reputation that
+would ensure its being free of inquisitive folk. You see what I mean?
+Well, of course, it was just possible, if this were the case, that
+someone knew the secret of the machinery, and was utilizing the knowledge
+to play this devil of a prank on Tassoc. The microphone test of the walls
+would certainly have made this known to me, as I have said; but there was
+nothing of the sort in the castle; so that I had practically no doubt at
+all now, but that it was a genuine case of what is popularly termed
+'haunting.'
+
+"All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the
+hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an
+intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped
+and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt. I tell you, it was as
+extraordinary as it was horrible. Time after time, I went
+along--tiptoeing noiselessly on stockinged feet--to the sealed door (for
+I always kept the Room sealed). I went at all hours of the night, and
+often the whistling, inside, would seem to change to a brutally malignant
+note, as though the half-animate monster saw me plainly through the shut
+door. And all the time the shrieking, hooning whistling would fill the
+whole corridor, so that I used to feel a precious lonely chap, messing
+about there with one of Hell's mysteries.
+
+"And every morning, I would enter the room, and examine the different
+hairs and seals. You see, after the first week, I had stretched parallel
+hairs all along the walls of the room, and along the ceiling; but over
+the floor, which was of polished stone, I had set out little, colorless
+wafers, tacky-side uppermost. Each wafer was numbered, and they were
+arranged after a definite plan, so that I should be able to trace the
+exact movements of any living thing that went across the floor.
+
+"You will see that no material being or creature could possibly have
+entered that room, without leaving many signs to tell me about it. But
+nothing was ever disturbed, and I began to think that I should have to
+risk an attempt to stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle.
+Yet, mind you, I knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was
+getting stumped, and ready to do anything.
+
+"Once, about midnight, I did break the seal on the door, and have a quick
+look in; but, I tell you, the whole Room gave one mad yell, and seemed to
+come toward me in a great belly of shadows, as if the walls had bellied
+in toward me. Of course, that must have been fancy. Anyway, the yell was
+sufficient, and I slammed the door, and locked it, feeling a bit weak
+down my spine. You know the feeling.
+
+"And then, when I had got to that state of readiness for anything, I made
+something of a discovery. It was about one in the morning, and I was
+walking slowly 'round the castle, keeping in the soft grass. I had come
+under the shadow of the East Front, and far above me, I could hear the
+vile, hooning whistle of the Room, up in the darkness of the unlit wing.
+Then, suddenly, a little in front of me, I heard a man's voice, speaking
+low, but evidently in glee:--
+
+"'By George! You Chaps; but I wouldn't care to bring a wife home in
+that!' it said, in the tone of the cultured Irish.
+
+"Someone started to reply; but there came a sharp exclamation, and then a
+rush, and I heard footsteps running in all directions. Evidently, the men
+had spotted me.
+
+"For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all,
+_they_ were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it
+made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals;
+and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad,
+genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds of
+details, that made me just as much in doubt again. Anyway, whether it was
+natural, or ab-natural, there was a great deal yet to be cleared up.
+
+"I told Tassoc, next morning, what I had discovered, and through the
+whole of every night, for five nights, we kept a close watch 'round the
+East Wing; but there was never a sign of anyone prowling about; and all
+the time, almost from evening to dawn, that grotesque whistling would
+hoon incredibly, far above us in the darkness.
+
+"On the morning after the fifth night, I received a wire from here,
+which brought me home by the next boat. I explained to Tassoc that I was
+simply bound to come away for a few days; but told him to keep up the
+watch 'round the castle. One thing I was very careful to do, and that
+was to make him absolutely promise never to go into the Room, between
+sunset and sunrise. I made it clear to him that we knew nothing definite
+yet, one way or the other; and if the room were what I had first thought
+it to be, it might be a lot better for him to die first, than enter it
+after dark.
+
+"When I got here, and had finished my business, I thought you chaps would
+be interested; and also I wanted to get it all spread out clear in my
+mind; so I rung you up. I am going over again to-morrow, and when I get
+back, I ought to have something pretty extraordinary to tell you. By the
+way, there is a curious thing I forgot to tell you. I tried to get a
+phonographic record of the whistling; but it simply produced no
+impression on the wax at all. That is one of the things that has made me
+feel queer, I can tell you. Another extraordinary thing is that the
+microphone will not magnify the sound--will not even transmit it; seems
+to take no account of it, and acts as if it were nonexistent. I am
+absolutely and utterly stumped, up to the present. I am a wee bit curious
+to see whether any of your dear clever heads can make daylight of it. _I_
+cannot--not yet."
+
+He rose to his feet.
+
+"Good night, all," he said, and began to usher us out abruptly, but
+without offence, into the night.
+
+A fortnight later, he dropped each of us a card, and you can imagine that
+I was not late this time. When we arrived, Carnacki took us straight into
+dinner, and when we had finished, and all made ourselves comfortable, he
+began again, where he had left off:--
+
+"Now just listen quietly; for I have got something pretty queer to tell
+you. I got back late at night, and I had to walk up to the castle, as I
+had not warned them that I was coming. It was bright moonlight; so that
+the walk was rather a pleasure, than otherwise. When I got there, the
+whole place was in darkness, and I thought I would take a walk 'round
+outside, to see whether Tassoc or his brother was keeping watch. But I
+could not find them anywhere, and concluded that they had got tired of
+it, and gone off to bed.
+
+"As I returned across the front of the East Wing, I caught the hooning
+whistling of the Room, coming down strangely through the stillness of the
+night. It had a queer note in it, I remember--low and constant, queerly
+meditative. I looked up at the window, bright in the moonlight, and got a
+sudden thought to bring a ladder from the stable yard, and try to get a
+look into the Room, through the window.
+
+"With this notion, I hunted 'round at the back of the castle, among the
+straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder;
+though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at
+first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the
+ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the
+larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I
+had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with the moonlight.
+
+"Of course, the queer whistling sounded louder up there; but it still
+conveyed that peculiar sense of something whistling quietly to
+itself--can you understand? Though, for all the meditative lowness of the
+note, the horrible, gargantuan quality was distinct--a mighty parody of
+the human, as if I stood there and listened to the whistling from the
+lips of a monster with a man's soul.
+
+"And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the
+huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange
+soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that
+pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the
+heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction,
+as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate
+and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared,
+dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two
+enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale
+moonlight....
+
+"Abruptly, they bulged out to a vast, pouting mound of force and sound,
+stiffened and swollen, and hugely massive and clean-cut in the
+moon-beams. And a great sweat lay heavy on the vast upper-lip. In the
+same moment of time, the whistling had burst into a mad screaming note,
+that seemed to stun me, even where I stood, outside of the window. And
+then, the following moment, I was staring blankly at the solid,
+undisturbed floor of the room--smooth, polished stone flooring, from wall
+to wall; and there was an absolute silence.
+
+"You can picture me staring into the quiet Room, and knowing what I knew.
+I felt like a sick, frightened kid, and wanted to slide _quietly_ down
+the ladder, and run away. But in that very instant, I heard Tassoc's
+voice calling to me from within the Room, for help, _help_. My God! but I
+got such an awful dazed feeling; and I had a vague, bewildered notion
+that, after all, it was the Irishmen who had got him in there, and were
+taking it out of him. And then the call came again, and I burst the
+window, and jumped in to help him. I had a confused idea that the call
+had come from within the shadow of the great fireplace, and I raced
+across to it; but there was no one there.
+
+"'Tassoc!' I shouted, and my voice went empty-sounding 'round the great
+apartment; and then, in a flash, _I knew that Tassoc had never called_. I
+whirled 'round, sick with fear, toward the window, and as I did so, a
+frightful, exultant whistling scream burst through the Room. On my left,
+the end wall had bellied-in toward me, in a pair of gargantuan lips,
+black and utterly monstrous, to within a yard of my face. I fumbled for a
+mad instant at my revolver; not for _it_, but myself; for the danger was
+a thousand times worse than death. And then, suddenly, the Unknown Last
+Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual was whispered quite audibly in the room.
+Instantly, the thing happened that I have known once before. There came a
+sense as of dust falling continually and monotonously, and I knew that my
+life hung uncertain and suspended for a flash, in a brief, reeling
+vertigo of unseeable things. Then _that_ ended, and I knew that I might
+live. My soul and body blended again, and life and power came to me. I
+dashed furiously at the window, and hurled myself out head-foremost; for
+I can tell you that I had stopped being afraid of death. I crashed down
+on to the ladder, and slithered, grabbing and grabbing; and so came some
+way or other alive to the bottom. And there I sat in the soft, wet grass,
+with the moonlight all about me; and far above, through the broken window
+of the Room, there was a low whistling.
+
+"That is the chief of it. I was not hurt, and I went 'round to the front,
+and knocked Tassoc up. When they let me in, we had a long yarn, over some
+good whisky--for I was shaken to pieces--and I explained things as much
+as I could, I told Tassoc that the room would have to come down, and
+every fragment of it burned in a blast-furnace, erected within a
+pentacle. He nodded. There was nothing to say. Then I went to bed.
+
+"We turned a small army on to the work, and within ten days, that lovely
+thing had gone up in smoke, and what was left was calcined, and clean.
+
+"It was when the workmen were stripping the paneling, that I got hold of
+a sound notion of the beginnings of that beastly development. Over the
+great fireplace, after the great oak panels had been torn down, I found
+that there was let into the masonry a scrollwork of stone, with on it an
+old inscription, in ancient Celtic, that here in this room was burned
+Dian Tiansay, Jester of King Alzof, who made the Song of Foolishness upon
+King Ernore of the Seventh Castle.
+
+"When I got the translation clear, I gave it to Tassoc. He was
+tremendously excited; for he knew the old tale, and took me down to the
+library to look at an old parchment that gave the story in detail.
+Afterward, I found that the incident was well-known about the
+countryside; but always regarded more as a legend than as history. And no
+one seemed ever to have dreamt that the old East Wing of Iastrae Castle
+was the remains of the ancient Seventh Castle.
+
+"From the old parchment, I gathered that there had been a pretty dirty
+job done, away back in the years. It seems that King Alzof and King
+Ernore had been enemies by birthright, as you might say truly; but that
+nothing more than a little raiding had occurred on either side for years,
+until Dian Tiansay made the Song of Foolishness upon King Ernore, and
+sang it before King Alzof; and so greatly was it appreciated that King
+Alzof gave the jester one of his ladies, to wife.
+
+"Presently, all the people of the land had come to know the song, and so
+it came at last to King Ernore, who was so angered that he made war upon
+his old enemy, and took and burned him and his castle; but Dian Tiansay,
+the jester, he brought with him to his own place, and having torn his
+tongue out because of the song which he had made and sung, he imprisoned
+him in the Room in the East Wing (which was evidently used for unpleasant
+purposes), and the jester's wife, he kept for himself, having a fancy for
+her prettiness.
+
+"But one night, Dian Tiansay's wife was not to be found, and in the
+morning they discovered her lying dead in her husband's arms, and he
+sitting, whistling the Song of Foolishness, for he had no longer the
+power to sing it.
+
+"Then they roasted Dian Tiansay, in the great fireplace--probably from
+that selfsame 'galley-iron' which I have already mentioned. And until he
+died, Dian Tiansay ceased not to whistle the Song of Foolishness, which
+he could no longer sing. But afterward, 'in that room' there was often
+heard at night the sound of something whistling; and there 'grew a power
+in that room,' so that none dared to sleep in it. And presently, it would
+seem, the King went to another castle; for the whistling troubled him.
+
+"There you have it all. Of course, that is only a rough rendering of the
+translation of the parchment. But it sounds extraordinarily quaint. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"Yes," I said, answering for the lot. "But how did the thing grow to such
+a tremendous manifestation?"
+
+"One of those cases of continuity of thought producing a positive action
+upon the immediate surrounding material," replied Carnacki. "The
+development must have been going forward through centuries, to have
+produced such a monstrosity. It was a true instance of Saiitii
+manifestation, which I can best explain by likening it to a living
+spiritual fungus, which involves the very structure of the aether-fiber
+itself, and, of course, in so doing, acquires an essential control over
+the 'material substance' involved in it. It is impossible to make it
+plainer in a few words."
+
+"What broke the seventh hair?" asked Taylor.
+
+But Carnacki did not know. He thought it was probably nothing but being
+too severely tensioned. He also explained that they found out that the
+men who had run away, had not been up to mischief; but had come over
+secretly, merely to hear the whistling, which, indeed, had suddenly
+become the talk of the whole countryside.
+
+"One other thing," said Arkright, "have you any idea what governs the
+use of the Unknown Last Line of the Saaamaaa Ritual? I know, of course,
+that it was used by the Ab-human Priests in the Incantation of Raaaee;
+but what used it on your behalf, and what made it?"
+
+"You had better read Harzan's Monograph, and my Addenda to it, on Astral
+and Astral Co-ordination and Interference," said Carnacki. "It is an
+extraordinary subject, and I can only say here that the human vibration
+may not be insulated from the astral (as is always believed to be the
+case, in interferences by the Ab-human), without immediate action being
+taken by those Forces which govern the spinning of the outer circle. In
+other words, it is being proved, time after time, that there is some
+inscrutable Protective Force constantly intervening between the human
+soul (not the body, mind you,) and the Outer Monstrosities. Am I clear?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," I replied. "And you believe that the Room had become
+the material expression of the ancient Jester--that his soul, rotten with
+hatred, had bred into a monster--eh?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," said Carnacki, nodding, "I think you've put my thought rather
+neatly. It is a queer coincidence that Miss Donnehue is supposed to be
+descended (so I have heard since) from the same King Ernore. It makes one
+think some curious thoughts, doesn't it? The marriage coming on, and the
+Room waking to fresh life. If she had gone into that room, ever ... eh?
+_It_ had waited a long time. Sins of the fathers. Yes, I've thought of
+that. They're to be married next week, and I am to be best man, which is
+a thing I hate. And he won his bets, rather! Just think, _if_ ever she
+had gone into that room. Pretty horrible, eh?"
+
+He nodded his head, grimly, and we four nodded back. Then he rose and
+took us collectively to the door, and presently thrust us forth in
+friendly fashion on the Embankment and into the fresh night air.
+
+"Good night," we all called back, and went to our various homes. If she
+had, eh? If she had? That is what I kept thinking.
+
+
+
+
+No. 4
+
+THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE
+
+
+I had that afternoon received an invitation from Carnacki. When I reached
+his place I found him sitting alone. As I came into the room he rose with
+a perceptibly stiff movement and extended his left hand. His face seemed
+to be badly scarred and bruised and his right hand was bandaged. He shook
+hands and offered me his paper, which I refused. Then he passed me a
+handful of photographs and returned to his reading.
+
+Now, that is just Carnacki. Not a word had come from him and not a
+question from me. He would tell us all about it later. I spent about half
+an hour looking at the photographs which were chiefly "snaps" (some by
+flashlight) of an extraordinarily pretty girl; though in some of the
+photographs it was wonderful that her prettiness was so evident for so
+frightened and startled was her expression that it was difficult not to
+believe that she had been photographed in the presence of some imminent
+and overwhelming danger.
+
+The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
+passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
+the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
+portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
+evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
+first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
+surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.
+
+Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something _definitely_
+extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
+in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
+turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
+noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
+the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.
+
+I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
+than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
+was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
+held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
+and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
+the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
+Carnacki began:
+
+"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
+at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
+strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
+finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
+have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
+Also I know _now_ that I never considered it seriously--in spite of my
+rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!
+
+"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
+that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
+himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
+horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
+understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
+haunted by the Horse during her courtship.
+
+"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
+always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
+an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven
+generations the Hisgins family have had men children for their first-born
+and even the Hisginses themselves have long considered the tale to be
+little more than a myth.
+
+"To come to the present, the eldest child of the reigning family is
+a girl and she has been often teased and warned in jest by her
+friends and relations that she is the first girl to be the eldest
+for seven generations and that she would have to keep her men
+friends at arm's length or go into a nunnery if she hoped to escape
+the haunting. And this, I think, shows us how thoroughly the tale
+had grown to be considered as nothing worthy of the least serious
+thought. Don't you think so?
+
+"Two months ago Miss Hisgins became engaged to Beaumont, a young Naval
+Officer, and on the evening of the very day of the engagement, before it
+was even formally announced, a most extraordinary thing happened which
+resulted in Captain Hisgins making the appointment and my ultimately
+going down to their place to look into the thing.
+
+"From the old family records and papers that were entrusted to me I
+found that there could be no possible doubt that prior to something like
+a hundred and fifty years ago there were some very extraordinary and
+disagreeable coincidences, to put the thing in the least emotional way.
+In the whole of the two centuries prior to that date there were five
+first-born girls out of a total of seven generations of the family. Each
+of these girls grew up to maidenhood and each became engaged, and each
+one died during the period of engagement, two by suicide, one by falling
+from a window, one from a 'broken heart' (presumably heart failure,
+owing to sudden shock through fright). The fifth girl was killed one
+evening in the park 'round the house; but just how, there seemed to be
+no _exact_ knowledge; only that there was an impression that she had
+been kicked by a horse. She was dead when found. Now, you see, all of
+these deaths might be attributed in a way--even the suicides--to natural
+causes, I mean as distinct from supernatural. You see? Yet, in every
+case the maidens had undoubtedly suffered some extraordinary and
+terrifying experiences during their various courtships for in all of the
+records there was mention either of the neighing of an unseen horse or
+of the sounds of an invisible horse galloping, as well as many other
+peculiar and quite inexplicable manifestations. You begin to understand
+now, I think, just how extraordinary a business it was that I was asked
+to look into.
+
+"I gathered from one account that the haunting of the girls was so
+constant and horrible that two of the girls' lovers fairly ran away from
+their ladyloves. And I think it was this, more than anything else, that
+made me feel that there had been something more in it than a mere
+succession of uncomfortable coincidences.
+
+"I got hold of these facts before I had been many hours in the house and
+after this I went pretty carefully into the details of the thing that
+happened on the night of Miss Hisgins's engagement to Beaumont. It seems
+that as the two of them were going through the big lower corridor, just
+after dusk and before the lamps had been lighted, there had been a
+sudden, horrible neighing in the corridor, close to them. Immediately
+afterward Beaumont received a tremendous blow or kick which broke his
+right forearm. Then the rest of the family and the servants came running
+to know what was wrong. Lights were brought and the corridor and,
+afterward, the whole house searched, but nothing unusual was found.
+
+"You can imagine the excitement in the house and the half incredulous,
+half believing talk about the old legend. Then, later, in the middle of
+the night the old Captain was waked by the sound of a great horse
+galloping 'round and 'round the house.
+
+"Several times after this both Beaumont and the girl said that they had
+heard the sounds of hoofs near to them after dusk, in several of the
+rooms and corridors.
+
+"Three nights later Beaumont was waked by a strange neighing in the
+nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
+He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
+They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
+the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.
+
+"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
+were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.
+
+"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
+details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
+evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
+had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
+that had happened the evening before.
+
+"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
+whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
+and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
+yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.
+
+"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
+girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'
+
+"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it--the sound of a horse
+outside of the front door.
+
+"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
+not riding.
+
+"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
+Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see
+whether anyone was at the entrance. It was pretty dark in the hall and he
+could see the glass panels of the inner draft door, clear-cut in the
+darkness of the hall. He walked over to the glass and looked through into
+the drive beyond, but there nothing in sight.
+
+"He felt nervous and puzzled and opened the inner door and went out on to
+the carriage-circle. Almost directly afterward the great hall door swung
+to with a crash behind him. He told me that he had a sudden awful feeling
+of having been trapped in some way--that is how he put it. He whirled
+'round and gripped the door handle, but something seemed to be holding it
+with a vast grip on the other side. Then, before he could be fixed in his
+mind that this was so, he was able to turn the handle and open the door.
+
+"He paused a moment in the doorway and peered into the hall, for he had
+hardly steadied his mind sufficiently to know whether he was really
+frightened or not. Then he heard his sweetheart blow him a kiss out of
+the greyness of the big, unlit hall and he knew that she had followed him
+from the boudoir. He blew her a kiss back and stepped inside the doorway,
+meaning to go to her. And then, suddenly, in a flash of sickening
+knowledge he knew that it was not his sweetheart who had blown him that
+kiss. He knew that something was trying to tempt him alone into the
+darkness and that the girl had never left the boudoir. He jumped back and
+in the same instant of time he heard the kiss again, nearer to him. He
+called out at the top of his voice: 'Mary, stay in the boudoir. Don't
+move out of the boudoir until I come to you.' He heard her call something
+in reply from the boudoir and then he had struck a clump of a dozen or
+so matches and was holding them above his head and looking 'round the
+hall. There was no one in it, but even as the matches burned out there
+came the sounds of a great horse galloping down the empty drive.
+
+"Now you see, both he and the girl had heard the sounds of the horse
+galloping; but when I questioned more closely I found that the aunt had
+heard nothing, though it is true she is a bit deaf, and she was further
+back in the room. Of course, both he and Miss Hisgins had been in an
+extremely nervous state and ready to hear anything. The door might have
+been slammed by a sudden puff of wind owing to some inner door being
+opened; and as for the grip on the handle, that may have been nothing
+more than the snick catching.
+
+"With regard to the kisses and the sounds of the horse galloping, I
+pointed out that these might have seemed ordinary enough sounds, if they
+had been only cool enough to reason. As I told him, and as he knew, the
+sounds of a horse galloping carry a long way on the wind so that what he
+had heard might have been nothing more than a horse being ridden some
+distance away. And as for the kiss, plenty of quiet noises--the rustle of
+a paper or a leaf--have a somewhat similar sound, especially if one is in
+an overstrung condition and imagining things.
+
+"I finished preaching this little sermon on commonsense versus hysteria
+as we put out the lights and left the billiard room. But neither
+Beaumont nor Miss Hisgins would agree that there had been any fancy on
+their parts.
+
+"We had come out of the billiard room by this time and were going along
+the passage and I was still doing my best to make both of them see the
+ordinary, commonplace possibilities of the happening, when what killed my
+pig, as the saying goes, was the sound of a hoof in the dark billiard
+room we had just left.
+
+"I felt the 'creep' come on me in a flash, up my spine and over the back
+of my head. Miss Hisgins whooped like a child with the whooping cough and
+ran up the passage, giving little gasping screams. Beaumont, however,
+ripped 'round on his heels and jumped back a couple of yards. I gave back
+too, a bit, as you can understand.
+
+"'There it is,' he said in a low, breathless voice. 'Perhaps you'll
+believe now.'
+
+"'There's certainly something,' I whispered, never taking my gaze off the
+closed door of the billiard room.
+
+"'H'sh!' he muttered. 'There it is again.'
+
+"There was a sound like a great horse pacing 'round and 'round the
+billiard room with slow, deliberate steps. A horrible cold fright took me
+so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
+and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
+suddenly at the opening of the long passage.
+
+"We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
+horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
+malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
+occupied. Do you understand just what I mean?
+
+"Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
+excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
+sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
+'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her.
+
+"I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
+about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
+realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
+see what's there.'
+
+"'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck.
+I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
+my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
+and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
+not stop me from being able to work my flashlight.
+
+"Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
+his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
+shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all.
+He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
+in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
+went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
+we were a pretty nervous couple.
+
+"All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
+within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
+of a hoof on the solid _parquet_ floor of the billiard room. In the
+instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
+ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, _coming toward the door_. Both
+Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
+our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
+to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
+silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
+and temples almost deafened me.
+
+"I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
+restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
+right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
+the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
+the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
+clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
+between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
+I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
+body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
+breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
+could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
+danger abroad. Do you understand?
+
+"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
+of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
+quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
+Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
+and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'
+
+"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
+landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
+nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.
+
+"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
+'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
+the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
+landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
+the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
+where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
+anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
+that infernal thing.
+
+"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
+passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
+if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
+thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
+down the stairs.
+
+"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
+follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
+came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
+me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
+girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
+room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.
+
+"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
+no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
+anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
+and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
+so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle.
+I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
+and that he had better be armed.
+
+"When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
+miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
+him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
+'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
+the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
+like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
+feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
+wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
+that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
+least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later.
+
+"I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
+for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
+whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
+foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
+particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
+remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
+outside. Poor devil!
+
+"The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
+we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
+house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
+queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
+the bedroom. I knocked at the door, for I was uneasy, and the Captain
+came. I asked whether everything was right; to which he replied yes, and
+immediately asked me whether I had heard the galloping, so that I knew he
+had heard them also. I suggested that it might be well to leave the
+bedroom door open a little until the dawn came in, as there was certainly
+something abroad. This was done and he went back into the room, to be
+near his wife and daughter.
+
+"I had better say here that I was doubtful whether there was any value in
+the 'Defense' about Miss Hisgins, for what I term the 'personal sounds'
+of the manifestation were so extraordinarily material that I was inclined
+to parallel the case with that one of Harford's where the hand of the
+child kept materializing within the pentacle and patting the floor. As
+you will remember, that was a hideous business.
+
+"Yet, as it chanced, nothing further happened and so soon as daylight had
+fully come we all went off to bed.
+
+"Beaumont knocked me up about midday and I went down and made breakfast
+into lunch. Miss Hisgins was there and seemed in very fair spirits,
+considering. She told me that I had made her feel almost safe for the
+first time for days. She told me also that her cousin, Harry Parsket, was
+coming down from London and she knew that he would do anything to help
+fight the ghost. And after that she and Beaumont went out into the
+grounds to have a little time together.
+
+"I had a walk in the grounds myself and went 'round the house, but saw no
+traces of hoof marks and after that I spent the rest of the day making an
+examination of the house, but found nothing.
+
+"I made an end of my search before dark and went to my room to dress for
+dinner. When I got down the cousin had just arrived and I found him one
+of the nicest men I have met for a long time. A chap with a tremendous
+amount of pluck, and the particular kind of man I like to have with me in
+a bad case like the one I was on. I could see that what puzzled him most
+was our belief in the genuineness of the haunting and I found myself
+almost wanting something to happen, just to show him how true it was. As
+it chanced, something did happen, with a vengeance.
+
+"Beaumont and Miss Hisgins had gone out for a stroll just before the dusk
+and Captain Hisgins asked me to come into his study for a short chat
+whilst Parsket went upstairs with his traps, for he had no man with him.
+
+"I had a long conversation with the old Captain in which I pointed out
+that the 'haunting' had evidently no particular connection with the
+house, but only with the girl herself and that the sooner she was
+married, the better as it would give Beaumont a right to be with her at
+all times and further than this, it might be that the manifestations
+would cease if the marriage were actually performed.
+
+"The old man nodded agreement to this, especially to the first part and
+reminded me that three of the girls who were said to have been 'haunted'
+had been sent away from home and met their deaths whilst away. And then
+in the midst of our talk there came a pretty frightening interruption,
+for all at once the old butler rushed into the room, most
+extraordinarily pale:
+
+"'Miss Mary, sir! Miss Mary, sir!' he gasped. 'She's screaming ... out in
+the Park, sir! And they say they can hear the Horse--'
+
+"The Captain made one dive for a rack of arms and snatched down his old
+sword and ran out, drawing it as he ran. I dashed out and up the stairs,
+snatched my camera-flashlight and a heavy revolver, gave one yell at
+Parsket's door: 'The Horse!' and was down and into the grounds.
+
+"Away in the darkness there was a confused shouting and I caught the
+sounds of shooting, out among the scattered trees. And then, from a patch
+of blackness to my left, there burst suddenly an infernal gobbling sort
+of neighing. Instantly I whipped 'round and snapped off the flashlight.
+The great light blazed out momentarily, showing me the leaves of a big
+tree close at hand, quivering in the night breeze, but I saw nothing else
+and then the ten-fold blackness came down upon me and I heard Parsket
+shouting a little way back to know whether I had seen anything.
+
+"The next instant he was beside me and I felt safer for his company,
+for there was some incredible thing near to us and I was momentarily
+blind because of the brightness of the flashlight. 'What was it? What
+was it?' he kept repeating in an excited voice. And all the time I was
+staring into the darkness and answering, mechanically, 'I don't know. I
+don't know.'
+
+"There was a burst of shouting somewhere ahead and then a shot. We ran
+toward the sounds, yelling to the people not to shoot; for in the
+darkness and panic there was this danger also. Then there came two of the
+game-keepers racing hard up the drive with their lanterns and guns; and
+immediately afterward a row of lights dancing toward us from the house,
+carried by some of the men-servants.
+
+"As the lights came up I saw we had come close to Beaumont. He was
+standing over Miss Hisgins and he had his revolver in his hand. Then I
+saw his face and there was a great wound across his forehead. By him was
+the Captain, turning his naked sword this way and that, and peering into
+the darkness; a little behind him stood the old butler, a battle-axe from
+one of the arm stands in the hall in his hands. Yet there was nothing
+strange to be seen anywhere.
+
+"We got the girl into the house and left her with her mother and
+Beaumont, whilst a groom rode for a doctor. And then the rest of us, with
+four other keepers, all armed with guns and carrying lanterns, searched
+'round the home park. But we found nothing.
+
+"When we got back we found that the doctor had been. He had bound up
+Beaumont's wound, which luckily was not deep, and ordered Miss Hisgins
+straight to bed. I went upstairs with the Captain and found Beaumont on
+guard outside of the girl's door. I asked him how he felt and then, so
+soon as the girl and her mother were ready for us, Captain Hisgins and
+I went into the bedroom and fixed the pentacle again 'round the bed.
+They had already got lamps about the room and after I had set the same
+order of watching as on the previous night, I joined Beaumont outside
+of the door.
+
+"Parsket had come up while I had been in the bedroom and between us we
+got some idea from Beaumont as to what had happened out in the Park. It
+seems that they were coming home after their stroll from the direction of
+the West Lodge. It had got quite dark and suddenly Miss Hisgins said:
+'Hush!' and came to a standstill. He stopped and listened, but heard
+nothing for a little. Then he caught it--the sound of a horse, seemingly
+a long way off, galloping toward them over the grass. He told the girl
+that it was nothing and started to hurry her toward the house, but she
+was not deceived, of course. In less than a minute they heard it quite
+close to them in the darkness and they started running. Then Miss Hisgins
+caught her foot and fell. She began to scream and that is what the butler
+heard. As Beaumont lifted the girl he heard the hoofs come thudding right
+at him. He stood over her and fired all five chambers of his revolver
+right at the sounds. He told us that he was sure he saw something that
+looked like an enormous horse's head, right upon him in the light of the
+last flash of his pistol. Immediately afterward he was struck a
+tremendous blow which knocked him down and then the Captain and the
+butler came running up, shouting. The rest, of course, we knew.
+
+"About ten o'clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very
+glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry. I warned Beaumont,
+however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made
+him give me his pipe and matches. At midnight I drew a pentacle 'round
+him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle,
+for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against
+anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.
+
+"After that we kept pretty quiet. The passage was lit by a big lamp at
+each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont
+and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun. In addition to my weapon
+I had my camera and flashlight.
+
+"Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of
+the bedroom to have a word with us. About half-past one we had all grown
+very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand,
+silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night. I
+knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I
+whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse. For some time we
+stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it;
+but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont. Yet afterward, I thought
+I heard it again.
+
+"I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and
+leave the door a little open and this he did. But from that time onward
+we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very
+thankfully to bed.
+
+"When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain
+Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to
+take my advice and have the marriage without a day's more delay than
+possible. Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special
+License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.
+
+"This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the
+extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
+investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
+was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.
+
+"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
+Miss Hisgins and her _surroundings_. Sometimes the camera sees things
+that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.
+
+"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
+company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
+experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
+her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
+impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
+we chanced to be at the moment.
+
+"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
+whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
+cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
+for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
+darkness without help and companionship at hand.
+
+"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
+carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
+lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
+Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
+off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
+the experiment.
+
+"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
+extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss
+Hisgins in the center of the place, with her father and Parsket holding
+the background as before. When all was ready and just as I pressed the
+trigger of the 'flash,' there came in the cellar that dreadful, gobbling
+neighing that I had heard out in the Park. It seemed to come from
+somewhere above the girl and in the glare of the sudden light I saw that
+she was staring tensely upward, but at no visible thing. And then in the
+succeeding comparative darkness, I was shouting to the Captain and
+Parsket to run Miss Hisgins out into the daylight.
+
+"This was done instantly and I shut and locked the door afterward making
+the First and Eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual opposite to each post
+and connecting them across the threshold with a triple line.
+
+"In the meanwhile Parsket and Captain Hisgins carried the girl to her
+mother and left her there, in a half fainting condition whilst I stayed
+on guard outside of the cellar door, feeling pretty horrible for I knew
+that there was some disgusting thing inside, and along with this feeling
+there was a sense of half ashamedness, rather miserable, you know,
+because I had exposed Miss Hisgins to the danger.
+
+"I had got the Captain's shotgun and when he and Parsket came down again
+they were each carrying guns and lanterns. I could not possibly tell you
+the utter relief of spirit and body that came to me when I heard them
+coming, but just try to imagine what it was like, standing outside of
+that cellar. Can you?
+
+"I remember noticing, just before I went to unlock the door, how white
+and ghastly Parsket looked and the old Captain was grey-looking and I
+wondered whether my face was like theirs. And this, you know, had its own
+distinct effect upon my nerves, for it seemed to bring the beastliness
+of the thing crash down on to me in a fresh way. I know it was only sheer
+will power that carried me up to the door and made me turn the key.
+
+"I paused one little moment and then with a nervy jerk sent the door wide
+open and held my lantern over my head. Parsket and the Captain came one
+on each side of me and held up their lanterns, but the place was
+absolutely empty. Of course, I did not trust to a casual look of this
+kind, but spent several hours with the help of the two others in sounding
+every square foot of the floor, ceiling and walls.
+
+"Yet, in the end I had to admit that the place itself was absolutely
+normal and so we came away. But I sealed the door and outside, opposite
+each doorpost I made the First and Last signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual,
+joined them as before, with a triple line. Can you imagine what it was
+like, searching that cellar?
+
+"When we got upstairs I inquired very anxiously how Miss Hisgins was
+and the girl came out herself to tell me that she was all right and
+that I was not to trouble about her, or blame myself, as I told her I
+had been doing.
+
+"I felt happier then and went off to dress for dinner and after that was
+done, Parsket and I took one of the bathrooms to develop the negatives
+that I had been taking. Yet none of the plates had anything to tell us
+until we came to the one that was taken in the cellar. Parsket was
+developing and I had taken a batch of the fixed plates out into the
+lamplight to examine them.
+
+"I had just gone carefully through the lot when I heard a shout from
+Parsket and when I ran to him he was looking at a partly-developed
+negative which he was holding up to the red lamp. It showed the girl
+plainly, looking upward as I had seen her, but the thing that astonished
+me was the shadow of an enormous hoof, right above her, as if it were
+coming down upon her out of the shadows. And you know, I had run her
+bang into that danger. That was the thought that was chief in my mind.
+
+"As soon as the developing was complete I fixed the plate and examined it
+carefully in a good light. There was no doubt about it at all, the thing
+above Miss Hisgins was an enormous, shadowy hoof. Yet I was no nearer to
+coming to any definite knowledge and the only thing I could do was to
+warn Parsket to say nothing about it to the girl for it would only
+increase her fright, but I showed the thing to her father for I
+considered it right that he should know.
+
+"That night we took the same precaution for Miss Hisgins's safety as on
+the two previous nights and Parsket kept me company; yet the dawn came in
+without anything unusual having happened and I went off to bed.
+
+"When I got down to lunch I learnt that Beaumont had wired to say that he
+would be in soon after four; also that a message had been sent to the
+Rector. And it was generally plain that the ladies of the house were in a
+tremendous fluster.
+
+"Beaumont's train was late and he did not get home until five, but even
+then the Rector had not put in an appearance and the butler came in to
+say that the coachman had returned without him as he had been called away
+unexpectedly. Twice more during the evening the carriage was sent down,
+but the clergyman had not returned and we had to delay the marriage until
+the next day.
+
+"That night I arranged the 'Defense' 'round the girl's bed and the
+Captain and his wife sat up with her as before. Beaumont, as I expected,
+insisted on keeping watch with me and he seemed in a curiously frightened
+mood; not for himself, you know, but for Miss Hisgins. He had a horrible
+feeling he told me, that there would be a final, dreadful attempt on his
+sweetheart that night.
+
+"This, of course, I told him was nothing but nerves; yet really, it made
+me feel very anxious; for I have seen too much not to know that under
+such circumstances a premonitory _conviction_ of impending danger is not
+necessarily to be put down entirely to nerves. In fact, Beaumont was so
+simply and earnestly convinced that the night would bring some
+extraordinary manifestation that I got Parsket to rig up a long cord from
+the wire of the butler's bell, to come along the passage handy.
+
+"To the butler himself I gave directions not to undress and to give the
+same order to two of the footmen. If I rang he was to come instantly,
+with the footmen, carrying lanterns and the lanterns were to be kept
+ready lit all night. If for any reason the bell did not ring and I blew
+my whistle, he was to take that as a signal in the place of the bell.
+
+"After I had arranged all these minor details I drew a pentacle about
+Beaumont and warned him very particularly to stay within it, whatever
+happened. And when this was done, there was nothing to do but wait and
+pray that the night would go as quietly as the night before.
+
+"We scarcely talked at all and by about one a.m. we were all very tense
+and nervous so that at last Parsket got up and began to walk up and
+down the corridor to steady himself a bit. Presently I slipped off my
+pumps and joined him and we walked up and down, whispering occasionally
+for something over an hour, until in turning I caught my foot in the
+bell cord and went down on my face; but without hurting myself or
+making a noise.
+
+"When I got up Parsket nudged me.
+
+"'Did you notice that the bell never rang?' he whispered.
+
+"'Jove!' I said, 'you're right.'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' he answered. 'I'll bet it's only a kink somewhere in
+the cord.' He left his gun and slipped along the passage and taking the
+top lamp, tiptoed away into the house, carrying Beaumont's revolver ready
+in his right hand. He was a plucky chap, I remember thinking then, and
+again, later.
+
+"Just then Beaumont motioned to me for absolute quiet. Directly afterward
+I heard the thing for which he listened--the sound of a horse galloping,
+out in the night. I think that I may say I fairly shivered. The sound
+died away and left a horrible, desolate, eerie feeling in the air, you
+know. I put my hand out to the bell cord, hoping Parsket had got it
+clear. Then I waited, glancing before and behind.
+
+"Perhaps two minutes passed, full of what seemed like an almost unearthly
+quiet. And then, suddenly, down the corridor at the lighted end there
+sounded the clumping of a great hoof and instantly the lamp was thrown
+with a tremendous crash and we were in the dark. I tugged hard on the
+cord and blew the whistle; then I raised my snapshot and fired the
+flashlight. The corridor blazed into brilliant light, but there was
+nothing, and then the darkness fell like thunder. I heard the Captain at
+the bedroom door and shouted to him to bring out a lamp, _quick_; but
+instead something started to kick the door and I heard the Captain
+shouting within the bedroom and then the screaming of the women. I had a
+sudden horrible fear that the monster had got into the bedroom, but in
+the same instant from up the corridor there came abruptly the vile,
+gobbling neighing that we had heard in the park and the cellar. I blew
+the whistle again and groped blindly for the bell cord, shouting to
+Beaumont to stay in the Pentacle, whatever happened. I yelled again to
+the Captain to bring out a lamp and there came a smashing sound against
+the bedroom door. Then I had my matches in my hand, to get some light
+before that incredible, unseen Monster was upon us.
+
+"The match scraped on the box and flared up dully and in the same instant
+I heard a faint sound behind me. I whipped 'round in a kind of mad terror
+and saw something in the light of the match--a monstrous horse-head close
+to Beaumont.
+
+"'Look out, Beaumont!' I shouted in a sort of scream. 'It's behind you!'
+
+"The match went out abruptly and instantly there came the huge bang of
+Parsket's double-barrel (both barrels at once), fired evidently
+single-handed by Beaumont close to my ear, as it seemed. I caught a
+momentary glimpse of the great head in the flash and of an enormous hoof
+amid the belch of fire and smoke seeming to be descending upon Beaumont.
+In the same instant I fired three chambers of my revolver. There was the
+sound of a dull blow and then that horrible, gobbling neigh broke out
+close to me. I fired twice at the sound. Immediately afterward something
+struck me and I was knocked backward. I got on to my knees and shouted
+for help at the top of my voice. I heard the women screaming behind the
+closed door of the bedroom and was dully aware that the door was being
+smashed from the inside, and directly afterward I knew that Beaumont was
+struggling with some hideous thing near to me. For an instant I held
+back, stupidly, paralyzed with funk and then, blindly and in a sort of
+rigid chill of goose flesh I went to help him, shouting his name. I can
+tell you, I was nearly sick with the naked fear I had on me. There came a
+little, choking scream out of the darkness, and at that I jumped forward
+into the dark. I gripped a vast, furry ear. Then something struck me
+another great blow knocking me sick. I hit back, weak and blind and
+gripped with my other hand at the incredible thing. Abruptly I was dimly
+aware of a tremendous crash behind me and a great burst of light. There
+were other lights in the passage and a noise of feet and shouting. My
+hand-grips were torn from the thing they held; I shut my eyes stupidly
+and heard a loud yell above me and then a heavy blow, like a butcher
+chopping meat and then something fell upon me.
+
+"I was helped to my knees by the Captain and the butler. On the floor lay
+an enormous horse-head out of which protruded a man's trunk and legs. On
+the wrists were fixed great hoofs. It was the monster. The Captain cut
+something with the sword that he held in his hand and stooped and lifted
+off the mask, for that is what it was. I saw the face then of the man who
+had worn it. It was Parsket. He had a bad wound across the forehead where
+the Captain's sword had bit through the mask. I looked bewilderedly from
+him to Beaumont, who was sitting up, leaning against the wall of the
+corridor. Then I stared at Parsket again.
+
+"'By Jove!' I said at last, and then I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
+the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
+you know, I had grown so to like him.
+
+"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
+looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
+happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
+corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
+that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
+face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
+terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
+stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
+from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
+the corridor.
+
+"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
+the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
+immediately afterward the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
+coming down the passage toward us.
+
+"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
+Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
+doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
+shouted out:
+
+"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'
+
+"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a _sense_ that there was
+something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:
+
+"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'
+
+"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
+that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
+was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
+the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
+afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
+the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
+in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
+seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
+sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
+halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
+that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
+across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
+extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
+wound in his forehead; and then I noticed that he seemed to be looking at
+something in the passage with a peculiar, desperate, fixed, incredibly
+masterful gaze. But there was really nothing to be seen. And suddenly the
+clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk recommenced and passed onward down the
+passage. In the same moment Parsket pitched forward out of the doorway
+on to his face.
+
+"There were shouts from the huddle of men down the passage and the two
+footmen and the butler simply ran, carrying their lanterns, but the
+Captain went against the side-wall with his back and put the lamp he was
+carrying over his head. The dull tread of the Horse went past him, and
+left him unharmed and I heard the monstrous hoof falls going away and
+away through the quiet house and after that a dead silence.
+
+"Then the Captain moved and came toward us, very slow and shaky and with
+an extraordinarily grey face.
+
+"I crept toward Parsket and the Captain came to help me. We turned him
+over and, you know, I knew in a moment that he was dead; but you can
+imagine what a feeling it sent through me.
+
+"I looked at the Captain and suddenly he said:
+
+"'That--That--That--' and I know that he was trying to tell me that
+Parsket had stood between his daughter and whatever it was that had gone
+down the passage. I stood up and steadied him, though I was not very
+steady myself. And suddenly his face began to work and he went down on to
+his knees by Parsket and cried like some shaken child. Then the women
+came out of the doorway of the bedroom and I turned away and left him to
+them, whilst I over to Beaumont.
+
+"That is practically the whole story and the only thing that is left to
+me is to try to explain some of the puzzling parts, here and there.
+
+"Perhaps you have seen that Parsket was in love with Miss Hisgins and
+this fact is the key to a good deal that was extraordinary. He was
+doubtless responsible for some portions of the 'haunting'; in fact I
+think for nearly everything, but, you know, I can prove nothing and what
+I have to tell you is chiefly the result of deduction.
+
+"In the first place, it is obvious that Parsket's intention was to
+frighten Beaumont away and when he found that he could not do this, I
+think he grew so desperate that he really intended to kill him. I hate to
+say this, but the facts force me to think so.
+
+"I am quite certain that it was Parsket who broke Beaumont's arm. He knew
+all the details of the so-called 'Horse Legend,' and got the idea to work
+upon the old story for his own end. He evidently had some method of
+slipping in and out of the house, probably through one of the many French
+windows, or possibly he had a key to one or two of the garden doors, and
+when he was supposed to be away, he was really coming down on the quiet
+and hiding somewhere in the neighborhood.
+
+"The incident of the kiss in the dark hall I put down to sheer nervous
+imaginings on the part of Beaumont and Miss Hisgins, yet I must say that
+the sound of the horse outside of the front door is a little difficult to
+explain away. But I am still inclined to keep to my first idea on this
+point, that there was nothing really unnatural about it.
+
+"The hoof sounds in the billiard room and down the passage were done by
+Parsket from the floor below by bumping up against the paneled ceiling
+with a block of wood tied to one of the window hooks. I proved this by an
+examination which showed the dents in the woodwork.
+
+"The sounds of the horse galloping 'round the house were possibly made
+also by Parsket, who must have had a horse tied up in the plantation
+nearby, unless, indeed, he made the sounds himself, but I do not see how
+he could have gone fast enough to produce the illusion. In any case, I
+don't feel perfect certainty on this point. I failed to find any hoof
+marks, as you remember.
+
+"The gobbling neighing in the park was a ventriloquial achievement on
+the part of Parsket and the attack out there on Beaumont was also by
+him, so that when I thought he was in his bedroom, he must have been
+outside all the time and joined me after I ran out of the front door.
+This is almost probable. I mean that Parsket was the cause, for if it
+had been something more serious he would certainly have given up his
+foolishness, knowing that there was no longer any need for it. I cannot
+imagine how he escaped being shot, both then and in the last mad action
+of which I have just told you. He was enormously without fear of any
+kind for himself as you can see.
+
+"The time when Parsket was with us, when we thought we heard the Horse
+galloping 'round the house, we must have been deceived. No one was
+very sure, except, of course, Parsket, who would naturally encourage
+the belief.
+
+"The neighing in the cellar is where I consider there came the first
+suspicion into Parsket's mind that there was something more at work than
+his sham haunting. The neighing was done by him in the same way that he
+did it in the park; but when I remember how ghastly he looked I feel sure
+that the sounds must have had some infernal quality added to them which
+frightened the man himself. Yet, later, he would persuade himself that he
+had been getting fanciful. Of course, I must not forget that the effect
+upon Miss Hisgins must have made him feel pretty miserable.
+
+"Then, about the clergyman being called away, we found afterward that it
+was a bogus errand, or, rather, call and it is apparent that Parsket was
+at the bottom of this, so as to get a few more hours in which to achieve
+his end and what that was, a very little imagination will show you; for
+he had found that Beaumont would not be frightened away. I hate to think
+this, but I'm bound to. Anyway, it is obvious that the man was
+temporarily a bit off his normal balance. Love's a queer disease!
+
+"Then, there is no doubt at all but that Parsket left the cord to the
+butler's bell hitched somewhere so as to give him an excuse to slip away
+naturally to clear it. This also gave him the opportunity to remove one
+of the passage lamps. Then he had only to smash the other and the passage
+was in utter darkness for him to make the attempt on Beaumont.
+
+"In the same way, it was he who locked the door of the bedroom and took
+the key (it was in his pocket). This prevented the Captain from bringing
+a light and coming to the rescue. But Captain Hisgins broke down the door
+with the heavy fender curb and it was his smashing the door that sounded
+so confusing and frightening in the darkness of the passage.
+
+"The photograph of the monstrous hoof above Miss Hisgins in the cellar is
+one of the things that I am less sure about. It might have been faked by
+Parsket, whilst I was out of the room, and this would have been easy
+enough, to anyone who knew how. But, you know, it does not look like a
+fake. Yet, there is as much evidence of probability that it was faked, as
+against; and the thing is too vague for an examination to help to a
+definite decision so that I will express no opinion, one way or the
+other. It is certainly a horrible photograph.
+
+"And now I come to that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further
+manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary
+uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and
+if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this
+case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact,
+as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be
+cleared up, but I see no way of going past the thing we heard at the last
+and the fear that Parsket showed.
+
+"His death--no, that proves nothing. At the inquest it was described
+somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and
+leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood
+between the girl and some incredible thing of monstrosity.
+
+"The look on Parsket's face and the thing he called out when he heard the
+great hoof sounds coming down the passage seem to show that he had the
+sudden realization of what before then may have been nothing more than a
+horrible suspicion. And his fear and appreciation of some tremendous
+danger approaching was probably more keenly real even than mine. And then
+he did the one fine, great thing!"
+
+"And the cause?" I said. "What caused it?"
+
+Carnacki shook his head.
+
+"God knows," he answered, with a peculiar, sincere reverence. "If that
+thing was what it seemed to be one might suggest an explanation which
+would not offend one's reason, but which may be utterly wrong. Yet I have
+thought, though it would take a long lecture on Thought Induction to get
+you to appreciate my reasons, that Parsket had produced what I might term
+a kind of 'induced haunting,' a kind of induced simulation of his mental
+conceptions to his desperate thoughts and broodings. It is impossible to
+make it clearer in a few words."
+
+"But the old story!" I said. "Why may not there have been something
+in _that_?"
+
+"There may have been something in it," said Carnacki. "But I do not think
+it had anything to do with this. I have not clearly thought out my
+reasons, yet; but later I may be able to tell you why I think so."
+
+"And the marriage? And the cellar--was there anything found there?"
+asked Taylor.
+
+"Yes, the marriage was performed that day in spite of the tragedy,"
+Carnacki told us. "It was the wisest thing to do considering the things
+that I cannot explain. Yes, I had the floor of that big cellar up, for I
+had a feeling I might find something there to give me some light. But
+there was nothing.
+
+"You know, the whole thing is tremendous and extraordinary. I shall
+never forget the look on Parsket's face. And afterward the disgusting
+sounds of those great hoofs going away through the quiet house."
+
+Carnacki stood up.
+
+"Out you go!" he said in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+
+And we went presently out into the quiet of the Embankment, and so to
+our homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 5
+
+THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE
+
+
+It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
+Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
+silent in his great chair.
+
+We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which--as you
+know--we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
+now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
+had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
+have hinted.
+
+However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
+memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:--
+
+"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
+have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
+a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
+what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
+
+"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
+outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
+row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
+and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
+smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
+doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
+complete niceness.
+
+"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
+that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
+not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
+
+"And then, something happened.
+
+"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
+that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
+top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
+
+"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
+that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
+room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
+heard me safe up to my room.
+
+"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
+upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
+was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
+should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
+dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
+into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
+momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
+the passage; but it was not until the following night that I _realized_ I
+had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
+that--one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
+consciousness, perhaps a year before.
+
+"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
+she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
+she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
+the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
+must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
+accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
+me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
+but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
+my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
+down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
+properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
+subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
+but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
+
+"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
+I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
+immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
+to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
+made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
+of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
+as I had said.
+
+"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
+to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
+a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
+mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
+understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
+and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
+
+"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
+not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
+believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
+her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
+the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
+over to look at her.
+
+"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
+a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
+and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
+what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
+you must see.
+
+"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
+the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
+strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
+
+"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
+though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
+that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
+_expected really_ to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
+
+"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
+explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
+banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
+about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
+happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
+thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
+
+"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
+not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
+that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
+associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
+talking about. You will understand that I am able _now_ to analyze and
+put the thing into words; but _then_ I did not even know my chief reason
+for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
+
+"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
+into words:--
+
+"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
+looking at me. Then:--'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
+at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
+expectancy.
+
+"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
+been walking about in your sleep.'
+
+"'The smell,' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
+the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
+
+"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
+bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
+underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
+I was more nervous than I would admit.
+
+"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
+bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
+believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
+been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
+fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
+knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
+bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
+difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
+queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
+of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the
+little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
+
+"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
+
+"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
+ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
+could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
+and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
+really were.
+
+"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
+again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
+had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
+felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
+into it; but very human.
+
+"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
+after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
+found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
+with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
+the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
+was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
+
+"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
+twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
+and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
+poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
+really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
+getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations
+seemed futile.
+
+"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
+also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
+made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
+that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
+that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
+I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
+hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
+all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
+inside of us, we did not believe this.
+
+"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
+mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
+get to sleep.
+
+"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
+by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
+heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
+that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
+
+"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
+and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
+open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
+shut off from me.
+
+"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
+one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
+one. 'Who's there?'
+
+"Then I heard my mother saying:--
+
+"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
+
+"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
+hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
+been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
+
+"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
+wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
+knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
+with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
+search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
+will understand.
+
+"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
+because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
+However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
+bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
+the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
+whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
+only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
+beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
+taint of that disgusting odor.
+
+"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
+something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
+my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
+
+"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
+landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
+twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
+from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
+long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
+on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
+peculiar. The landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the
+house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
+and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
+
+"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
+no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
+five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
+so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
+supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
+the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
+night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
+first month's tenancy.
+
+"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
+ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
+seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
+himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
+indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
+
+"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
+with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
+the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
+affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
+getting about.
+
+"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
+thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
+Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
+drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
+sitting up all night.
+
+"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
+nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
+it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
+the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
+we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
+
+"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
+and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
+afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
+
+"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
+as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
+lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
+the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
+was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
+reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
+darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
+violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
+blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
+violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
+Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
+distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
+concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
+which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
+make clear to you; but try to understand it.
+
+"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
+of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
+was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
+the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
+shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
+fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
+and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
+glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
+shown solid.
+
+"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
+heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
+close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
+lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
+darkness, for my warning to come true.
+
+"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
+side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
+belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
+thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
+And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
+what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
+think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
+often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
+from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
+lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
+then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
+known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
+seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
+of Maetheson's, which you know about.
+
+"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
+left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
+landlord shout out:--'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
+disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
+aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
+frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
+saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
+looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
+came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
+the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
+these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
+unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
+violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
+me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
+hoarse sort of cry:--'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
+clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
+showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
+chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
+
+"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
+mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
+the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
+but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
+passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
+saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
+over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
+with sweat.
+
+"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
+his words:--'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
+over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
+voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
+I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
+go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
+stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
+beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
+most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
+so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
+ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
+question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
+seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
+adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
+
+"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. _I_ had
+not seen this Woman. _I_ had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
+Something or Someone. _He_ had not seen the Child, or the other
+things--only the Woman. And _I_ had not seen her. What did it all mean?
+
+"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
+bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
+explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
+the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
+there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
+streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
+mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
+
+"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
+answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
+I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
+
+"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
+Smell! Do _you_ smell it?'
+
+"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I
+shook him.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
+shaking lantern at the stair head.
+
+"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
+gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
+alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
+that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
+it makes rags of your courage.
+
+"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
+afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
+and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
+should know which had been opened.
+
+"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
+beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
+had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
+horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
+shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
+courage, I went down the stairs.
+
+"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
+passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
+on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
+soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
+extraordinary horror.
+
+"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
+saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
+closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
+swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
+against me, in his fear.
+
+"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
+put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
+through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
+be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
+yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
+
+"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
+hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
+garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
+fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
+afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
+heard the shot.
+
+"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
+and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
+very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
+path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
+I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
+mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
+for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
+went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
+how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
+door had been opened.
+
+"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
+top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
+which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
+room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
+then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
+one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
+rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
+permeated with the horrible odor.
+
+"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
+room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
+or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
+through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
+oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
+
+"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
+trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
+or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
+each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
+
+"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
+toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
+windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
+by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
+
+"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
+and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
+flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
+looked strange and bewildered.
+
+"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
+
+"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
+the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
+sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
+
+"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
+
+"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
+monotonously.
+
+"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
+his breath.
+
+"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:--'I hope you held the door open
+politely for the lady.'
+
+"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
+
+"'Are you mad--' began Johnstone.
+
+"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
+enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
+his control again.
+
+"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
+than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
+
+"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
+again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
+saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
+cellar door; and the last print showed _under_ the door; yet the
+policeman said the door had not been opened.
+
+"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
+saying, I asked the landlord:--
+
+"'What were the feet like?'
+
+"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
+open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
+order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
+the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
+horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
+
+"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
+steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
+unnatural footprints.
+
+"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
+there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
+inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
+disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
+backed suddenly out of the doorway:
+
+"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
+
+"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
+that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
+shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
+darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
+back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
+for a weapon of some kind.
+
+"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
+hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
+empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
+cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
+and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:--
+
+"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
+
+"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
+
+"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
+and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
+screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
+gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
+heard the landlord.
+
+"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
+his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
+the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
+stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
+from the horror.
+
+"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
+Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
+went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
+thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
+you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
+
+"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
+found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
+erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
+some blind scent.
+
+"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
+the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
+water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
+the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
+about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
+
+"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
+light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
+plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
+the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
+turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
+
+"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
+across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
+belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
+as it were, a menace--the material expression that some monstrous thing
+was there with us, invisible.
+
+"'I think--' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
+stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
+for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
+
+"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
+waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
+same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
+locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
+
+"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
+sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
+and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
+watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
+just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
+and went over to his place for a sleep.
+
+"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
+arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
+relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
+the previous night.
+
+"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
+thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
+them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
+everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
+in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
+piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
+height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
+
+"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
+sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
+and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
+
+"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
+when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
+see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
+rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
+wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
+Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
+or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
+cellar stairs.
+
+"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
+the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
+ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
+like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
+which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
+pitchforks.
+
+"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
+rather white all at once.
+
+"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
+I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
+into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
+it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
+hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
+well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
+hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
+a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
+
+"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
+the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
+table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
+
+"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
+when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
+him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
+to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
+nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
+help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
+that night.
+
+"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
+front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
+carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
+and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
+
+"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
+not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
+arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
+he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
+detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
+appreciated all my precautions.
+
+"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
+pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
+
+"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
+
+"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
+the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
+quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
+which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
+the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
+took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
+which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
+out every lamp.
+
+"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
+lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
+keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
+lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
+
+"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
+able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
+absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
+
+"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
+extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
+night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
+the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
+faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
+hold of it, in readiness.
+
+"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
+in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
+to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
+conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
+but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
+to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
+from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
+again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
+violet night in which it ran.
+
+"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
+it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
+brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
+table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
+to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
+to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
+nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
+our world.
+
+"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
+distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
+sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
+Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
+
+"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
+little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
+There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
+was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
+landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
+to catch my arm:--
+
+"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
+
+"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
+color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
+
+"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
+saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
+straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
+half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
+table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
+fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
+the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
+had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
+something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
+same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
+absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
+eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
+of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
+cotton wool.
+
+"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
+oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
+lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
+another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
+might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
+forces that I was unable to comprehend.
+
+"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
+stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
+light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
+was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
+which I had screwed into the ceiling.
+
+"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
+vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
+remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
+there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
+indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
+glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
+of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
+fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
+collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
+consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
+
+"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
+whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
+attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
+into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
+nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
+
+"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
+as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
+sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
+the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
+nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
+
+"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
+absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
+table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
+of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
+it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
+instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
+
+"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
+There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
+and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
+my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
+do the same.
+
+"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
+from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
+the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
+thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
+leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
+of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
+coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
+felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
+the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
+big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
+rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
+
+"From the detective there came a sudden shout:--
+
+"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
+instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
+
+"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
+followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
+mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
+
+"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
+inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
+their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
+dancing all over the place.
+
+"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
+trying to speak plainly.
+
+"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
+The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
+to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
+had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
+floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
+leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
+ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
+
+"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
+which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
+a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
+been so much water.
+
+"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
+tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
+the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
+Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
+smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
+couple of weeks earlier.
+
+"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
+house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
+bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
+the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
+mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
+of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
+unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
+
+"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
+warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
+had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
+for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
+something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
+get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
+drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
+artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
+rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
+time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
+there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
+with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
+were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
+beach beyond the church.
+
+"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
+my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
+it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
+should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
+hushed up.
+
+"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
+house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
+seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
+the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
+only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
+from the Revenue people.
+
+"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
+mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
+about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
+woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
+he found them.
+
+"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
+an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
+delighted to learn how it had affected us.
+
+"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
+the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
+contributions.
+
+"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
+of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
+was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
+made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
+Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
+thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
+should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
+policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
+landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
+
+"I can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as I might
+say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
+was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
+the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. _I_ saw nothing, until
+I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
+running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
+later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
+was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
+theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
+the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
+the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
+Force present in the house.
+
+"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
+visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
+why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
+
+"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why _you_ didn't
+see the Woman, and why _they_ didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
+same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
+
+"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
+Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
+but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
+
+"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
+child '_still_born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
+but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
+let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
+physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
+possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
+Element--the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
+waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
+Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
+tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
+that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
+forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
+thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
+other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
+thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
+so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
+half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
+incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
+
+"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
+discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
+fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
+there is a Mother Spirit--"
+
+"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
+other side?"
+
+"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
+not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
+and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
+and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
+on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
+the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
+told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
+
+"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
+interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
+house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
+_en rapport_, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
+produced the tragedy?"
+
+"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
+the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
+
+"There may be other houses--" I began.
+
+"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
+
+"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
+five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
+various homes.
+
+
+
+
+No. 6
+
+THE THING INVISIBLE
+
+
+Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this
+interesting fact by reason of the curt and quaintly worded postcard
+which I was rereading, and by which I was requested to present myself
+at his house not later than seven o'clock on that evening. Mr. Carnacki
+had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends
+knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but beyond that, we
+had no knowledge. Carnacki was genially secretive and curt, and spoke
+only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his
+three other friends--Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor--would receive a card
+or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed, for
+after a thoroughly sensible little dinner Carnacki would snuggle down
+into his big armchair, light his pipe, and wait whilst we arranged
+ourselves comfortably in our accustomed seats and nooks. Then he would
+begin to talk.
+
+Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive and found
+Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up, shook me
+firmly by the hand, pointed to a chair, and sat down again, never
+having uttered a word.
+
+For my part, I said nothing either. I knew the man too well to bother him
+with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette.
+Presently the three others turned up and after that we spent a
+comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
+
+Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair, as I
+have said was his habit, filled his pipe and puffed for awhile, his gaze
+directed thoughtfully at the fire. The rest of us, if I may so express
+it, made ourselves cozy, each after his own particular manner. A minute
+or so later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks,
+and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell:
+
+"I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in
+South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most
+extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George
+Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I
+could help to clear matters up a bit. I went.
+
+"When I got there, I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the
+castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is
+popularly termed 'haunted.' They have been rather proud of this, as I
+managed to discover, until quite lately when something very disagreeable
+occurred, which served to remind them that family ghosts are not always
+content, as I might say, to remain purely ornamental.
+
+"It sounds almost laughable, I know, to hear of a long-respected
+supernatural phenomenon growing unexpectedly dangerous; and in this case,
+the tale of the haunting was considered as little more than an old myth,
+except after nightfall, when possibly it became more plausible seeming.
+
+"But however this may be, there is no doubt at all but that what I might
+term the Haunting Essence which lived in the place, had become suddenly
+dangerous--deadly dangerous too, the old butler being nearly stabbed to
+death one night in the Chapel, with a peculiar old dagger.
+
+"It is, in fact, this dagger which is popularly supposed to 'haunt' the
+Chapel. At least, there has been always a story handed down in the family
+that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into
+the Chapel, after nightfall. But, of course, this had been taken with
+just about the same amount of seriousness that people take most ghost
+tales, and that is not usually of a worryingly _real_ nature. I mean that
+most people never quite know how much or how little they believe of
+matters ab-human or ab-normal, and generally they never have an
+opportunity to learn. And, indeed, as you are all aware, I am as big a
+skeptic concerning the truth of ghost tales as any man you are likely to
+meet; only I am what I might term an unprejudiced skeptic. I am not given
+to either believing or disbelieving things 'on principle,' as I have
+found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some of them not ashamed
+to boast of the insane fact. I view all reported 'hauntings' as unproven
+until I have examined into them, and I am bound to admit that ninety-nine
+cases in a hundred turn out to be sheer bosh and fancy. But the
+hundredth! Well, if it were not for the hundredth, I should have few
+stories to tell you--eh?
+
+"Of course, after the attack on the butler, it became evident that there
+was at least 'something' in the old story concerning the dagger, and I
+found everyone in a half belief that the queer old weapon did really
+strike the butler, either by the aid of some inherent force, which I
+found them peculiarly unable to explain, or else in the hand of some
+invisible thing or monster of the Outer World!
+
+"From considerable experience, I knew that it was much more likely that
+the butler had been 'knifed' by some vicious and quite material human!
+
+"Naturally, the first thing to do, was to test this probability of human
+agency, and I set to work to make a pretty drastic examination of the
+people who knew most about the tragedy.
+
+"The result of this examination, both pleased and surprised me, for
+it left me with very good reasons for belief that I had come upon one
+of those extraordinary rare 'true manifestations' of the extrusion of
+a Force from the Outside. In more popular phraseology--a genuine case
+of haunting.
+
+"These are the facts: On the previous Sunday evening but one, Sir Alfred
+Jarnock's household had attended family service, as usual, in the Chapel.
+You see, the Rector goes over to officiate twice each Sunday, after
+concluding his duties at the public Church about three miles away.
+
+"At the end of the service in the Chapel, Sir Alfred Jarnock, his
+son Mr. George Jarnock, and the Rector had stood for a couple of
+minutes, talking, whilst old Bellett the butler went 'round, putting
+out the candles.
+
+"Suddenly, the Rector remembered that he had left his small prayer book
+on the Communion table in the morning; he turned, and asked the butler to
+get it for him before he blew out the chancel candles.
+
+"Now I have particularly called your attention to this because it is
+important in that it provides witnesses in a most fortunate manner at an
+extraordinary moment. You see, the Rector's turning to speak to Bellett
+had naturally caused both Sir Alfred Jarnock and his son to glance in the
+direction of the butler, and it was at this identical instant and whilst
+all three were looking at him, that the old butler was stabbed--there,
+full in the candlelight, before their eyes.
+
+"I took the opportunity to call early upon the Rector, after I had
+questioned Mr. George Jarnock, who replied to my queries in place of Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, for the older man was in a nervous and shaken condition
+as a result of the happening, and his son wished him to avoid dwelling
+upon the scene as much as possible.
+
+"The Rector's version was clear and vivid, and he had evidently received
+the astonishment of his life. He pictured to me the whole
+affair--Bellett, up at the chancel gate, going for the prayer book, and
+absolutely alone; and then the _blow_, out of the Void, he described it;
+and the _force_ prodigious--the old man being driven headlong into the
+body of the Chapel. Like the kick of a great horse, the Rector said, his
+benevolent old eyes bright and intense with the effort he had actually
+witnessed, in defiance of all that he had hitherto believed.
+
+"When I left him, he went back to the writing which he had put aside when
+I appeared. I feel sure that he was developing the first unorthodox
+sermon that he had ever evolved. He was a dear old chap, and I should
+certainly like to have heard it.
+
+"The last man I visited was the butler. He was, of course, in a
+frightfully weak and shaken condition, but he could tell me nothing that
+did not point to there being a Power abroad in the Chapel. He told the
+same tale, in every minute particle, that I had learned from the others.
+He had been just going up to put out the altar candles and fetch the
+Rector's book, when something struck him an enormous blow high up on the
+left breast and he was driven headlong into the aisle.
+
+"Examination had shown that he had been stabbed by the dagger--of which I
+will tell you more in a moment--that hung always above the altar. The
+weapon had entered, fortunately some inches above the heart, just under
+the collarbone, which had been broken by the stupendous force of the
+blow, the dagger itself being driven clean through the body, and out
+through the scapula behind.
+
+"The poor old fellow could not talk much, and I soon left him; but what
+he had told me was sufficient to make it unmistakable that no living
+person had been within yards of him when he was attacked; and, as I knew,
+this fact was verified by three capable and responsible witnesses,
+independent of Bellett himself.
+
+"The thing now was to search the Chapel, which is small and extremely
+old. It is very massively built, and entered through only one door, which
+leads out of the castle itself, and the key of which is kept by Sir
+Alfred Jarnock, the butler having no duplicate.
+
+"The shape of the Chapel is oblong, and the altar is railed off after the
+usual fashion. There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in
+the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the
+chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon
+which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.
+
+"Above the altar hangs the 'waeful dagger,' as I had learned it was
+named. I fancy the term has been taken from an old vellum, which
+describes the dagger and its supposed abnormal properties. I took the
+dagger down, and examined it minutely and with method. The blade is ten
+inches long, two inches broad at the base, and tapering to a rounded but
+sharp point, rather peculiar. It is double-edged.
+
+"The metal sheath is curious for having a crosspiece, which, taken with
+the fact that the sheath itself is continued three parts up the hilt of
+the dagger (in a most inconvenient fashion), gives it the appearance of a
+cross. That this is not unintentional is shown by an engraving of the
+Christ crucified upon one side, whilst upon the other, in Latin, is the
+inscription: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will Repay.' A quaint and rather
+terrible conjunction of ideas. Upon the blade of the dagger is graven in
+old English capitals: I WATCH. I STRIKE. On the butt of the hilt there is
+carved deeply a Pentacle.
+
+"This is a pretty accurate description of the peculiar old weapon that
+has had the curious and uncomfortable reputation of being able (either of
+its own accord or in the hand of something invisible) to strike
+murderously any enemy of the Jarnock family who may chance to enter the
+Chapel after nightfall. I may tell you here and now, that before I left,
+I had very good reason to put certain doubts behind me; for I tested the
+deadliness of the thing myself.
+
+"As you know, however, at this point of my investigation, I was still at
+that stage where I considered the existence of a supernatural Force
+unproven. In the meanwhile, I treated the Chapel drastically, sounding
+and scrutinizing the walls and floor, dealing with them almost foot by
+foot, and particularly examining the two tombs.
+
+"At the end of this search, I had in a ladder, and made a close survey of
+the groined roof. I passed three days in this fashion, and by the evening
+of the third day I had proved to my entire satisfaction that there is no
+place in the whole of that Chapel where any living being could have
+hidden, and also that the only way of ingress and egress to and from the
+Chapel is through the doorway which leads into the castle, the door of
+which was always kept locked, and the key kept by Sir Alfred Jarnock
+himself, as I have told you. I mean, of course, that this doorway is the
+only entrance practicable to material people.
+
+"Yes, as you will see, even had I discovered some other opening, secret
+or otherwise, it would not have helped at all to explain the mystery of
+the incredible attack, in a normal fashion. For the butler, as you know,
+was struck in full sight of the Rector, Sir Jarnock and his son. And old
+Bellett himself knew that no living person had touched him.... _'Out of
+the Void,'_ the Rector had described the inhumanly brutal attack. 'Out of
+the Void!' A strange feeling it gives one--eh?
+
+"And this is the thing that I had been called in to bottom!
+
+"After considerable thought, I decided on a plan of action. I proposed to
+Sir Alfred Jarnock that I should spend a night in the Chapel, and keep a
+constant watch upon the dagger. But to this, the old knight--a little,
+wizened, nervous man--would not listen for a moment. He, at least, I felt
+assured had no doubt of the reality of some dangerous supernatural Force
+a roam at night in the Chapel. He informed me that it had been his habit
+every evening to lock the Chapel door, so that no one might foolishly or
+heedlessly run the risk of any peril that it might hold at night, and
+that he could not allow me to attempt such a thing after what had
+happened to the butler.
+
+"I could see that Sir Alfred Jarnock was very much in earnest, and would
+evidently have held himself to blame had he allowed me to make the
+experiment and any harm come to me; so I said nothing in argument; and
+presently, pleading the fatigue of his years and health, he said
+goodnight, and left me; having given me the impression of being a polite
+but rather superstitious, old gentleman.
+
+"That night, however, whilst I was undressing, I saw how I might achieve
+the thing I wished, and be able to enter the Chapel after dark, without
+making Sir Alfred Jarnock nervous. On the morrow, when I borrowed the
+key, I would take an impression, and have a duplicate made. Then, with my
+private key, I could do just what I liked.
+
+"In the morning I carried out my idea. I borrowed the key, as I wanted to
+take a photograph of the chancel by daylight. When I had done this I
+locked up the Chapel and handed the key to Sir Alfred Jarnock, having
+first taken an impression in soap. I had brought out the exposed
+plate--in its slide--with me; but the camera I had left exactly as it
+was, as I wanted to take a second photograph of the chancel that night,
+from the same position.
+
+"I took the dark slide into Burtontree, also the cake of soap with the
+impress. The soap I left with the local ironmonger, who was something of
+a locksmith and promised to let me have my duplicate, finished, if I
+would call in two hours. This I did, having in the meanwhile found out a
+photographer where I developed the plate, and left it to dry, telling him
+I would call next day. At the end of the two hours I went for my key and
+found it ready, much to my satisfaction. Then I returned to the castle.
+
+"After dinner that evening, I played billiards with young Jarnock for
+a couple of hours. Then I had a cup of coffee and went off to my
+room, telling him I was feeling awfully tired. He nodded and told me
+he felt the same way. I was glad, for I wanted the house to settle as
+soon as possible.
+
+"I locked the door of my room, then from under the bed--where I had
+hidden them earlier in the evening--I drew out several fine pieces of
+plate armor, which I had removed from the armory. There was also a shirt
+of chain mail, with a sort of quilted hood of mail to go over the head.
+
+"I buckled on the plate armor, and found it extraordinarily
+uncomfortable, and over all I drew on the chain mail. I know nothing
+about armor, but from what I have learned since, I must have put on parts
+of two suits. Anyway, I felt beastly, clamped and clumsy and unable to
+move my arms and legs naturally. But I knew that the thing I was thinking
+of doing called for some sort of protection for my body. Over the armor I
+pulled on my dressing gown and shoved my revolver into one of the side
+pockets--and my repeating flash-light into the other. My dark lantern I
+carried in my hand.
+
+"As soon as I was ready I went out into the passage and listened. I had
+been some considerable time making my preparations and I found that now
+the big hall and staircase were in darkness and all the house seemed
+quiet. I stepped back and closed and locked my door. Then, very slowly
+and silently I went downstairs to the hall and turned into the passage
+that led to the Chapel.
+
+"I reached the door and tried my key. It fitted perfectly and a moment
+later I was in the Chapel, with the door locked behind me, and all about
+me the utter dree silence of the place, with just the faint showings of
+the outlines of the stained, leaded windows, making the darkness and
+lonesomeness almost the more apparent.
+
+"Now it would be silly to say I did not feel queer. I felt very queer
+indeed. You just try, any of you, to imagine yourself standing there in
+the dark silence and remembering not only the legend that was attached to
+the place, but what had really happened to the old butler only a little
+while gone, I can tell you, as I stood there, I could believe that
+something invisible was coming toward me in the air of the Chapel. Yet, I
+had got to go through with the business, and I just took hold of my
+little bit of courage and set to work.
+
+"First of all I switched on my light, then I began a careful tour of the
+place; examining every corner and nook. I found nothing unusual. At the
+chancel gate I held up my lamp and flashed the light at the dagger. It
+hung there, right enough, above the altar, but I remember thinking of the
+word 'demure,' as I looked at it. However, I pushed the thought away, for
+what I was doing needed no addition of uncomfortable thoughts.
+
+"I completed the tour of the place, with a constantly growing awareness
+of its utter chill and unkind desolation--an atmosphere of cold
+dismalness seemed to be everywhere, and the quiet was abominable.
+
+"At the conclusion of my search I walked across to where I had left my
+camera focused upon the chancel. From the satchel that I had put beneath
+the tripod I took out a dark slide and inserted it in the camera, drawing
+the shutter. After that I uncapped the lens, pulled out my flashlight
+apparatus, and pressed the trigger. There was an intense, brilliant
+flash, that made the whole of the interior of the Chapel jump into sight,
+and disappear as quickly. Then, in the light from my lantern, I inserted
+the shutter into the slide, and reversed the slide, so as to have a fresh
+plate ready to expose at any time.
+
+"After I had done this I shut off my lantern and sat down in one of the
+pews near to my camera. I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
+an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
+horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
+
+"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
+faint chime of a dock that had been erected over the stables. I was
+beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
+furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
+sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
+of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
+And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
+my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
+if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
+then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
+the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
+intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
+imagine how I felt?
+
+"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
+wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
+was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
+if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
+something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
+might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle. I sat
+immovable. I was fighting with all my strength to get back my courage. I
+could not take my arms down from over my face, but I knew that I was
+getting hold of the gritty part of me again. And suddenly I made a mighty
+effort and lowered my arms. I held my face up in the darkness. And, I
+tell you, I respect myself for the act, because I thought truly at that
+moment that I was going to die. But I think, just then, by the slow
+revulsion of feeling which had assisted my effort, I was less sick, in
+that instant, at the thought of having to die, than at the knowledge of
+the utter weak cowardice that had so unexpectedly shaken me all to bits,
+for a time.
+
+"Do I make myself clear? You understand, I feel sure, that the sense of
+respect, which I spoke of, is not really unhealthy egotism; because, you
+see, I am not blind to the state of mind which helped me. I mean that if
+I had uncovered my face by a sheer effort of will, unhelped by any
+revulsion of feeling, I should have done a thing much more worthy of
+mention. But, even as it was, there were elements in the act, worthy of
+respect. You follow me, don't you?
+
+"And, you know, nothing touched me, after all! So that, in a little
+while, I had got back a bit to my normal, and felt steady enough to go
+through with the business without any more funking.
+
+"I daresay a couple of minutes passed, and then, away up near the
+chancel, there came again that clang, as though an armored foot stepped
+cautiously. By Jove! but it made me stiffen. And suddenly the thought
+came that the sound I heard might be the rattle of the dagger above the
+altar. It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
+too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
+understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
+time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
+animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
+possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
+invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
+the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... _of the
+void_. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
+'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
+thoughts were running.
+
+"I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
+me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
+light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
+could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
+light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
+side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
+floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
+thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
+and eternally silent. You know the feeling.
+
+"I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
+pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
+switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
+my constant watch.
+
+"It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
+after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
+grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
+place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal--it had
+given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
+child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
+just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
+of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
+was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
+butler, it had certainly not been visible.
+
+"And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
+and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
+other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
+intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
+in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
+listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
+a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
+moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
+my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
+I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
+of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
+shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly.
+There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
+just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
+repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
+coming slowly down the aisle.
+
+"Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
+more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
+_stiffened_. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel.
+And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
+it--that I had never heard it.
+
+"Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
+nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
+of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders _ached_, with
+the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
+myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
+might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
+around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
+respite--a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
+impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
+more clearly than this, myself.
+
+"Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
+nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
+normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
+with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely.
+This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances.
+
+"I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
+when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
+moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
+sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
+_tense_. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
+and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
+desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off.
+If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
+of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
+'creep' busy at my spine....
+
+"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
+soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
+little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
+was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
+booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
+place where my camera stood--a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
+then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
+snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
+conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
+I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
+was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
+great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
+there, but it showed me nothing.
+
+"I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
+sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
+the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
+here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
+was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
+prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
+of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
+of terror and horror. I tell you, that no one who has not been through
+these kinds of experiences, has any idea of the sheer, actual physical
+pain attendant upon, and resulting from, the intense nerve strain that
+ghostly fright sets up in the human system. I stood there feeling
+positively ill. But I got myself in hand, as it were, in about half a
+minute, and then I went, walking, I expect, as jerky as a mechanical tin
+man, and switching the light from side to side, before and behind, and
+over my head continually. And the hand that held my revolver sweated so
+much, that the thing fairly slipped in my fist. Does not sound very
+heroic, does it?
+
+"I passed through the short chancel, and reached the step that led up to
+the small gate in the chancel rail. I threw the beam from my lantern
+upon the dagger. Yes, I thought, it's all right. Abruptly, it seemed to
+me that there was something wanting, and I leaned forward over the
+chancel gate to peer, holding the light high. My suspicion was hideously
+correct. _The dagger had gone._ Only the cross-shaped sheath hung there
+above the altar.
+
+"In a sudden, frightened flash of imagination, I pictured the thing
+adrift in the Chapel, moving here and there, as though of its own
+volition; for whatever Force wielded it, was certainly beyond
+visibility. I turned my head stiffly over to the left, glancing
+frightenedly behind me, and flashing the light to help my eyes. In the
+same instant I was struck a tremendous blow over the left breast, and
+hurled backward from the chancel rail, into the aisle, my armor clanging
+loudly in the horrible silence. I landed on my back, and slithered along
+on the polished marble. My shoulder struck the corner of a pew front,
+and brought me up, half stunned. I scrambled to my feet, horribly sick
+and shaken; but the fear that was on me, making little of that at the
+moment. I was minus both revolver and lantern, and utterly bewildered as
+to just where I was standing. I bowed my head, and made a scrambling run
+in the complete darkness and dashed into a pew. I jumped back,
+staggering, got my bearings a little, and raced down the center of the
+aisle, putting my mailed arms over my face. I plunged into my camera,
+hurling it among the pews. I crashed into the font, and reeled back.
+Then I was at the exit. I fumbled madly in my dressing gown pocket for
+the key. I found it and scraped at the door, feverishly, for the
+keyhole. I found the keyhole, turned the key, burst the door open, and
+was into the passage. I slammed the door and leant hard against it,
+gasping, whilst I felt crazily again for the keyhole, this time to lock
+the door upon what was in the Chapel. I succeeded, and began to feel my
+way stupidly along the wall of the corridor. Presently I had come to the
+big hall, and so in a little to my room.
+
+"In my room, I sat for a while, until I had steadied down something
+to the normal. After a time I commenced to strip off the armor. I saw
+then that both the chain mail and the plate armor had been pierced
+over the breast. And, suddenly, it came home to me that the Thing had
+struck for my heart.
+
+"Stripping rapidly, I found that the skin of the breast over the heart
+had just been cut sufficiently to allow a little blood to stain my shirt,
+nothing more. Only, the whole breast was badly bruised and intensely
+painful. You can imagine what would have happened if I had not worn the
+armor. In any case, it is a marvel that I was not knocked senseless.
+
+"I did not go to bed at all that night, but sat upon the edge, thinking,
+and waiting for the dawn; for I had to remove my litter before Sir Alfred
+Jarnock should enter, if I were to hide from him the fact that I had
+managed a duplicate key.
+
+"So soon as the pale light of the morning had strengthened sufficiently
+to show me the various details of my room, I made my way quietly down to
+the Chapel. Very silently, and with tense nerves, I opened the door. The
+chill light of the dawn made distinct the whole place--everything seeming
+instinct with a ghostly, unearthly quiet. Can you get the feeling? I
+waited several minutes at the door, allowing the morning to grow, and
+likewise my courage, I suppose. Presently the rising sun threw an odd
+beam right in through the big, East window, making colored sunshine all
+the length of the Chapel. And then, with a tremendous effort, I forced
+myself to enter.
+
+"I went up the aisle to where I had overthrown my camera in the darkness.
+The legs of the tripod were sticking up from the interior of a pew, and I
+expected to find the machine smashed to pieces; yet, beyond that the
+ground glass was broken, there was no real damage done.
+
+"I replaced the camera in the position from which I had taken the
+previous photography; but the slide containing the plate I had exposed by
+flashlight I removed and put into one of my side pockets, regretting that
+I had not taken a second flash picture at the instant when I heard those
+strange sounds up in the chancel.
+
+"Having tidied my photographic apparatus, I went to the chancel to
+recover my lantern and revolver, which had both--as you know--been
+knocked from my hands when I was stabbed. I found the lantern lying,
+hopelessly bent, with smashed lens, just under the pulpit. My revolver I
+must have held until my shoulder struck the pew, for it was lying there
+in the aisle, just about where I believe I cannoned into the pew corner.
+It was quite undamaged.
+
+"Having secured these two articles, I walked up to the chancel rail to
+see whether the dagger had returned, or been returned, to its sheath
+above the altar. Before, however, I reached the chancel rail, I had a
+slight shock; for there on the floor of the chancel, about a yard away
+from where I had been struck, lay the dagger, quiet and demure upon the
+polished marble pavement. I wonder whether you will, any of you,
+understand the nervousness that took me at the sight of the thing. With a
+sudden, unreasoned action, I jumped forward and put my foot on it, to
+hold it there. Can you understand? Do you? And, you know, I could not
+stoop down and pick it up with my hands for quite a minute, I should
+think. Afterward, when I had done so, however, and handled it a little,
+this feeling passed away and my Reason (and also, I expect, the daylight)
+made me feel that I had been a little bit of an ass. Quite natural,
+though, I assure you! Yet it was a new kind of fear to me. I'm taking no
+notice of the cheap joke about the ass! I am talking about the
+curiousness of learning in that moment a new shade or quality of fear
+that had hitherto been outside of my knowledge or imagination. Does it
+interest you?
+
+"I examined the dagger, minutely, turning it over and over in my hands
+and never--as I suddenly discovered--holding it loosely. It was as if I
+were subconsciously surprised that it lay quiet in my hands. Yet even
+this feeling passed, largely, after a short while. The curious weapon
+showed no signs of the blow, except that the dull color--of the blade was
+slightly brighter on the rounded point that had cut through the armor.
+
+"Presently, when I had made an end of staring at the dagger, I went up
+the chancel step and in through the little gate. Then, kneeling upon the
+altar, I replaced the dagger in its sheath, and came outside of the rail
+again, closing the gate after me and feeling awarely uncomfortable
+because the horrible old weapon was back again in its accustomed place. I
+suppose, without analyzing my feelings very deeply, I had an unreasoned
+and only half-conscious belief that there was a greater probability of
+danger when the dagger hung in its five century resting place than when
+it was out of it! Yet, somehow I don't think this is a very good
+explanation, when I remember the _demure_ look the thing seemed to have
+when I saw it lying on the floor of the chancel. Only I know this, that
+when I had replaced the dagger I had quite a touch of nerves and I
+stopped only to pick up my lantern from where I had placed it whilst I
+examined the weapon, after which I went down the quiet aisle at a pretty
+quick walk, and so got out of the place.
+
+"That the nerve tension had been considerable, I realized, when I had
+locked the door behind me. I felt no inclination now to think of old Sir
+Alfred as a hypochondriac because he had taken such hyperseeming
+precautions regarding the Chapel. I had a sudden wonder as to whether he
+might not have some knowledge of a long prior tragedy in which the
+dagger had been concerned.
+
+"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
+awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
+sandwiches and a cup of coffee.
+
+"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
+walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
+reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
+photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
+until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
+his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
+dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.
+
+"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
+used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
+develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
+into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
+camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
+lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
+been, as it were, under observation.
+
+"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
+that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
+direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
+this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results--nothing more
+than a vague hope that it might show me something.
+
+"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
+absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
+developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
+part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
+the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
+almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
+lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
+me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.
+
+"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
+make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
+represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
+they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
+shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
+be overimpressed by the uncomfortable resemblance, though I must confess,
+the very thought was sufficient to set some odd thrills adrift in me.
+
+"I carried development a little further, then put the negative into the
+hypo, and commenced work upon the other plate. This came up nicely, and
+very soon I had a really decent negative that appeared similar in every
+respect (except for the difference of lighting) to the negative I had
+taken during the previous day. I fixed the plate, then having washed both
+it and the 'unexposed' one for a few minutes under the tap, I put them
+into methylated spirits for fifteen minutes, after which I carried them
+into the photographer's kitchen and dried them in the oven.
+
+"Whilst the two plates were drying the photographer and I made an
+enlargement from the negative I had taken by daylight. Then we did the
+same with the two that I had just developed, washing them as quickly as
+possible, for I was not troubling about the permanency of the prints, and
+drying them with spirits.
+
+"When this was done I took them to the window and made a thorough
+examination, commencing with the one that appeared to show shadowy
+daggers in several places. Yet, though it was now enlarged, I was still
+unable to feel convinced that the marks truly represented anything
+abnormal; and because of this, I put it on one side, determined not to
+let my imagination play too large a part in constructing weapons out of
+the indefinite outlines.
+
+"I took up the two other enlargements, both of the chancel, as you will
+remember, and commenced to compare them. For some minutes I examined them
+without being able to distinguish any difference in the scene they
+portrayed, and then abruptly, I saw something in which they varied. In
+the second enlargement--the one made from the flashlight negative--the
+dagger was not in its sheath. Yet, I had felt sure it was there but a few
+minutes before I took the photograph.
+
+"After this discovery I began to compare the two enlargements in a very
+different manner from my previous scrutiny. I borrowed a pair of calipers
+from the photographer and with these I carried out a most methodical and
+exact comparison of the details shown in the two photographs.
+
+"Suddenly I came upon something that set me all tingling with excitement.
+I threw the calipers down, paid the photographer, and walked out through
+the shop into the street. The three enlargements I took with me, making
+them into a roll as I went. At the corner of the street I had the luck to
+get a cab and was soon back at the castle.
+
+"I hurried up to my room and put the photographs way; then I went down to
+see whether I could find Sir Alfred Jarnock; but Mr. George Jarnock, who
+met me, told me that his father was too unwell to rise and would prefer
+that no one entered the Chapel unless he were about.
+
+"Young Jarnock made a half apologetic excuse for his father; remarking
+that Sir Alfred Jarnock was perhaps inclined to be a little over careful;
+but that, considering what had happened, we must agree that the need for
+his carefulness had been justified. He added, also, that even before the
+horrible attack on the butler his father had been just as particular,
+always keeping the key and never allowing the door to be unlocked except
+when the place was in use for Divine Service, and for an hour each
+forenoon when the cleaners were in.
+
+"To all this I nodded understandingly; but when, presently, the young
+man left me I took my duplicate key and made for the door of the Chapel.
+I went in and locked it behind me, after which I carried out some
+intensely interesting and rather weird experiments. These proved
+successful to such an extent that I came out of the place in a perfect
+fever of excitement. I inquired for Mr. George Jarnock and was told that
+he was in the morning room.
+
+"'Come along,' I said, when I had found him. 'Please give me a lift. I've
+something exceedingly strange to show you.'
+
+"He was palpably very much puzzled, but came quickly. As we strode along
+he asked me a score of questions, to all of which I just shook my head,
+asking him to wait a little.
+
+"I led the way to the Armory. Here I suggested that he should take one
+side of a dummy, dressed in half plate armor, whilst I took the other.
+He nodded, though obviously vastly bewildered, and together we carried
+the thing to the Chapel door. When he saw me take out my key and open
+the way for us he appeared even more astonished, but held himself in,
+evidently waiting for me to explain. We entered the Chapel and I locked
+the door behind us, after which we carted the armored dummy up the aisle
+to the gate of the chancel rail where we put it down upon its round,
+wooden stand.
+
+"'Stand back!' I shouted suddenly as young Jarnock made a movement to
+open the gate. 'My God, man! you mustn't do that!'
+
+"Do what?" he asked, half-startled and half-irritated by my words
+and manner.
+
+"One minute," I said. "Just stand to the side a moment, and watch."
+
+He stepped to the left whilst I took the dummy in my arms and turned it
+to face the altar, so that it stood close to the gate. Then, standing
+well away on the right side, I pressed the back of the thing so that it
+leant forward a little upon the gate, which flew open. In the same
+instant, the dummy was struck a tremendous blow that hurled it into the
+aisle, the armor rattling and clanging upon the polished marble floor.
+
+"Good God!" shouted young Jarnock, and ran back from the chancel rail,
+his face very white.
+
+"Come and look at the thing," I said, and led the way to where the dummy
+lay, its armored upper limbs all splayed adrift in queer contortions. I
+stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel
+breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger.'
+
+"Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The
+thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!"
+
+"Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of
+the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never
+budged an inch.
+
+"Come and see how it was done," I said, and led the way back to the
+chancel rail. From the wall to the left of the altar I took down a long,
+curiously ornamented, iron instrument, not unlike a short spear. The
+sharp end of this I inserted in a hole in the left-hand gatepost of the
+chancel gateway. I lifted hard, and a section of the post, from the floor
+upward, bent inward toward the altar, as though hinged at the bottom.
+Down it went, leaving the remaining part of the post standing. As I bent
+the movable portion lower there came a quick click and a section of the
+floor slid to one side, showing a long, shallow cavity, sufficient to
+enclose the post. I put my weight to the lever and hove the post down
+into the niche. Immediately there was a sharp clang, as some catch
+snicked in, and held it against the powerful operating spring.
+
+I went over now to the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to
+wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and
+placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted
+loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave
+another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom
+of the cavity, catching there with another clang. I withdrew the lever
+and the narrow strip of floor slid back, covering post and dagger, and
+looking no different from the surrounding surface.
+
+Then I shut the chancel gate, and we both stood well to one side. I
+took the spear-like lever, and gave the gate a little push, so that it
+opened. Instantly there was a loud thud, and something sang through the
+air, striking the bottom wall of the Chapel. It was the dagger. I
+showed Jarnock then that the other half of the post had sprung back
+into place, making the whole post as thick as the one upon the
+right-hand side of the gate.
+
+"There!" I said, turning to the young man and tapping the divided post.
+"There's the 'invisible' thing that used the dagger, but who the deuce is
+the person who sets the trap?" I looked at him keenly as I spoke.
+
+"My father is the only one who has a key," he said. "So it's practically
+impossible for anyone to get in and meddle."
+
+I looked at him again, but it was obvious that he had not yet reached out
+to any conclusion.
+
+"See here, Mr. Jarnock," I said, perhaps rather curter than I should have
+done, considering what I had to say. "Are you quite sure that Sir Alfred
+is quite balanced--mentally?"
+
+"He looked at me, half frightenedly and flushing a little. I realized
+then how badly I put it.
+
+"'I--I don't know,' he replied, after a slight pause and was then silent,
+except for one or two incoherent half remarks.
+
+"'Tell the truth,' I said. 'Haven't you suspected something, now and
+again? You needn't be afraid to tell me.'
+
+"'Well,' he answered slowly, 'I'll admit I've thought Father a little--a
+little strange, perhaps, at times. But I've always tried to think I was
+mistaken. I've always hoped no one else would see it. You see, I'm very
+fond of the old guvnor.'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'Quite right, too,' I said. 'There's not the least need to make any kind
+of scandal about this. We must do something, though, but in a quiet way.
+No fuss, you know. I should go and have a chat with your father, and tell
+him we've found out about this thing.' I touched the divided post.
+
+"Young Jarnock seemed very grateful for my advice and after shaking my
+hand pretty hard, took my key, and let himself out of the Chapel. He came
+back in about an hour, looking rather upset. He told me that my
+conclusions were perfectly correct. It was Sir Alfred Jarnock who had set
+the trap, both on the night that the butler was nearly killed, and on the
+past night. Indeed, it seemed that the old gentleman had set it every
+night for many years. He had learnt of its existence from an old
+manuscript book in the Castle library. It had been planned and used in an
+earlier age as a protection for the gold vessels of the ritual, which
+were, it seemed, kept in a hidden recess at the back of the altar.
+
+"This recess Sir Alfred Jarnock had utilized, secretly, to store his
+wife's jewelry. She had died some twelve years back, and the young man
+told me that his father had never seemed quite himself since.
+
+"I mentioned to young Jarnock how puzzled I was that the trap had been
+set _before_ the service, on the night that the butler was struck; for,
+if I understood him aright, his father had been in the habit of setting
+the trap late every night and unsetting it each morning before anyone
+entered the Chapel. He replied that his father, in a fit of temporary
+forgetfulness (natural enough in his neurotic condition), must have set
+it too early and hence what had so nearly proved a tragedy.
+
+"That is about all there is to tell. The old man is not (so far as I
+could learn), really insane in the popularly accepted sense of the word.
+He is extremely neurotic and has developed into a hypochondriac, the
+whole condition probably brought about by the shock and sorrow resultant
+on the death of his wife, leading to years of sad broodings and to
+overmuch of his own company and thoughts. Indeed, young Jarnock told me
+that his father would sometimes pray for hours together, alone in the
+Chapel." Carnacki made an end of speaking and leant forward for a spill.
+
+"But you've never told us just _how_ you discovered the secret of the
+divided post and all that," I said, speaking for the four of us.
+
+"Oh, that!" replied Carnacki, puffing vigorously at his pipe. "I
+found--on comparing the--photos, that the one--taken in the--daytime,
+showed a thicker left-hand gatepost, than the one taken at night by the
+flashlight. That put me on to the track. I saw at once that there might
+be some mechanical dodge at the back of the whole queer business and
+nothing at all of an abnormal nature. I examined the post and the rest
+was simple enough, you know.
+
+"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may
+be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger.' Young
+Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my
+adventure."
+
+He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before
+the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
+
+"Jarnock and I made the trap so that it won't work," he remarked after a
+few moments. "I've got the dagger, as you see, and old Bellett's getting
+about again, so that the whole business can be hushed up, decently. All
+the same I fancy the Chapel will never lose its reputation as a dangerous
+place. Should be pretty safe now to keep valuables in."
+
+"There's two things you haven't explained yet," I said. "What do you
+think caused the two clangey sounds when you were in the Chapel in the
+dark? And do you believe the soft tready sounds were real, or only a
+fancy, with your being so worked up and tense?"
+
+"Don't know for certain about the clangs," replied Carnacki.
+
+"I've puzzled quite a bit about them. I can only think that the spring
+which worked the post must have 'given' a trifle, slipped you know, in
+the catch. If it did, under such a tension, it would make a bit of a
+ringing noise. And a little sound goes a long way in the middle of the
+night when you're thinking of 'ghostesses.' You can understand that--eh?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed. "And the other sounds?"
+
+"Well, the same thing--I mean the extraordinary quietness--may help to
+explain these a bit. They may have been some usual enough sound that
+would never have been noticed under ordinary conditions, or they may have
+been only fancy. It is just impossible to say. They were disgustingly
+real to me. As for the slithery noise, I am pretty sure that one of the
+tripod legs of my camera must have slipped a few inches: if it did so, it
+may easily have jolted the lens cap off the baseboard, which would
+account for that queer little tap which I heard directly after."
+
+"How do you account for the dagger being in its place above the altar
+when you first examined it that night?" I asked. "How could it be there,
+when at that very moment it was set in the trap?"
+
+"That was my mistake," replied Carnacki. "The dagger could not possibly
+have been in its sheath at the time, though I thought it was. You see,
+the curious cross-hilted sheath gave the appearance of the complete
+weapon, as you can understand. The hilt of the dagger protrudes very
+little above the continued portion of the sheath--a most inconvenient
+arrangement for drawing quickly!" He nodded sagely at the lot of us and
+yawned, then glanced at the clock.
+
+"Out you go!" he said, in friendly fashion, using the recognized formula.
+"I want a sleep."
+
+We rose, shook him by the hand, and went out presently into the night and
+the quiet of the Embankment, and so to our homes.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNACKI, THE GHOST FINDER***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 10832.txt or 10832.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/8/3/10832
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.net/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+http://www.gutenberg.net/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+http://www.gutenberg.net/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
diff --git a/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.zip b/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f93fcc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/2004-01-25-10832.zip