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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44397 ***
+
+  HAUNTED PLACES
+  IN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+  HAUNTED PLACES
+  IN ENGLAND
+
+
+  BY
+
+  ELLIOT O'DONNELL
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES"
+  "TWENTY YEARS' EXPERIENCE AS A GHOST HUNTER"
+  ETC. ETC.
+
+
+  LONDON
+  SANDS & CO.
+  15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
+  1919
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In presenting this volume to the Public, I wish to emphasise the fact
+that all the names of people and houses mentioned in it (saving in
+Chapter X.), in connection with the hauntings, are fictitious.
+
+  ELLIOT O'DONNELL.
+
+_May 5, 1917._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                              PAGE
+     I. THE CHAIR                       7
+    II. THE HEAD                       26
+   III. THE CUPBOARD                   39
+    IV. THE EMPTY LEASH                52
+     V. THE DRESSING-ROOM              63
+    VI. THE RETICULE                   77
+   VII. THE COOMBE                     95
+  VIII. THE TRUNK                     110
+    IX. THE COUGH                     124
+     X. THE SYDERSTONE HAUNTINGS      132
+    XI. THE GREEN VAPOUR              161
+   XII. THE STEPPING-STONES           188
+  XIII. THE PINES                     213
+
+
+
+
+HAUNTED PLACES IN ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CHAIR
+
+THE CASE OF A HAUNTED HOUSE IN RED LION SQUARE
+
+
+I am not a psychometrist--at least not to any great extent. I cannot
+pick up a small object--say an old ring or coin--and straightway tell
+you its history, describing all the people and incidents with which it
+has been associated. Yet, occasionally, odd things are revealed to me
+through some strange ornament or piece of furniture.
+
+The other day I went to see a friend, who was staying in a flat near
+Sloane Square, and I was much impressed by a chair that stood on the
+hearthrug near the fire. Now I am not a connoisseur of chairs; I cannot
+always ascribe dates to them. I can, of course, tell whether they are
+oak or mahogany, Chippendale or Sheraton, but that is about all. It was
+not, however, the make or the shape of this chair that attracted me,
+it was the impression I had that something very uncanny was seated
+on it. My friend, noticing that I looked at it very intently, said:
+"I will tell you something very interesting about that chair. It came
+from a haunted house in Red Lion Square. I bought it at a sale there,
+and several people who have sat in it since have had very curious
+experiences. I won't tell you them till after you've tried it. Sit in
+it."
+
+"That wouldn't be any good," I answered; "you know I can't
+psychometrise, especially to order. May I take it home with me for a
+few nights?"
+
+My friend smilingly assented.
+
+The chair was put in a taxi, and in less than half an hour was safely
+lodged in my chambers. I was living alone just then, for my wife had
+been suddenly called away to the country, to the bedside of an aged
+and ailing relative. I say alone, but I had company--a lady tabby
+that, apparently abandoned by her lover, persisted in showering
+her attentions upon me. For hours at a time she would perch on the
+writing-table in my bedroom, whilst I was at work, and fix me amorously
+with her big green eyes.
+
+The moment, however, this most eccentric of feline beauties perceived
+the chair, she sprang off her pedestal and dived under the bed;
+and from that hour to this I have never seen her. The chair did
+not frighten me, but it brought a new, and I cannot say altogether
+pleasant, atmosphere into the place. When I was in bed and the gas
+was out, I could swear the chair moved, that it shifted nearer and
+nearer the window--always the window, as if it was most anxious to
+make its escape and hie back to its old home. And again there were
+times when, barred from this avenue of escape, it rocked. Yes, I could
+distinctly hear it rock backwards and forwards on the parquet floor
+with ever increasing rapidity and violence, as though blind with fury
+at being balked. And then, again, it groaned, groaned in the deepest
+and most hopeless misery--misery that the eternally damned alone can
+know and suffer. Certain now that there was something there that badly
+needed human consolation, I addressed the chair, and, failing to get
+any verbal answer from it, I tried a code of raps. That failing, I sat
+in it for several hours two successive nights, and experimented in
+automatic writing. The result was nil. Resolving to give it another
+trial, but this time without a planchette, I chose a Friday night
+when the moon was in the crescent, and placing the chair on one side
+the hearth, facing the window, I threw myself back in it and closed
+my eyes. For some minutes I was still vividly conscious of the old
+surroundings: the flickering fire flames--seen through my closed lids;
+the old grandfather clock on the landing outside solemnly ticking; the
+eternal whistling and hooting of the taxis as they whizzed along in the
+street beneath.
+
+Then by degrees, quite imperceptibly, I lost cognisance of all these
+things; and, intuitively, I began to feel the presence of something
+strange and wholly novel in the room. I felt it steal forth from a
+piece of dark and ancient tapestry my wife had hung on the wall. It was
+merely a shadow, an undefined shadow, a shadow such as the moon, when
+very low in the heavens, might possibly fashion from the figure of a
+man; but yet it was not a man, nor a woman, nor anything with which I
+was in any way familiar. For a moment it stood still, watching me from
+its vague, formless, indefinite eyes. Then it made a forward movement,
+stood still again, and yet once again advanced.
+
+Coming up behind my chair, it bent low over me, and placing its
+long, cool spirit hands over my eyelids, imparted to me a steadily
+increasing sense of numbness. All thought was gradually annihilated;
+it was succeeded by a blank, just such a blank as suddenly comes to
+one when in the hands of the anæsthetist. Now, up to this evening,
+I had presumed, as nearly everybody does presume, that, in the case
+of mental blanks, every particle of consciousness is lost, totally
+arrested, and held, for the time being, in complete subjection. But
+on this occasion--at the very moment memory reasserted itself--I had
+recollections of some great metempsychosis, some stupendous change in
+my entire constitution, a change that affected all that we term mind,
+and spirit, and soul.
+
+I struggled earnestly and desperately to recall the exact nature and
+process of that change, which I now believe underlies all so-called
+blanks, and I achieved this much: I recalled travel--a mad, rushing
+plunge or descent into something--something quite different from
+anything I had known before--a descent into some plane, or sphere, or
+condition, wholly and completely apart from the physical, and what is
+generally understood and classified as the mental plane, sphere, or
+condition. In my efforts to recollect, I have arrived at that same
+pitch since; but whenever I have been on the verge of getting beyond
+it, of forcing back a minute recollection of how that metempsychosis
+was enacted, of all the stages in it, there has been a lapse--my memory
+has dimmed. Yet brief and slight as these remembrances have been, they
+have assured me of one great truth, namely--that the state of blank
+never actually exists. Some part of us--the part that alone retains
+consciousness--is extracted and borne far away from the actual material
+body; but on its return, on its reunion with the physical--with our
+gross and carnal, earthly self--all memory of this delicate and finely
+poised consciousness is at once swallowed up and obliterated. If such
+were not the case, if everything were indeed a blank, and the spiritual
+as well as the material part of us were suspended during what we term
+unconsciousness, we should be forced to the conclusion that the soul
+has no separate existence, that it cannot survive the body, and that
+the immortality of man, the infinite perpetuation of our identity, in
+which we have so fondly believed, is but a chimera. I am, however,
+certain--I could, if need be, swear to it--that even in the deepest
+slumber, in the wildest delirium, in the most seemingly omnipotent
+and annihilating blank, all is not lost, something remains, and that
+something is the psychic and spiritual consciousness, the very thing
+that constitutes what we term soul. In the first stage, then, of my
+cognisance of thought, again I struggled with memory, and the struggle
+overcoming me, I gradually lapsed into the mere consciousness of
+existence without thought. How long this condition lasted I cannot
+say, but with startling abruptness thought returned, and I became
+madly anxious to ascertain my present state--how it differed from my
+former--and my whereabouts. I was conscious of sound and light and
+motion, but conscious of them merely from the point of observation,
+as things quite outside myself--things that in no way sensibly
+affected me. What particularly impressed me was the silence--the
+passivity--of what, I believed, constituted my body. I could detect
+no heart movement, no pulsation whatever. I seemed to be there--to
+have a very familiar form--but to be nothing more than form--to have
+no tangibility. So far my eyes had seen; but, purposely, I had not
+allowed myself to discriminate objects. I was intuitively certain my
+power of vision had become supernormal; and I dreaded to employ it for
+fear I should see too much--too acutely. I had a stupendous sense of
+impending horror. At length, however, I was impelled by an irresistible
+fascination to look. I did so, and in an instant became the spectator
+of a drama. Before me, seated at a grimy wooden table, were two men,
+clad in the fascinating garb of the latter part of the eighteenth
+century--long coat, befrilled vest, knee breeches, and peruke. Two mugs
+of ale were placed in front of them, and the one man kept on sipping,
+while the other, seldom touching the ale, took long and vigorous puffs
+at a pipe. The room had a very low ceiling, blackened with smoke, and
+traversed by enormous oaken beams; a chimney corner, in which sat an
+old man, munching something out of a very dirty-looking bag, and, at
+the same time, taking occasional pinches of snuff; and a couch, stowed
+away in one corner, and piled several feet high with a variety of
+books, papers, cushions, and wearing apparel.
+
+The general atmosphere of the place suggested an inn or tavern. It was
+with the two men in the foreground, however, that something told me
+I was most concerned. They appeared to be about the same age and of
+the same class; but there all similarity ended. The one was tall and
+thin, with dark, deep-set, and very restless eyes--and oddly noticeable
+hands. They were large and sinewy, with peculiarly long fingers and
+protruding knuckles. His companion was small and shrivelled, with
+watery blue eyes and a particularly weak mouth.
+
+"Strange we should meet like this, John," the shorter of the two
+remarked, taking a big gulp of ale. "Ten years since we last saw one
+another, and that was in Bristol. Do you recollect the occasion?"
+
+"Do I recollect it?" the other responded. "Can I ever forget it? You
+had just come from her. She had accepted you. Money, of course. I had
+nothing to offer her but love. Love! What's the good of love without
+prospects?"
+
+"It was a fair fight, John."
+
+"Fair fight, Wilfred!" John replied. "You may call it fair, if you
+like, but I don't. What chance had I when you pointed to your bank-book
+and said, 'If I die I can settle all that on her'? I could promise
+nothing. I hadn't a cent in the world beyond my weekly pay. Thirty
+shillings. And how pleased you were with yourself when you came to see
+me that last evening in Bristol. Do you remember what you said? 'It's
+the fortune of war, my boy. You'll soon get over it. Work.' As if I
+didn't work! But I took your advice, though I hated you for it; and I
+left Bristol. After what had happened I loathed the place. An uncle of
+mine offered me a clerkship in his office in Holborn, and I stuck so
+hard to my job that I eventually became a partner."
+
+"Then you're a rich man, John?"
+
+"Comfortable, but not rich, Wilfred."
+
+"And you've forgiven me? Got over that little love affair, eh?
+Well, well. Matrimony is not all bliss, John. At least that was my
+experience. Poor Jenny! But of course I have not told you. I'm much to
+be pitied, John."
+
+"She's dead!"
+
+"She is," Wilfred said, filling his mug with ale and raising it to his
+lips, "and I'm a lonely widower. But how did you know?"
+
+"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," John replied. "I get my
+information through channels that are barred to men like you."
+
+"Witchcraft, I suppose," Wilfred said, with a sneer. "But why this
+mystery? Someone in Bristol city wrote to you."
+
+"No, they didn't," John answered. "I know no one in Bristol city now.
+Your first suggestion was nearer the truth. Your wife, Wilfred, often
+comes to see me. I know all about the way in which you treated her."
+
+"The way in which I treated her!" Wilfred cried, starting upright in
+his chair, his face flushing angrily. "God's truth, man, what do you
+mean by such a statement?"
+
+"I mean exactly what I say," John answered. "For the first two years
+you treated her tolerably well. Then someone else caught your fancy.
+Jenny was neglected, despised, and on one occasion actually beaten."
+
+"It's a lie!" Wilfred gasped, springing to his feet, as if to leave the
+table.
+
+"No, it's not," John retorted, "and you know it. Come, sit down, man,
+and go on drinking. Love never was in your line, drink is. Besides,
+as you say, she's dead, and what's the use of quarrelling over a
+corpse, even though she were beautiful as--as----" He didn't finish his
+sentence, but leaning forward thrust Wilfred back into his chair.
+
+For some seconds the two men sat and looked at one another--Wilfred
+sullen, frightened, and resentful; John imperturbable save for the
+perpetual restless movement of his eyes, and an occasional peculiar
+twitching of his upper lip and hands.
+
+"A rum," John said at length, "or a gin? Or both?"
+
+"Rum."
+
+"Very good, let it be rum." He called the waiter, and a rum was served.
+
+"You're not drinking to-day, John," Wilfred remarked, taking a long
+pull at the rum and looking more amiable.
+
+"No, I'm quite off spirits," John replied--"at least, spirits of that
+kind."
+
+"Spirits of that kind!" Wilfred sniggered. "Why, whatever other kind of
+spirits are there? What a mysterious fellow you are, John."
+
+"Am I?" John laughed. "Perhaps I've reason to be. I live in a big
+house, all alone, in Red Lion Square."
+
+"New houses, aren't they?" Wilfred commented. "And big rents?"
+
+John nodded, the same nod answering apparently both questions.
+
+"But you haven't told me yet," Wilfred went on, "how you knew Jenny was
+dead."
+
+"I've seen her," John said very quietly. "She comes to me regularly."
+
+"Seen her? Comes to you regularly? You must be mad, John--mad or
+hoaxing. How can you see her, and why should she come to you?"
+
+John shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I told you you wouldn't believe me," he replied. "No one does. Yet I
+can swear to you it's true. She appeared to me last night and told me
+you would be here this afternoon. That is how I happened to meet you."
+
+"You overwork yourself, John," Wilfred said, taking another long pull
+at the rum. "Too much work is just as harmful to one's temperament
+and chances in life as too little. Moderation, my boy, moderation, I
+say. That's always been my keynote. I should like to see this house of
+yours."
+
+"You shall," John said, "and the spirits. Not hers--I don't think
+you will see hers--but the rum and brandy. I've excellent brands of
+both--smuggled over from abroad last week."
+
+"And yet you don't drink!"
+
+"No, I got them in entirely for your benefit. Come. We will go to my
+house. It's more comfortable than here. A big fire, nice easy chairs,
+tobacco, and bottles--bottles with plenty in them."
+
+"And you've forgiven me, John?"
+
+"Forgiven you!" John replied, rising from the table and putting on his
+hat. "Forgiven you! Do you think I should ask you round to my house, to
+drink the best vintage London can offer you, if I hadn't? Come. Come
+along at once."
+
+Wilfred rose with some difficulty from his seat, and the two men went
+out into the street. The scene then changed, and I found myself in a
+big, gloomy house, following them up a long flight of wooden stairs.
+
+The moment I entered the house I became the victim of an anomalous
+species of fear. I saw nothing, but I instinctively knew that strange,
+indefinable presences were there, watching us with sphinx-like faces.
+I felt them, standing in the doorways, lurking in the angles of the
+hall and landings, and peering down at us from over the balustrades.
+I felt that they were merely critical at present, merely deliberating
+what attitude they should adopt towards us; and I felt that the whole
+atmosphere of the house was impregnated with a sense of the utmost
+mystery--a mystery soluble only to those belonging, in the truest
+sense, to the spirit world--Neutrarians--spirit entities generated
+solely from spirit essence and never incarcerated in any material
+body--spirits initiated into one and all of the idiosyncrasies of
+spirit land. The man John gave no outward signs of being in any way
+affected by these presences; but it was otherwise with Wilfred. The
+silence and darkness of the house unmistakably disturbed him, and as
+he panted up the staircase, following his long and lean host with
+none too steady a step, he cast continual looks of apprehension about
+him. First, I saw him peer over his shoulders, down the stairs behind
+him, as if he fancied something, to which he could apply no name,
+might be treading softly at his heels; then I watched his eyes wander
+nervously to the gloomy space overhead; and then, as if drawn by some
+extremely unwelcome magnet, to the great, white, sinewy hands of John.
+Arriving on the second floor, they crossed a broad landing and entered
+a spacious room, which was fitfully illuminated by a few dying embers
+in a large open grate. John produced a tinder box, lighted a trio of
+tall wax candles, and resuscitated the fire. He then left the room,
+reappearing in a few minutes with an armload of bottles.
+
+"Make yourself comfortable, Wilfred," he said. "Take that easy chair
+and pull it up in front of the fire. Rum or brandy?"
+
+Wilfred, whose eyes glittered at the sight of the spirits, chose rum.
+"I'll have a little brandy afterwards," he said, "just to wash down the
+rum. Moderation is my password, John, everything in moderation," and,
+helping himself to the rum, he laughed. John sat opposite him, and I
+noticed, not without some emotion, that the chair he took was the exact
+counterpart of the one in which I had left my material ego.
+
+"John," Wilfred exclaimed after a while, "this house is most
+extraordinarily still. I--I don't like such stillness----" He was more
+than half drunk. "Why do you live alone? Damned silly habit to live
+alone in a house like this." Then he swallowed a big gulp of rum and
+leered.
+
+"All habits are silly," John replied. "All life is silly. Death alone
+is sensible. Death's a fine thing."
+
+Then there was a pause; and a gust of wind, blowing up the staircase,
+set the door jarring and made the windows rattle.
+
+"I don't like that remark of yours, John," Wilfred suddenly stuttered.
+"Death's a fine thing?--Death's the work of the devil. It's the only
+thing I fear. And the--the wind. What's that?"
+
+From the hall below there came a gentle slam, the soft closing of a
+door.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders and stirred the logs until they gave out a
+big blaze.
+
+"It's a noise," he said. "This house is full of noises. Every house is
+full of noises, if only you take the trouble to listen for them."
+
+Another pause, and Wilfred helped himself to some brandy.
+
+"Noises, like women," he said, "want keeping in their places. They've
+no business wandering about on nights like this. Hark!"
+
+The faintest sound possible broke the stillness of the house; but it
+suggested much. To me it was like a light, bounding footfall on the
+first flight of stairs, those nearest the hall.
+
+After listening a moment John spoke. "It's only Jenny," he said; "at
+least, I fancy it's only Jenny. But there are others. God alone knows
+whence they come or why. The house at times is full of them. So far I
+have only felt their presence--and heard. Pray to Heaven I may never
+see them--at least, not some. Do you hear that?"
+
+There was a gentle rustling on the landing, a swishing, such as might
+have been caused by someone in a silk dress with a long train.
+
+"It is--it's Jenny!" John went on. "I told you--she comes every night."
+
+Wilfred made no reply, but the hand that held the glass shook so much
+that the brandy ran over and splashed on the floor.
+
+There was again silence, then a creak, the faint but very unmistakable
+turning of a door handle.
+
+Wilfred's face blanched. He tried to look round, but dared not.
+
+"I'm afraid too," John murmured, his teeth slightly chattering. "I
+never can get over my initial terror when she first arrives. God! What
+horror I have known since I lived here."
+
+The latch of the door gave a click, the sort of click it always gives
+when the door springs open, and a current of icy air blew across the
+room and fanned the cheeks of both men. Wilfred attempted to speak, but
+his voice died away in his throat. He glanced at the window. It was
+closed with heavy wooden shutters.
+
+"It's no use," John sighed, "there's no escape that way. Make up your
+mind to face it--face HER. Ah!" He sank back as he spoke and closed his
+eyes.
+
+I looked at Wilfred. His vertebrae had totally collapsed; he sat all
+huddled up in his chair, his weak, watery eyes bulging with terror, and
+the brandy trickling down his chin on to his cravat. All this scene, I
+must tell you, was to me most vivid, most acutely vivid, although I was
+but a passive participator in it. The same feeling that had possessed
+me on my entrance into the house was with me even in a greater measure
+now. I felt that pressing on the heels of this wind, this icy blast of
+air, were the things from the halls and landings, the distractingly
+enigmatical and ever-deliberating things. I felt them come crowding
+into the room; felt them once again watching. Something now seemed to
+go wrong with the wicks of all three candles; they burned very low,
+and the feeble, flickering light they emitted was of a peculiar bluish
+white. While I was engaged in pondering over this phenomenon my eye
+caught a sudden movement in the room, and I saw what looked like a
+cylindrical pillar of mist sweep across the floor and halt behind John.
+It remained standing at the back of his chair for a second or so, and
+then, retracing its way across the floor, disappeared through the door,
+which, opening wide to meet it, closed again with a loud bang. John
+opened his eyes and reaching forward poured himself out some brandy.
+
+"I told you I didn't drink spirits," he said, "but her visit to-night
+has made a difference. Come, Wilfred, pull yourself together. The
+ghosts--at least her ghost has gone; and as for the others, well,
+they don't count. Even you may get used to them in time. Come, come,
+be a man. For a sceptic, a confirmed sceptic, I never saw anyone so
+frightened."
+
+Appealed to thus, Wilfred slowly straightened himself out, and peeping
+round furtively at the door, as if to make sure it really was shut, he
+helped himself to some more brandy. John leaned forward and regarded
+him earnestly. After some minutes Wilfred spoke.
+
+"Those candles," he said, "why don't they burn properly? I have never
+seen candles behave in that fashion before. John, I don't like this
+house."
+
+John laughed. "Matter of taste and habit," he said. "I didn't like it
+at first, but I like it now."
+
+Another pause, and then John said suddenly, "More brandy, Wilfred?"
+
+"No, I've had enough," Wilfred replied, "enough. John, I must be going
+home. See me to the door, John; the front door, I mean, John. See me to
+the door, there's a good fellow." He tried to rise, but John put out
+one hand and pushed him gently back into his seat.
+
+"It's early yet," John said, "far too early to go home. Think what a
+long time it is since we last met. Ten whole years. To some people
+almost a lifetime. Are you tired of life, Wilfred?"
+
+"Tired of life?" Wilfred echoed. "Tired of brandy, perhaps, but not of
+life. What a question to ask! Why?" And again glancing furtively at the
+door he tried to rise.
+
+Once more John put out his hand and thrust him back. "Not yet," he
+said; "the hour is far too early. What were we talking about? Being
+tired of life. Of course you are not. How foolish of me to ask you such
+a thing! You who are so rich, respected, admired, beloved. You are
+happy in spite of your sad bereavement. You are a man to be missed.
+With me it is otherwise. I long to go to the spirit land, for it is
+there only I have friends, really genuine, loving friends. I am not
+afraid to die. I want death. I yearn for it. Yearn for it, Wilfred."
+
+"Spirits! Death! Always spirits and death in your company," Wilfred
+responded. "Let's talk of something else--something more cheerful. I
+want cheering, John. This house of yours is depressing--most horribly
+depressing. You say it is new?"
+
+"Comparatively new," John replied, and he started fumbling in his vest
+pocket.
+
+"Comparatively new," Wilfred repeated, his eyes watching John's fingers
+attentively,--"and it has ghosts. Why, I thought it was only old houses
+that were haunted."
+
+John chuckled. "So people say," he replied, "and they tell me I am mad
+to think there are ghosts here. They say it is impossible. What is your
+opinion, Wilfred?"
+
+"Why," Wilfred said, watching John's movements with increasing
+interest, "that's my opinion too. A house to be haunted must have a
+history. And this house has none, has it? John!" The last syllable was
+uttered in an altogether different tone. It was not the voice of a
+drunken man.
+
+For a brief moment John hesitated, trembled. He seemed to be in the
+throes of some great mental strain, some acute psychological crisis.
+But he speedily overcame it, and drawing his hand out suddenly from his
+vest, he produced a huge, murderous-looking clasp knife.
+
+"True!" he said, "true. So far this house has no history. No history
+whatever. But it will have one, Wilfred. It will." And baring the blade
+of his formidable weapon, he crouched low and crept forward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day I took the chair back to its owner. I had had enough of
+it--quite enough; and I told him my experiences.
+
+"Odd!" he said, "very odd. The impressions you received when sitting in
+the chair are almost identical with those of the other people who have
+sat in it. I wonder if a murder did actually take place in that house?
+I shouldn't be at all surprised. There is an old stain on the floor of
+one of the rooms on the second landing, and they say that, despite the
+most vigorous washing, it still retains its colour--red, blood-red."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE HEAD
+
+A DERBYSHIRE HAUNTING
+
+
+Some few years ago, two men were trudging along a road, not twenty
+miles from Sudbury, swearing heartily. It was not the first time they
+had sworn, not by any means, but it is extremely doubtful if either of
+them had ever sworn before quite so vehemently. There were, one must
+admit, extenuating circumstances. Having missed the last train, they
+were obliged to walk home, a distance of twelve or more miles, and
+having been overtaken by a rainstorm, they were soaked to the skin.
+True, the rain had now ceased, but as they had covered only six miles,
+they still had six more to go, and at every step they took, the water
+in their boots soaked through their socks and squished between their
+toes. Just as they arrived at a spot where the road swerved a little
+to their left and took a sudden dip, a clock from a distance solemnly
+chimed twelve.
+
+The younger of the two men came to a halt and lighted his pipe. "Hold
+on a minute, Brown," he shouted; "I can't keep up this infernal pace
+any longer. Let's take an easy."
+
+Brown turned and joined his companion, who had seated himself on a
+wooden gate. Below them, in the dip, the darkness was sepulchral. The
+hedges on either side the road were of immense height; and high above
+them rose the trunks of giant pines and larches, the intertwining
+branches of which formed an archway that completely obliterated the
+sky. A faint speck of light from afar flickered occasionally, as if
+through a gap in the foliage; but, apart from this, the men could see
+nothing--nothing but blackness.
+
+"A cheerful spot!" Brown remarked, "as gloomy a bit of road as I've
+ever seen. And how quiet!"
+
+The other man blew his nose. "Not so quiet now," he laughed, "but how
+everything echoes! What's that? Water?"
+
+Both men looked, and, apparently, from the other side of the hedge,
+came the gentle gurgle of quick flowing water.
+
+"Must be a spring," Brown observed, "flowing into some stream in
+the hollow. The darkness suggests the Styx. A match, if you please,
+Reynolds."
+
+Reynolds gave him one, and for awhile the two men puffed away in
+silence.
+
+Suddenly something whizzed overhead; and they heard the prolonged,
+dismal hooting of an owl.
+
+"This is getting a bit too eerie, even for my liking, Brown," Reynolds
+remarked; "supposing we move on. I always associate noises like that
+with a death."
+
+"I wish it were my mother-in-law's," Brown laughed, "or my own. But
+there's no such luck. I'm cold."
+
+"So am I," Reynolds replied. "Deuced cold! Come on, do!"
+
+He slid off the gate as he spoke and strode into the centre of the road.
+
+The moon, temporarily unveiled, revealed as wet a landscape as one
+could possibly imagine. Everything dripped water--bushes, trees, ferns,
+grass, hats, clothes--whilst every rut of the road, every particle of
+soil, shone wet in the moon's rays. A deep, settled calm permeated the
+atmosphere. It was the stillness of night and moisture combined.
+
+"What's the matter? Aren't you coming?" Brown asked impatiently.
+
+"One moment," Reynolds replied. "I believe I heard footsteps. Hark! I
+thought so, they're coming this way! Someone else lost their train,
+perhaps."
+
+Brown listened, and he, too, distinctly heard the sound of
+footsteps--high-heeled shoes walking along with a sharp, springy
+action, as if the road were absolutely hard and dry.
+
+"A woman!" he ejaculated. "Odd hour for a woman to be out here."
+
+Brown laughed. "Pooh!" he said. "Women are afraid of nothing nowadays
+except old age. Hullo! Here she comes!"
+
+As he spoke the figure of a woman--slight and supple, and apparently
+young--shot into view, and came rapidly towards them.
+
+Her dress, though quaint and pretty, was not particularly striking;
+but her feet, clad in patent leather shoes, with buckles that shone
+brightly in the moonlight, were oddly conspicuous, in spite of the
+fact that they were small and partially hidden 'neath a skirt which
+was long and frilled, and not at all in accordance with the present
+fashion. Something about her prevented both men from speaking, and they
+involuntarily moved nearer to one another as she approached. On and on
+she came, tripping along, and never varying her pace. Now in a zone of
+moonlight, now in the dark belt of shadows from the firs and larches,
+she drew nearer and nearer. Through the hedge, Brown could dimly
+perceive the figure of a cow, immensely magnified, standing dumb and
+motionless, apparently lost, like he was, in spellbound observation.
+The silence kept on intensifying. Not a breath of air, not a leaf
+stirring, not a sound from Reynolds, who stood with arms folded like a
+statue; only the subdued trickle, trickle of the spring, and the hard
+tap, tap, tap of the flashing, sparkling shoes.
+
+At last the woman was abreast of them. They shrank back and back,
+pressing farther and farther into the hedge, so close that the sharp
+twigs and brambles scratched their faces and tore their clothes. She
+passed. Down, down, down, still tripping daintily, until the sepulchral
+blackness of the dip swallowed her up. They could still hear her tap,
+tap, tap; and for some seconds neither spoke. Then Reynolds, releasing
+his clothes from the thorns, muttered huskily: "At last I've seen a
+ghost, and I always scoffed at them."
+
+"But her head!" Brown ejaculated, "where was it?"
+
+"Don't ask me," Reynolds replied, his teeth chattering. "She had no
+head. At least I didn't see any. Dare you go on?"
+
+"What, down there?" Brown said, nodding in the direction of the dip.
+
+"Well, we must, if we are to get home to-night," Reynolds retorted,
+"and I'm frozen."
+
+"Wait till that noise ceases, then," Brown answered. "I can't stand
+seeing a thing like that twice in one night."
+
+They stood still and listened, until the tapping gradually died away in
+the far distance, and the only sound to be heard was that of the water,
+the eternal, never ceasing, never varying sound of the water. Then they
+ran--ran as they had never run since long ago Rugby days--down through
+the inky darkness of the hollow and out--far out into the brightness of
+the great stretch of flat country beyond; and, all the time they ran,
+they neither looked to the right nor to the left, but always on the
+ground just ahead of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a week the horror of what they had seen was so great that neither
+of the two men could bear to be alone in the dark; and they kept
+a light in their respective rooms all night. Then a strange thing
+happened. Brown became infatuated, he did nothing but rave, all day,
+about the ghost. She had the prettiest figure, the whitest hands, the
+daintiest feet he had ever seen, and he was sure her face must be
+equally lovely. Why couldn't he see it? There was nothing about the
+neck to show she had been decapitated, and yet the head was missing.
+Why?
+
+He worried Reynolds to death about it, and he gave no one else
+any peace. That waist, those delicate white fingers, those rosy,
+almond-shaped nails, those scintillating shoe buckles! They got on his
+brain. They obsessed him. He was like a maniac.
+
+At last, at the suggestion of Reynolds, who wanted to get rid of
+him for awhile, he came up to London and paid visits to most of the
+professional mediums and occultists in the West End.
+
+Some advised him one thing, and some another. Some immediately went
+into trances and learned from their controlling spirits all about the
+headless phantom, who she was, why she paraded the high road, and
+what had become of her head. But it was significant that no two told
+him alike, and that the head he so longed to see had at least a dozen
+different hiding-places. At last, when he had expended quite a small
+fortune, and his brain was much addled with psychic nomenclature,
+with detailed accounts of the Astral Plane, Karmas, Elementals,
+Elementaries, White Lodges, and What not, he interviewed a woman,
+living somewhere in the Bayswater direction, who suggested that he
+should hold a séance in the haunted hollow, and who promised, with a
+great show of condescension, to act as his medium if he would pay her
+the trifling sum of twenty pounds.
+
+At first Brown declared the thing impossible, since he did not, at
+that moment, possess twenty pounds, which was literally true; but the
+prospect of seeing the ghost's face at length proved too much for him,
+and he decided to pawn all he had, in order to gratify his longing.
+
+He closed with the offer. When the night fixed for the séance arrived,
+the weather conditions were all that could be desired; the air was soft
+and calm, the moon brilliant, the sky almost cloudless, and promising
+only the finest weather for days to come. As the medium insisted upon
+a party of at least four, Brown persuaded a Mr. and Mrs. de Roscovi,
+Russians, to come, and they all set out together from Sudbury shortly
+after ten o'clock. Brown had made many inquiries in the neighbourhood
+as to the phantom figure, but he had only come across two people who
+would tell him anything about it. One, a farmer, assured him that he
+had on several occasions seen the ghost when driving, and that, on each
+occasion, it had kept abreast of his horse, even though the latter was
+careering along the road half mad with fright. But what terrified him
+most, he said, was that the apparition had no head.
+
+The other, a blacksmith, said he had seen the woman twice, and that
+each time he had seen her she had been carrying something tucked under
+her arm, which he had fancied was a head. But he had been too scared
+to look at it very closely, and he only knew for certain that where
+her head should have been there was nothing. Both he and the farmer
+said they had heard all their lives that the road was haunted, but for
+what reason they had never been able to discover, as within the past
+sixty years, at any rate, neither murder nor suicide was known to have
+taken place near the hollow. This is as far as Brown had got with his
+investigations when he set out from Sudbury on the night in question.
+The de Roscovis did not think, for one moment, that the ghost would
+appear. They said, few people apparently had seen it; its visits in
+all probability were only periodical; and weeks, months, or even years
+might elapse before it put in an appearance there again.
+
+"That may be, but then we have a medium," Brown argued. "I engaged her
+to invoke the ghost, provided it would not come of its own accord. You
+can invoke it, can't you, Madame Valenspin?"
+
+Madame Valenspin now seemed rather dubious. "I have never tried in the
+open before," she said, with a slight shiver, "but I will do my best.
+The conditions seem favourable; but I can't say definitely till we
+arrive at the exact spot."
+
+Brown, however, could not help observing that the farther they advanced
+into the country, which became more and more lonely, the more restless
+and uneasy Madame Valenspin grew.
+
+Once or twice she halted, as if irresolute whether to go on or not, and
+the moment she caught sight of the hollow she came to a dead stop.
+
+"Not down there," she said. "It's too dark. We'd better stay here."
+
+It was frightfully still. Brown listened for the murmuring of water.
+There was none. The recent hot sun had probably dried up the spring.
+Through the same gap in the hedge he saw a big cow--possibly, so he
+thought, the same cow--and he took it as a favourable augury for the
+appearance of the ghost that the animal, as before, was gazing fixedly
+into the open space, as if momentarily expecting to see something.
+
+Behind it, away back in the broad expanse of field, were other cattle,
+their skins startlingly white; all motionless, and all in attitudes
+suggestive of a sense of anticipation, of a conscious waiting for
+something. The sepulchral hush was uninterrupted saving by bats,
+assuredly the biggest and blackest Brown had ever seen, wheeling and
+skimming, with the faintest perceptible whiz, whiz, whiz, in and out
+the larches; and the soft intermittent fanning of the leaves as the
+night breeze came rustling over the flat country and continued its
+career down into the hollow. A rabbit scurried across the road from one
+gate to another, its white breast shining silver, and some other small
+furry creature, of a species undetected, created a brief pandemonium in
+a neighbouring ditch. Otherwise all nature was extraordinarily passive.
+
+"The figure went right down into the hollow," Brown said. "I think we
+ought to try there. What do you think, Mrs. de Roscovi?"
+
+"I am of the same opinion as Madame Valenspin," Mrs. de Roscovi
+replied, glancing apprehensively at the dip. "I think we had far better
+stay where we are."
+
+"Very well, then," Brown said, "let's begin. You are mistress of the
+ceremonies, Madame Valenspin. Will you tell us what to do?"
+
+Madame Valenspin moved to one side of the road, and stood with her back
+resting against a gate. "Keep quite close to me," she said, "and I
+will try and go under control. Ah!" She ejaculated the last syllable
+so sharply that Brown and Mrs. de Roscovi both started. She then began
+to mumble something, and then, breaking into a shrill, high-pitched
+key, stated that she was no longer Madame Valenspin but a spirit called
+Anne Heathcote, who was her temporary control. Anne Heathcote, so the
+audience were informed, was the ghost of a girl of very great beauty,
+who had been murdered in an adjoining field, close on a hundred years
+ago. There was no apparent motive for the deed, which was accomplished
+in a peculiarly barbarous fashion, the head being cut right off and
+thrown in a pit that had long since been filled in. The criminal was
+never caught.
+
+"Can't you appear to us with your head on," Brown asked, "just as you
+were in your lifetime?"
+
+"No," the alleged spirit replied. "I am forbidden to do so. My visits
+are only periodical, and I shan't be able to materialise again here for
+at least ten years."
+
+"Then there is little hope of my ever seeing you," Brown said, bitterly
+disappointed.
+
+"None," was the somewhat abrupt answer.
+
+"But why should you haunt this place at all?" Mr. de Roscovi asked.
+"What reason is there for your being earth-bound?"
+
+"My sins," the control replied. "I was a very wicked girl."
+
+"I don't care whether you were wicked or not," Brown put in mournfully.
+"I want to see you. If your face is in keeping with your limbs and
+figure, it must indeed be lovely. Is there no way of seeing you--just
+for a second?"
+
+"None," the control answered. Then, with much more emphasis, "None."
+
+But hardly had the alleged Anne Heathcote spoken, when far away in the
+distance came the sound of footsteps. Tap, tap, tap!
+
+"Why! By Jove!" Brown shouted, "there she is! I recognise her step. I
+should know it in a million."
+
+For a minute everyone was silent, the tapping growing more and more
+audible. Then Madame Valenspin, in quite her own voice, exclaimed
+excitedly: "Let us be going. The spirits tell me we mustn't remain here
+any longer. Let's go back by the fields."
+
+She fumbled with the latchet of the gate, against which she had been
+leaning, and hurriedly tried to raise it.
+
+Mrs. de Roscovi said nothing, but gripped her husband by the arm. The
+steps approached rapidly, and presently the same dainty form, Brown had
+previously seen when with Reynolds, once more figured on the horizon.
+
+"It is--it is she!" Brown whispered. "Look--the waist, the arms, the
+hands, the shoes. Silver buckles! How they flash!"
+
+An exclamation of horror interrupted him. It was from Mr. de Roscovi.
+He had moved to one side of the road, dragging his wife with him, and
+the two were standing huddled together, their eyes fixed in a frenzied
+stare at the phantom's neck. Brown, forcing his attention away from
+the long slim hands which so fascinated him, followed their glances.
+The neck was not as he remembered it, white and slender as far as it
+went, but it ended abruptly in a grey nothingness, and beyond this
+nothingness Brown fancied he discerned the dimmest of shadows. He
+was appalled but fascinated, and intense curiosity far outweighed
+his fear. He was certain she was beautiful--beautiful to a degree
+that immeasurably excelled any feminine loveliness he had hitherto
+encountered. He must see her face. He did not believe her head was
+missing; he believed it was there on her body right enough, but that
+for some specific reason it had not materialised. He turned to Madame
+Valenspin to inquire the cause, and was greatly astonished to see her
+beating a hasty retreat across the fields. The figure had now come up
+to where he was standing, and tripping past him, it sped swiftly down
+the dip. Brown at once gave chase. He had not gone many yards before
+the darkness of the dip was on him; and the only clue he had to his
+quarry's whereabouts was the sound of the shoes--the constant tap,
+tap, tapping. On and on he went, however, and at length, emerging from
+the darkness, he perceived a wooden stile and beyond it a tiny path,
+threading its way through a clump of firs that gradually grew thinner
+and thinner till they finally terminated in what appeared to be a broad
+clearing. Mounting the stile and springing off on the other side, the
+woman tripped along the path, and, turning for a moment to beckon
+Brown, disappeared from view.
+
+The intense loneliness of the spot, emphasised a thousandfold by the
+eerie effect of the few straggling moonbeams that fell aslant the
+stile and pathway, and the knowledge that he had left his companions
+far behind made Brown falter, and it was some seconds before he could
+gather up the courage to continue his pursuit. A light girlish laugh,
+however, proceeding apparently from the spot where the figure had
+vanished, determined him. He saw once again vividly before him that
+willowy waist, those slim, delicate fingers, and those coquettish
+little feet. Were the devil itself to bar his way he must see her
+face. Sweating with terror, and yet withal obsessed with a passion
+that defies description, Brown mounted the stile and hastened in the
+direction of the laugh. Again it rang out, charged to overflowing with
+innocent fun and frolic, irresistibly girlish, irresistibly coy. This
+time there was no mistaking its locality. It came from behind a small
+clump of trees that bordered on the clearing. Wild with excitement and
+full of love madness, Brown dashed round the clump, and then halted.
+Floating in mid-air was a head, a head that looked as if it had long
+since been buried and just disinterred. The eyes alone lived, and they
+were fixed on Brown's with a mocking, baneful glitter. Hanging on
+either side of it was a mass of long fair hair, suggestive of a woman.
+
+Every detail in the face stood out with hideous clearness in the
+brilliancy of the moonlight, and as Brown stared at it, petrified with
+horror, the thing laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CUPBOARD
+
+A CASE OF HAUNTINGS NEAR BIRMINGHAM
+
+
+People often wonder why new houses--houses without any apparent
+history--should suddenly begin to be haunted, often by a variety of
+very alarming phenomena, and then, just as suddenly, perhaps, cease to
+be haunted.
+
+Of course one can only theorise, but I think a very possible and
+feasible reason is suggested, in the case I am about to relate.
+
+Five years ago Sir George Cookham was living at "The Mayfields," a
+large country house some ten or twelve miles south-east of Birmingham.
+He was greatly interested in criminology, inclining to the belief that
+crime is almost entirely due to physical malformation; and used to
+invite all the great experts on the subject to stay with him. It was
+one week-end, towards the middle of September, that Dr. Sickertorft
+came; and he and Sir George had some very heated arguments. Sir George
+was one of the most eccentric men I have ever met, and one of his many
+idiosyncrasies was to carry on his discussions walking.
+
+On the morning of Sickertorft's departure he and Sir George were
+arguing--Sir George, at the same time, perambulating the corridor of
+the ground floor of the house, for about the hundredth time--when Dr.
+Sickertorft suddenly remarked: "I wonder if this house is haunted?"
+
+"Haunted!" Sir George laughed. "Why, of course not. It's new. My father
+built it only sixty years ago. A house to be haunted must be old, must
+have some history. And the only tragedy that has occurred here was when
+a servant I once had, losing control of his temper, killed one of my
+most valuable dogs. That was a tragedy, both for the servant and the
+dog. There has been nothing else to my knowledge--nothing beyond one or
+two quite peaceful deaths from natural causes. But why do you ask?"
+
+"Because," Sickertorft replied, "that cupboard over there, opposite
+the foot of the stairs, to me, strongly suggests a ghost. Something
+peculiarly diabolical. Something that springs out on one and imparts
+the sensation of being strangled."
+
+"The only ghosts that haunt that cupboard," Sir George chuckled, "are
+boots and shoes, and, I believe, my fishing rods. Ghosts are all a
+delusion--a peculiar state of the brain due to some minute osseous
+depression or cerebral inflammation."
+
+"I don't agree with you," Sickertorft said quietly. "I am positively
+certain that there are such things as ghosts, that they are objective
+and of many kinds. Some, in all probability, have always existed,
+and have never inhabited any human body; some are the earth-bound
+spiritual egos of man and beast; and some we can create ourselves."
+
+"Create ghosts!" Sir George cried. "Come, now, we are talking sense. Of
+course we can create ghosts. Pepper did, Maskelyne and Devant still do,
+and so do all the so-called materialising mediums."
+
+"I don't mean spoof ghosts," Sickertorft responded. "I mean real ones.
+Real superphysical, objective phenomena. Man can at times create them,
+but only by intense concentration."
+
+"You mean materialised thought forms?"
+
+"If you like to term them such," Sickertorft replied. "I believe they
+are responsible for a certain percentage of hauntings, but not all."
+
+"Well, I've never seen any of your ghostly thought forms nor, in my
+opinion, am I ever likely to," Sir George growled. "Show me one and
+I'll believe. But you can't."
+
+"I don't know so much," Sickertorft muttered, and, with his eyes still
+on the cupboard, he followed Sir George into his study.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week later Lucy, a maid at "The Mayfields," was walking past the
+cupboard on her way to the dining-room, when something, as she
+subsequently described it to the cook, came over her, and she ran for
+her life.
+
+"I didn't hear anything nor see anything," she explained. "I only felt
+there was something nasty hiding there, ready to spring out."
+
+The following night she had the same experience, and her terror was
+so great that she ran shrieking into the dining-room, and it was some
+moments before she could make any coherent statement. Lady Cookham was
+very angry with her, and said it was all nonsense. There was nothing
+whatever wrong with the cupboard, and, if it occurred again, she must
+go. It did occur again, the very next night, and Lucy, without waiting
+for her dismissal, gave notice. She said this time she heard a laugh, a
+low chuckle, very sinister, and suggestive also of the utmost glee. The
+door of the cupboard creaked and, she believed, opened a little; but
+on this point she could not be absolutely certain. She only knew her
+horror was infinitely greater than it had been on former occasions, and
+that when she ran, she was convinced something very dreadful ran after
+her.
+
+The following evening, just about the same time, the butler went to the
+cupboard for a pair of shoes. He had just picked them up, and was about
+to go off with them, when someone breathed in his face. He sprang back
+in astonishment, striking his head somewhat badly against the edge of
+a shelf, whereupon there was a laugh--a short, sharp laugh, expressive
+of the keenest satisfaction. This was too much for the butler. Dropping
+the shoes, he dashed out of the cupboard and never ceased running till
+he was in the servants' quarters.
+
+He told the housekeeper, and the housekeeper mentioned the matter to
+the head parlourmaid; so that in a very short time the whole household
+got to know of it, and the cupboard was given as wide a berth as
+possible.
+
+The next victim was the governess. Sir George had two children,
+both girls, and at present they were too young to go to school. The
+governess was a Cambridge graduate, who boasted of being utterly
+materialistic and of having a supreme contempt for weak nerves, and, to
+quote her own words, "poor simpletons who believe in ghosts."
+
+She was passing the cupboard one evening, three nights after the
+butler's experience, when an irresistible impulse came over her to
+explore it. She opened the door and stepped inside, then someone closed
+the door with a bang and laughed.
+
+"Who are you?" the governess demanded. "Let me out at once. How dare
+you!"
+
+There was no reply, but when she stretched out her hand to feel for the
+door, she encountered something very cold and spongy, and the horror of
+it was so unexpected that she fainted.
+
+In falling she struck the door violently. It flew open, and she was
+found some seconds later in a state of semi-insensibility, lying half
+in the cupboard and half across the corridor.
+
+When Lady Cookham heard of what had happened, she was furious. "The
+cupboard can't be haunted," she declared, "it's ridiculous. Someone is
+playing us a trick. I'll call in the police."
+
+The local inspector being summoned, examined the cupboard and
+cross-questioned the servants. But he discovered nothing. Lady Cookham
+now determined to unravel the mystery--if mystery there were--herself.
+She gave all the servants save one--the new maid Hemmings, whom she
+had engaged in the place of Lucy--a fortnight's holiday, and got in a
+supply cook from Coventry. The governess was allowed to remain, but she
+was strictly forbidden to go anywhere near the cupboard after midday.
+
+When evening arrived, Lady Cookham, arming herself with a revolver and
+horsewhip, commenced to watch. Her first vigil passed uneventfully; but
+the next night, just as she had arrived at the cupboard and was taking
+up her stand facing it, the door slowly began to open. Lady Cookham is
+about as good a specimen of the thoroughly practical, strong-minded
+English sportswoman as one could meet anywhere. Up to the commencement
+of the present war she rode regularly with the Pytchley hounds, had a
+cold douche bath every morning, and spent a month at least every summer
+yachting in the English Channel.
+
+She had never known fear--never, at least, until now. "Who's there?"
+she demanded. "You had better speak sharp, or I'll fire!"
+
+There was no reply, however, and the door continued opening.
+
+Had she seen anything, she doesn't think she would have been so
+frightened, but there was nothing--absolutely nothing visible. Her
+impressions were, however, that something was coming out, and that that
+something was nothing human.
+
+It moved stealthily towards her--and she could define a soft clinging
+tread, just as if it had tentacles that kept adhering to the boards.
+She tried to press the trigger of the revolver, but her muscles refused
+to act, and when she opened her mouth to shout she could not articulate
+a sound. It was now close to her. One of its large, clammy feet touched
+her, and she could feel its clammy, pungent breath fanning the top of
+her head.
+
+Then something icy cold and indescribably repulsive sought her throat
+and slowly began to throttle her. She tried to beat it off and to make
+some kind of noise to attract help, but it was all to no purpose.
+She was powerless. The grip tightened. All the blood in her veins
+congealed--her lungs expanded to the verge of bursting; and then,
+when the pain and horror reached its climax, and the identity of the
+hellish creature seemed about to reveal itself, there was a loud crack,
+and with it the acme of her sufferings, the final conscious stage
+of excruciating asphyxiation passed, and she relapsed into apparent
+death. She supposes that, for the first time in her life, she must have
+fainted. The crack was the report of her revolver. In her acute agony,
+her fingers had closed convulsively over the trigger, and the weapon
+had exploded.
+
+The noise proved her salvation. No psychic phenomena can stand violent
+vibration, and Sir George Cookham, arriving on the scene at the sound
+of the report, found his wife lying on the ground unconscious, but
+alone. He heard her story, and refused to be convinced.
+
+"It's a case of suggestion," he argued. "Lucy was a highly strung,
+imaginative girl. She had, in all probability, been reading spook
+tales, and hearing a noise in the cupboard had at once attributed the
+sound to ghosts. That was quite enough for Wilkins. Servants are ready
+to believe anything--especially if it is propagated by one of their
+own class. Miss Dennis is a hypochondriac. All governesses must be.
+The nature of their work necessitates it. She heard a well-garnished
+account of what was supposed to have happened from Wilkins, probably
+from Lucy too, and the neurotic state of her nerves did the rest. Of
+course when it comes to you, my dear," he said, "it is more difficult
+to understand. But as there are no such things as ghosts--as they are a
+scientific impossibility--it must have been suggestion."
+
+"I'm certain it was not," Lady Cookham retorted, "and I'm going to
+leave the house and take the children with me. It's not right for them
+to stay."
+
+Sir George protested, but Lady Cookham had her own way, and in less
+than a fortnight there were notices in the _Field_, and other papers,
+to say that "The Mayfields" was to be let furnished.
+
+"We'll give it a year's trial," Lady Cookham said, "and, if the people
+who take it are not disturbed by anything unusual happening, we will
+conclude the hauntings are at an end and return."
+
+A few days after this conversation Sir George met Dr. Sickertorft on
+the platform of Coventry Station. Though the day was almost sultry, the
+doctor was muffled up in an overcoat, and appeared very pale and thin.
+
+"So you are leaving 'The Mayfields,'" Sickertorft remarked. "Has the
+ghost been too much for you?"
+
+"Ghost!" Sir George cried angrily, "what the deuce do you mean? We have
+let the house for awhile, but not on account of any ghost. My wife
+wants to be nearer London."
+
+"Then the stories that have got afloat are all moonshine," Sickertorft
+replied, with a smile, "and you are still just as sceptical as ever."
+
+"I am," Sir George responded; "and if you hear any more reports about
+'The Mayfields' being haunted, kindly contradict them."
+
+Sickertorft smiled. "I will make a bet, Sir George," he said, "that you
+will be converted one day."
+
+"You may bet as much as you like, but you'll lose," Sir George answered
+furiously. And turning his back on Sickertorft, he walked away from him
+without another word.
+
+The following day Lady Cookham and the children left, and Sir George
+finding himself the sole occupant of the house, the servants having
+left at midday, telephoned to Sydney N. Morgan, a well-known private
+detective who specialised in cases of theft and blackmail, asking him
+to come. On his arrival at "The Mayfields" that same evening, Morgan
+listened to all Sir George had to say, and then made an exhaustive
+examination of the premises, paying particular attention to the
+cupboard in the hall.
+
+"Well?" Sir George asked. "What is your opinion? Rats?"
+
+"Not human ones, at any rate," Morgan replied. "Anyhow, I can find no
+traces of them. I incline to your theory of nerves."
+
+"Imagination first and then suggestion." Sir George grunted. Now that
+he was alone there with the detective, he began to have misgivings. The
+house seemed strangely large and silent. But ghosts! Bah! There were no
+such things. He said as much to Morgan, and they both laughed.
+
+Then they stared at one another in amazement, for, from afar off, there
+came an answering echo, a faint yet distinctly audible--chuckle.
+
+They were standing at one end of the corridor on the ground floor when
+this happened, and to both of them the sound seemed to emanate from the
+cupboard. "What was that?" Sir George asked. "The wind?"
+
+"It may have been," Morgan said dubiously, "but there's no getting away
+from the fact that it was a queer noise for the wind to make. I made
+sure I looked everywhere."
+
+"I'll go upstairs and get my revolver," Sir George observed. "It may
+come in handy. Will you remain here?"
+
+They looked at one another furtively, and each thought they saw fear in
+the other's eyes.
+
+Both, however, had reputations to sustain.
+
+"I'll wait down here, Sir George," Morgan said, "and keep an eye on the
+cupboard. You'll call if you want me."
+
+"I will," Sir George replied. "I shan't be gone more than a minute.
+Be on your guard. It's just about this time the alleged disturbances
+begin."
+
+He hurried off, and Morgan watched his long legs cross the hall and
+hastily ascend the main staircase. The hall occupied a large space in
+the centre of the house, and overlooking it was a gallery connecting
+the east and west wings.
+
+Sir George's room--that is to say, the room he was reserving for
+himself on this occasion--was in the east wing, the first to be reached
+from the gallery, and Morgan could almost see it from where he stood in
+the hall. His gaze was still fixed on Sir George's retreating figure
+when a noise from behind him made him turn hurriedly round, and he
+distinctly saw the cupboard door open a few inches. Moving towards the
+cupboard, he then saw, as the door opened wider, a huge indefinable
+something emerge from it. Morgan admits that the most sublime terror
+seized him, and that he shrank back convulsively against the wall,
+totally unable to do anything but stare. The shape came towards him
+with a slow, shambling gait, and Morgan was at length able to compare
+it with an enormous fungus. It had arms and legs truly, but they were
+disproportionately long and crooked, and hardly seemed to belong to the
+body.
+
+There was no apparent head. The whole thing was vague and misty, but
+suggestive of the greatest foulness and antagonism. Morgan's horror
+was so great as it passed him that he believes his heart practically
+stopped beating, and so tightly had he clenched his hands that the
+print of his finger nails remained on his palms for days afterwards. It
+left him in time, however, and he watched it shuffle its unwholesome
+way across the hall and surreptitiously begin to ascend the staircase.
+
+He tried to shout to Sir George to put him on his guard, but his voice
+refused to act and he could do nothing.
+
+Up and up it went, until at last it reached the gallery and crept
+onward into the east wing.
+
+He then heard Sir George cry out, "Hullo, Morgan! Is that you?
+Anything----" There was then a moment of the most intense silence,
+and then a shriek. Morgan says it was like a woman's shriek--it was
+so shrill, so uncontrolled, so full of the most abject terror. For
+a moment it completely paralysed Morgan, but he seems then to have
+partially recovered. Anyhow, he pulled himself sufficiently together to
+run up the stairs and arrive outside Sir George's door in time to hear
+sounds of a most violent struggle. Tables, chairs, washstand, crockery,
+were all hurled to the ground, as Sir George raced round and round the
+room in his desperate efforts to escape. Once he caught hold of the
+handle of the door and turned it furiously. "Let me out!" he shrieked.
+"For mercy's sake let me out!" and again Morgan heard him rush to the
+window and pound madly on the glass.
+
+Then there came another spell of silence--short and emphatic--then a
+shriek that far eclipsed anything Morgan had hitherto heard, and then a
+voice--a man's voice, but certainly not Sir George's--which, speaking
+in sharp, jerky sentences that conveyed with them a sense of strange
+far-offness, said: "You'll believe now, Sir George. You'll believe now.
+Damn you, you'll believe now!" Then there were sounds as if someone was
+being shaken very violently to and fro, and Morgan, utterly unable to
+stand it any longer, turned tail and--fled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Morgan returned some half an hour later, accompanied by the
+lodge-keeper and one of the under-gardeners, they found Sir George
+lying in a heap on the floor--unconscious. He did not die, however,
+neither did he go mad; but his heart was badly affected, and he
+subsequently developed fits.
+
+Nothing would induce him to describe what had actually taken place,
+and this, added to the fact that he never again set foot within "The
+Mayfields," caused his friends to draw their own conclusions. Morgan
+told me all about it, and I at once wrote to Dr. Sickertorft. I was too
+late, however; Dr. Sickertorft had been dead some weeks--he had died
+of cerebral tuberculosis exactly three months after Morgan's visit to
+"The Mayfields." I was informed that he attributed the fatal malady to
+supernormal concentration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE EMPTY LEASH
+
+A CASE OF HAUNTING IN ST. JOHN'S WOOD
+
+
+I have so often been accused of writing too exclusively about the
+horrid types of spirit, such as earth-bound murderers, suicides, and
+elements, that I am more than pleased to be able to present to my
+readers a case of a different kind. Until quite recently Barcombe
+House, St. John's Wood, was haunted by the ghost of a very lovely
+little girl, who, it is believed, died of a broken heart because a dog
+to which she was very much attached had to be destroyed. I obtained
+particulars as to the hauntings from a Mr. John Tyley, whose verbatim
+account I will endeavour, as nearly as possible, to reproduce.
+
+"Guy Darnton is a very intimate friend of mine. Some people call us
+inseparables, and I suppose we are--though at times, I believe, no two
+men could so thoroughly hate one another. Indeed, to such an extremity
+has this spirit of execration and dislike been carried that I have
+on occasions actually accused him of being my very worst--my most
+cruel, and certainly my most subtly destructive--enemy. But even then,
+even at the moment when my abhorrence of him has been most acute, I
+have always accorded him--reluctantly, I admit--one great redeeming
+quality--his affection for and kindness to Ghoul.
+
+"Ghoul was an Irish terrier, just an ordinary-looking Irish
+terrier, with all the pugnacious and--as some unkind critics would
+add--quarrelsome characteristics of his race. He hated fops, those
+little brown Pekinese and King Charles horrors that ladies scent and
+comb, and stuff to bursting-point with every imaginable dainty; and
+whenever he saw one mincing its way along the street, he would always
+block its path and try to bite it.
+
+"Yet he was an idealist. It's all nonsense to say that animals have no
+appreciation of beauty. Ghoul had. He was fond of biscuits truly; but
+he liked other things more, far more than food. I have known him stand
+in front of a rose bush and gaze at it with an expression which no one
+but the most unkind and prejudiced sceptic could possibly misinterpret
+for anything but sheer, solid admiration; and I used to notice that
+whenever he was introduced to several ladies, he always wagged his tail
+hardest at the prettiest of them. But most of all Ghoul admired pretty
+children--dainty little girls with fluffy yellow curls and big, smiling
+eyes. He adored them, and he hated with equal fervour all children
+who were in any way physically ill-favoured. I have known him bark
+furiously at a boy who squinted, and snarl at and refuse to go near a
+girl who had a blotchy, yellow complexion and a cavernous, frog-shaped
+mouth.
+
+"But I am speaking as if Ghoul were my property. He was not--at least,
+not in the legal sense. Darnton paid for his licence--and housed and
+fed him--and so had every apparent right to call himself Ghoul's master.
+
+"In spite of this, however, I knew intuitively that Ghoul regarded
+me as his actual master, and I believe the explanation of this
+circumstance lay in the superphysical. I am psychic, and I am convinced
+that the unknown is nearer, far nearer to me than it is to most people.
+Now dogs, at least most dogs, have the faculty of second sight, of
+clairvoyance and clairaudience, very acutely developed--you have only
+to be in a haunted house with them to see it; and there is nothing
+they stand in awe of more--or for which they have a more profound
+respect--than the superphysical. Now Ghoul was no exception. He saw
+around me what I only felt; and he recognised that I was the magnet. He
+respected me as one true psychic respects another.
+
+"One day we were out together. Darnton had gone to the dentist, and
+Ghoul, tired of his own company, resolved to pay me a visit. He
+wandered in at the wicket gate of my garden just as I was about to set
+off for a morning constitutional. I greeted him somewhat boisterously,
+for Ghoul, when extra solemn, always excited my risibility, and, after
+a brief skirmish with him on behalf of my cat, an extraordinarily ugly
+Tom, for whom Ghoul cherished the most inveterate hatred, we set off
+together. It was pure accident that led me into the Adelaide Road.
+I was half-way along it, thinking of nothing in particular, when
+someone whistled behind me, and I turned round. As a rule, one may see
+a few pedestrians--one or two at least--at all times of the day in
+the Adelaide Road, but oddly enough no one was in sight just at that
+moment, and I could see no traces of Ghoul. I called him, and getting
+no reply, walked back a little distance. At last I discovered him. He
+was in the front garden of Barcombe House, sitting in the centre of
+a grass plot, his eyes fixed on space, but with such an expression
+of absorbing interest that I was absolutely astounded. Thinking
+something, perhaps, was hiding in the bushes, I threw stones and made
+a great shooing; but nothing came out, and Ghoul still maintained his
+position. The look in his face did not suggest anything antagonistic,
+it was indicative rather of something very pleasing to him--something
+idealistic--something he adored.
+
+"I shouted 'Ghoul!' He did not take the slightest notice, and when I
+caught him by the scruff of the neck, he dug his paws in the ground and
+whined piteously. Then I grew alarmed. He must either have hurt himself
+or have gone mad. I examined him carefully, and nothing appearing to
+be the matter with him, I lifted him up, and, despite his frantic
+struggles, carried him out of the garden.
+
+"The moment I set him down he raced back. Then I grew determined. A
+taxi was hailed, and Ghoul, driven off in it, speedily found himself a
+close prisoner in Darnton's exceedingly unromantic study.
+
+"That afternoon I revisited Barcombe House alone. The premises were to
+let, and, judging by their neglected and dilapidated appearance, had
+been so for some considerable time. Both front and back garden were
+overgrown with a wild profusion of convolvulus, thistles, and other
+weeds; and an air of desolation, common to all abandoned houses, hung
+about the place. All the same, I could detect nothing unpleasant.
+
+"I was unmistakably aware of some superphysical influence; but that
+influence, unlike the majority of those I had hitherto experienced, was
+decidedly attractive.
+
+"It seemed to affect everything--the ruddy rays of sunlight that,
+falling aslant the paths, turned them into scintillating gold; the
+buttercups and dandelions more glorious yellow than I had ever
+remembered seeing them; the air--charged to overflowing with the rich,
+entrancing perfume of an abnormally generous summer's choicest flowers.
+All nature here seemed stimulated, cheered and glorified, and the
+longer I lingered the longer I wished to linger. At the far end of the
+garden was an arbour overgrown with jasmine and sweet honeysuckle, and
+on its moss-covered seat I espied a monstrous Teddy bear adorned with
+a piece of faded and mildewy pink ribbon. The sight filled me with
+a strange melancholy. The poor Teddy bear, once held so lovingly in
+the tight embrace of two little infantile arms, was now abandoned to
+the mercies of spiders and wood-lice, and the pitiless spoliation of
+decay. How long had it been left, and where was its owner? I looked
+at the sunshine, and, in the beams that gilded everything around me,
+I felt an answer to my queries. Most haunted places scare me, but it
+was otherwise here; and I was so fascinated, so eager to probe the
+mystery to its core, that I left the garden and, crossing a tiny stone
+yard, approached the back of the house. The premises were quite easy of
+access, as the catch of one of the windows was broken, and the shutter
+of the coal-house had come off its hinges. One has always supposed
+that the basement of any house that has stood empty for a long time
+must become cold and musty, but here I could detect neither cold nor
+mustiness. Even in the darkest recesses the sun made its influence
+felt, and its beams warmed and illuminated walls and flagstones alike.
+I now entered a large and lofty apartment, with a daintily tiled floor,
+spotlessly clean ceiling, artistically coloured walls, and scrupulously
+clean dresser. Here again the devastating hand of decay was nowhere
+to be seen, and indeed I thought I had never been in such a pleasant
+kitchen.
+
+"I intended waiting there only until I had consumed a sandwich, but
+when I rose to go, something held me back, and I tarried on and on,
+until the evening set in and dark and strangely formed shadows began to
+dim the walls and floor.
+
+"As I was mounting the stairs to explore the upper premises a gentle
+gust of wind blew in my face and filled my nostrils with the most
+delightful odour of 'cherry-pie.' Intoxicated, I halted, and, leaning
+against the banisters, inhaled the perfume to the full extent of
+my lungs. Then I listened. The breeze rustling past me down the
+stairs rattled the window panes and jarred the doors, and seemed
+to disseminate, in its wake, new and even more perplexing shadows.
+Presently a door slammed, and I distinctly heard footsteps cross the
+hall and begin to ascend the stairs.
+
+"It was now for the first time that terror laid hold of me, but the
+fascination of it was so compelling that I lowered my head over the
+balustrade to listen. I tried to reason the thing out. Why, I asked
+myself, should these footsteps alarm me? What was it that made them
+different from other footsteps? Surely there was no difference.
+And yet, if that were so, why was I certain that they were not the
+footsteps of any trespasser from outside? I debated earnestly,
+desperately, but could arrive at no other conclusion than that there
+was a difference, and that this difference did not lie in the sounds
+themselves, but in the sense of atmosphere they conveyed, an atmosphere
+that was peculiarly subtle and quite incompatible with the natural. At
+last I knew for certain that the sounds were superphysical, and yet
+such was my dread of the Unknown that I fought most frantically against
+my convictions.
+
+"The steps had, by this time, so I calculated, reached the first
+landing, and I now noticed in them a cautiousness that I had not
+remarked before. What should I see? There was still time for
+flight, but whither could I go? Behind me were a row of half-open
+doors, through which the sun, sinking fast, shone its last rays.
+The effect--a sad one--forcibly reminded me of the end of all
+things--death; and the sadness of it harmonised well with an air of
+silent expectation that seemed suddenly to have filled the whole
+house. My fears grew. I was certain that the oncoming footsteps could
+only emanate from a phantom of the most startling and terrifying
+description, and I bitterly repented of my rashness in coming to the
+house alone. With a supreme effort, I averted my gaze and turned to
+seek refuge in one mad headlong plunge, should there be no other
+haven, through a window; but the power to do so was denied me. I was
+paralysed. The steps came nearer, and now, some distance below me,
+moving rapidly up the staircase, came something bright. I watched it
+pass swiftly round one bend, and then another, and at the moment my
+suspense had reached its limit and I felt I was on the border-line of
+either death or insanity, it turned the last corner and shot fully into
+view. The reaction was then so great that I reeled back against the
+wall and burst out laughing. Instead of some distorted semblance of
+humanity, instead of some grotesque, semi-animal elemental, something
+too grim and devilish for the mind to conceive and survive, I saw--a
+child: a girl of about twelve, dressed in the most becoming frock of
+soft white satin, high in the waist, and from thence falling in folds
+to her feet. She had long bright golden hair hanging in loose curls on
+either side of her low white forehead; delicately pencilled eyebrows
+that were slightly knit, and wide open blue-grey eyes that were
+fixed on me with an expression of the gravest anxiety, mingled with
+a something enigmatical, something sorely puzzling and with which I
+seemed to be familiar. Again and again I have tried to diagnose it, and
+at times the solution has seemed very near; but it has always eluded me
+in the end, and the mystery is still as great and as poignant as ever.
+The child held a leash in one hand, whilst she stretched out the other
+confidingly towards me.
+
+"Always a worshipper of beauty, I was stooping down to kiss her little
+hand, when, to my consternation, she abruptly vanished, and I found
+myself standing there--alone.
+
+"An intense sadness now seized me, and throwing myself on the floor I
+gave way to an attack of utter dejection. The vision I had just seen
+was in very deed the embodiment of all my boyhood's dreams, and for
+the moment, but only for the moment, my old self, a little pensive boy
+adoring heart and soul a girl's fair face, had lived again.
+
+"It was all too cruelly brief; for with the vision my old ego vanished
+too; and I felt--I knew it had been wrested from me and hurried to some
+far-off place where the like of my present self could not be admitted.
+I rose at length chilled and hopeless, and tearing myself away from
+the landing with a desperate effort, wandered home. I could not rest.
+An intense dissatisfaction with myself, with my whole mode of life,
+my surroundings, obsessed me. I longed to alter, to become something
+different, something unsophisticated, simple, even elementary. This
+change in me brought me into closer sympathy with Ghoul, who, as I
+have said, was strangely altered himself. He avoided Darnton with the
+most marked persistence, and was always hovering round my doorstep and
+lying on the lawn. At last one day I could stand it no longer. 'Ghoul,'
+I said, 'the same yearning possesses us both. It's the child--the
+child with the lovely eyes. We must see her. You and I are rivals, old
+fellow. But never mind! We'll visit the house together and let her take
+her choice. Come along!'
+
+"Ghoul's joy on entering the garden of Barcombe House knew no bounds.
+He tore in at the gate, capered across the grass, barked, whined,
+wagged his tail furiously, and behaved like the veriest of lunatics.
+Gaining admittance into the house as easily as before, I quickly made
+my way to the third-floor landing, Ghoul darting up the stairs ahead
+of me. Without a moment's pause he bolted into a room immediately in
+front of us, and springing on to the sill of a large casement window
+that was wide open, peered eagerly out, exhibiting, as he did so, the
+wildest manifestation of excitement. Following the direction of his
+eyes, I looked down into the garden, and there, gazing up at us, her
+curls shining gold in the hot summer sun, stood the little ghost. The
+moment she saw me, she smiled, and, moving forward with a peculiar
+gliding motion, entered the house. Once again a door slammed, and, once
+again, there came the patter of ascending footsteps. Ghoul ran to meet
+her. She stooped over him, patted his head and fastened the leash to
+his collar, whilst I, merely a spectator, felt the bitterest pangs of
+jealousy. Then she looked up, and instantly the joy in her face was
+converted into pity--pity for me. Without a doubt Ghoul had triumphed.
+
+"Still patting him on the head and urging him forward, she ran past me,
+and, mounting the window sill, glanced round at me with a mischievous
+smile. Even then I did not comprehend the full significance of her
+action. I merely stood and stared--stared as if I would never grow
+tired of staring, so fascinated was I by the piquante beauty of that
+superhuman little face. I was still staring when she put one foot
+through the open window; still staring when the other foot followed;
+still staring when she waved her hand gleefully at me and sprang
+out--out into the sunny brightness of the hot summer noon. I thought
+of Ghoul. He had sprung, too. Sprung barking and whining with a joy
+unequalled.
+
+"I ran to look for him. He lay where he had fallen, his neck broken and
+his spirit fled.
+
+"Darnton, of course, would not believe me. We had a stormy interview,
+and we have never spoken to one another since.
+
+"The house--Barcombe House--is now let, and the occupants inform me
+that they have never once been troubled--at least not by ghosts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DRESSING-ROOM
+
+CASES OF HAUNTINGS AT THE PRINCE REGENT AND OTHER THEATRES
+
+
+The idea of a theatre being haunted--a theatre where everything is
+bright and everyone full of life--must, for the moment, strike one as
+preposterous. Why, the mere thought of the footlights, to say nothing
+of the clapping of hands and thunders of applause from the Gods,
+conjures up a picture which is the very antithesis of ghosts. Besides,
+why should a theatre be haunted? To be haunted, a place must have a
+history--someone must have committed a crime there, such as murder
+or suicide; and surely no such thing has ever happened in a theatre!
+Imagine a murder, a real one, at Drury Lane, or a suicide, say, at the
+Gaiety! Why, the thing is monstrous, absurd! And as to a ghost--a _bona
+fide_ ghost--appearing on the stage or in the auditorium, why, such an
+idea is without rhyme or reason; it is, in fact, inconceivable, and the
+public--the all-wise public--would, of course, laugh it to scorn.
+
+But stop a moment. Does the general public know everything? Is not the
+theatre, to it, simply the stage, and is it not profoundly ignorant
+of all that lies beyond the stage--away back, behind the hidden wings?
+Is it not profoundly ignorant, also, of the great basement below the
+stage with its dark and tortuous passages; and profoundly ignorant of
+the many flights of cold and carpetless stairs, leading to story upon
+story of seemingly never-ending dressing-rooms and corridors? What
+does it know, too, of the individual lives of the many generations of
+actors and actresses, call-boys and dressers who have toiled wearily up
+those stairs and along those dimly lit passages in between the acts?
+what does it know of the thoughts of all that host of bygones--of
+their terrible anxieties, their loves, their passions? what does it
+know of the tragedies with which, doubtless, many of these people have
+been intimately associated, and of the crowd of ghosts they have,
+wittingly or unwittingly, brought with them from their own homes?--for
+ghosts, even as they haunt houses, haunt people and mercilessly attach
+themselves to them. Moreover, although they have long since been
+forgotten, tragedies have occurred in some of the oldest of the London
+theatres. Hunt up the records of eighty and ninety years ago, and
+you will find that more than one dressing-room witnessed the tragic
+ending of some lesser star, some member of the crowd, a mere "walker
+on"; that duels were not infrequently fought in grim earnest on the
+boards; and that more than one poor super has been found hanging from a
+cobwebby beam in a remote corner of the great maze-like basement of the
+building.
+
+Again, think of the site of a London theatre! Prehistoric man or
+beast may well lie buried there; witches accused of practising their
+nefarious rites on or near that site may well have been burnt there.
+
+Think, too, of the houses that once may have stood there! Inns, with
+dark tell-tale stains on their boards; taverns, tainted with vice--the
+rendezvous of truculent swashbucklers and painted jades; and even more
+terrible still, cruel and ghastly slaughter-houses.
+
+Ground, then, and houses alike, all may have had their hauntings; and
+the ghosts may have stayed on, as ghosts often do, haunting anew each
+successive building. Yes, more than one London theatre is haunted--and
+several of these theatres have more than one ghost.
+
+The proprietors affect ignorance and of course tell you nothing. They
+like to see long queues of people waiting for admission to their show,
+but they have no desire to see a corresponding crowd at the box office
+seeking permission to sit up all night in the theatre to see the ghost.
+No, if you want to find out if a theatre is haunted, you must not
+apply to the proprietor, you must inquire of the actors themselves;
+and, in order to stand a really good chance of discovering the truth,
+you should, if possible, for a time become one of them. It was for the
+purpose of making such a discovery that I took it into my head one day
+last year to apply for a walk on at the Mercury. I had often wondered
+if the Mercury was haunted. I speedily found out that it was not.
+Still, I was not altogether disappointed, for I learned from some of
+my fellow-walkers on and from one of the stage hands of several very
+interesting cases of hauntings at other of the London theatres. There
+is the Prince Regent's, for instance, which, as recently as the late
+nineties had a dressing-room, 25, that was always kept locked. It was
+in the autumn of 1897 that John W. Mayhewe was engaged to play a small
+but rather important part there in _The Merciful Pirate_. The cast was
+an unusually large one, and Mayhewe discovered that he had to share
+dressing-room 25 with another actor called Talbotson. The opening night
+of the play, however, Talbotson was laid up with influenza, and Mayhewe
+had room 25 to himself. Being one of those over-anxious people who err
+on the side of being ultra-punctual, he arrived at the theatre at least
+an hour before the curtain went up, and, on the way to his room, he
+paused to chat with the stage doorkeeper.
+
+"I noticed," he remarked, "when I was dressing for rehearsal yesterday
+that my room smelt very musty. Isn't it often used?"
+
+"It hasn't been used since I've been here," was the reply.
+
+"Why?" said Mayhewe.
+
+"I can't tell you," the doorkeeper answered surlily. "If you want to
+know, you had better ask the stage manager."
+
+Not caring to do this, Mayhewe made no further remarks, but hastened
+upstairs. No one was about, and the noise of his footsteps sounded
+strangely loud in the silent emptiness of the passages. He entered
+his room at last, hung his coat and hat on the door, and, crossing to
+his seat in front of a small mirror, sat down. "After all," he said
+to himself, "I'm glad Talbotson won't be here to-night. I'm not in a
+mood for talking, and the fellow bores me to distraction." He lit a
+cigarette, leaned back in a more comfortable attitude, and for some
+minutes allowed himself to revel in the luxury of a perfectly blank
+state of mind. Suddenly the handle of the door turned--a solitary,
+isolated sound--and he sat up sharply in his chair. "Who's there?" he
+shouted. There was no response. "I couldn't have latched it properly,"
+he reasoned, and once again he leaned back in his chair and smoked.
+Five or six minutes passed in this fashion, and he was thinking of
+beginning to dress, when there was another noise. Something behind him
+fell on the floor with a loud flop.
+
+Once again he turned swiftly round. It was his hat--a hard felt bowler.
+It had fallen from the door peg on which he had hung it, and was still
+feebly oscillating.
+
+"It is curious how one sometimes notices all these little things," he
+reflected. "I dare say door handles have turned and hats have fallen
+a thousand times when I might have heard them and haven't. I suppose
+it is because everything is so very quiet and I'm alone in this part
+of the building." Then he glanced at his coat--a long, double-breasted
+ulster--and rubbed his eyes thoughtfully. "Why," he exclaimed, "what a
+curious shape the thing has taken! It's swelled out just as if someone
+were inside it. Or has my eyesight suddenly gone wrong?" He leaned
+forward and examined it closely. No. He was not mistaken. The coat was
+no longer untenanted. There was something inside it--something which
+filled it like he had done; but it was something to which he could
+ascribe no name. He could see it there, and mentally feel that it was
+peering at him with eyes full of the most jibing mockery and hate;
+but he could not define it. It was something quite outside his ken,
+something with which he had had no previous acquaintance. He tried to
+whistle and appear nonchalant, but it was of no avail. The coat--his
+coat--had something in it, and that something was staring back at him.
+What a fool he had been to come so early. At last, with a supreme
+effort, he took his eyes from the door, and, swinging round in his
+chair, resumed smoking. He sat thus for some moments, and then a board
+close behind him creaked.
+
+Of course there is nothing in a creak--boards and furniture are always
+creaking, and most people attribute the creaking to a change in the
+temperature. So did Mayhewe. "The room is beginning to get warm--the
+gas has heated it," he said; "that is why." Still he gradually lowered
+his eyes, and when they rested on the mirror in front of him, he gave
+the barest suspicion of a start. In the mirror were reflected the door
+and the coat, but the latter hung quite limply now. There was nothing
+whatever filling it out.
+
+What in Heaven's name had become of the thing? Where had it got to?
+Close beside Mayhewe was the grate, and a sudden rustling in it,
+followed by a hurried descent of soot, made him laugh outright. The
+explanation was now so very simple. The wind was responsible for it
+all--for the door handle, the hat, the coat, and the creak. How truly
+ridiculous! He would dress. With that object in view he threw the
+end of his cigarette in the fender and, rising, was about to quit
+his seat, when his eyes fell on his gloves. He had thrown them quite
+carelessly on the wash-stand, almost immediately in front of him, and
+he had noticed nothing remarkable about them then. But now--surely it
+could not be the wind this time; there were hands in them, and these
+hands were strangely unlike his own. Whereas his fingers had blunt,
+spatulate tips, the tops of these fingers were curved and pointed like
+the talons of some cruel beast of prey, and the palms were much longer
+and narrower than his own. He stared at them, too fascinated to do
+otherwise, and it seemed to him that they shifted their position and
+came nearer to him, with a slow, stealthy, silent motion, like that of
+some monstrous spider creeping murderously towards its helpless victim.
+He watched them for some moments quite motionless, and then, yielding
+to a sudden fit of ungovernable fury, he threw his tobacco pouch at the
+nearest.
+
+It rolled convulsively over on its back after the manner of some living
+stricken creature, and then, gradually reassuming its shape, stealthily
+began once more to approach him. At last his nerves could stand it no
+longer. A demoniacal passion to smash, burn, torture it seized him,
+and, springing to his feet, he picked up his chair, and, swinging
+it round his head, brought it down with the utmost frenzy on the
+wash-stand. He was looking at his handiwork--the broken china, chair
+legs, and gas shade--when the door of his room opened and the call-boy
+timidly entered.
+
+Mayhewe kept the stage waiting some minutes that night, but the
+management did not abuse him nearly so violently as he had anticipated,
+and the next evening he was allotted another room.
+
+Then it transpired, leaked out through one of the old supers who had
+worked at the theatre for years, that room 25 had always borne the
+name of being haunted, and that, excepting in circumstances such as
+the present, it had invariably been kept locked. Some two years ago,
+according to the old super, when just such another emergency had
+occurred and the room had been used, the same thing had happened: the
+gentleman who had been put there had been seized with a sudden fit of
+madness, and had broken everything he could lay hands on; and some
+time before that a similar experience had befallen an actress who had
+unavoidably--there being no other room available--occupied room 25.
+
+Now had Mayhewe not heard of these two cases, he might have concluded,
+in spite of feeling sure that he had been in a normal state of mind
+upon entering the room, that what he had gone through was due merely
+to an over-excited imagination; but since he now knew that others had
+witnessed the same phenomena, he saw no reason to doubt that there
+was some peculiarly sinister influence attached to the room. As to
+the cause of the haunting, he could elicit nothing more authentic or
+definite than the somewhat vague recollections of a very old actor.
+According to this rather doubtful authority, shortly after the opening
+of the theatre, one of the performers had suddenly developed madness
+and had been confined in room 25 till a suitable escort had been
+found to take him to an asylum. It was the only tragic occurrence, he
+asserted, that had ever taken place in that theatre. Now, supposing
+this to be true--that a madman really had been conducted from the stage
+to room 25 and temporarily confined there--might one not reasonably
+believe that in this incident lay the origin of the hauntings? It was
+in this room, in all probability, that the outbreak of madness passed
+its most acute stage--that psychological stage when the rational ego
+makes its last desperate stand against the overwhelming assault of
+a new and diseased self. And again--supposing this incident to be a
+fact--what more likely than that the immaterial insane ego of the
+afflicted man would, at times, separate itself from his material body
+and revisit the scene of its terrible conflict, permanently taking up
+its abode there after its material body had passed away? This theory--a
+very possible one, to my mind--would have strong support from parallel
+cases, for half the most malignant forms of haunting are directly
+traceable to the earth-bound spirits of the insane. There are several
+houses within a short walking distance of Bond Street that were once
+the temporary homes of mentally afflicted people, and they are now
+haunted in a more or less similar manner to room 25.
+
+If this story of the old actor's is not correct--if his memory played
+him false--then of course one must look around for some other solution;
+and as, apparently, there is no history attached to the Prince Regent
+Theatre itself, one must assume either that the site of the theatre
+was haunted prior to the erection of the present building; or that the
+ghost was originally attached to some person who once occupied room 25,
+and that it subsequently left that person and remained in the room; or
+that some article of furniture in room 25, possibly even a fixture,
+was imported there from some badly haunted locality. There is, indeed,
+evidence regarding the first point; evidence that, either on or close
+to the site of the theatre, the remains of prehistoric animals--animals
+of a singularly savage species, which makes it more than likely that
+they met with a violent death--were unearthed; and as ghostly phenomena
+in the form of animals are quite as common as ghostly phenomena in
+the form of human beings, the hauntings of room 25 may very possibly
+be due to the spirit of one or more of these creatures. Or again,
+they might be caused by what is generally known as a Vice Elemental,
+or "Neutrarian"; that is to say, a spirit that has never inhabited a
+material body, but which is wholly hostile to the human species. Such
+spirits are often, I believe, drawn to certain spots by the lustful or
+malicious thoughts of individuals, and this might well be the case at
+the Prince Regent's Theatre.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was also during my engagement at the Mercury that I heard of a
+haunting at the Lombard. This theatre, it appears, has a ghostly
+visitant in the form of a particularly malevolent-looking clown.
+
+According to one report, a lady and her daughter--Mrs. and Miss
+Dawkins--occupied box 3 one January night during the run of an
+exceedingly pretty modern version of _Cinderella_.
+
+The lights were down and all eyes were focused on Cinderella, one of
+the prettiest and daintiest little actresses in London, dressed in pink
+and sitting before a very realistic make-belief of a kitchen fire,
+when Miss Dawkins, who had her elbows resting on the balustrade and
+was leaning well forward, heard a faint ejaculation from close beside
+her. Fearing lest her mother was ill, she turned sharply round, and was
+somewhat surprised to see that Mrs. Dawkins had left her seat and was
+leaning against the wall of the box with her arms folded and a most
+satirical smile on her face. Both the attitude and the expression were
+so entirely novel that Miss Dawkins could only conclude that her mother
+had suddenly taken leave of her senses; and she was deliberating what
+to do, when a feeling that a sudden metamorphosis was about to take
+place held her spellbound. Bit by bit her mother seemed to fade away,
+to melt into the background; the dim outline and the general posture
+remained, but instead of the actual body and well-known face, she
+saw something else gradually begin to form and to usurp their place.
+Her mother had very delicate and beautifully shaped hands, but these
+vanished, and the hands Miss Dawkins now looked on were large and red
+and coarse--horribly coarse. Fearful of what she might see next, but
+totally unable to fight against some strange, controlling agency, she
+continued to look. First, her eyes rested on a pair of sleeves--white,
+baggy, and soiled; then on a broad, deep chest, also clad in white
+and decorated in the most fantastic manner conceivable in the centre;
+then on a short, immensely thick neck; and then on the face. The shock
+she now received was acute. Instinct had prepared her for something
+very startling, but for nothing quite so grotesque, nor so wholly
+at variance with the general atmosphere of the theatre. It was the
+painted, crinkled face of a clown--not a merry, jesting grimaldi, but
+a clown of a different type--a clown without a smile--a clown born
+and fully trained to his business in Hell. As he stood there glaring
+at the footlights, every feature, every atom of his person breathed
+out hate--hate of a nature so noxious and intense that it seemed to
+Miss Dawkins as if the very air were poisoned by it. Being a devout
+Catholic, she at once crossed herself and, although almost powerless
+with horror, began to pray. The face then faded till it entirely
+disappeared, and Miss Dawkins once again found herself gazing upon the
+well-known countenance of her mother.
+
+"Why are you standing?" she asked.
+
+"I am sure I don't know," Mrs. Dawkins replied. "But I don't like this
+box. I think there is something very unpleasant about it. I haven't
+been myself for the last few minutes. When I was sitting by you just
+now, I suddenly became obsessed with a bitter hatred against everyone
+on the stage. The very sight of them maddened me. It seemed to me I
+had met them all in a former existence and that they had done me some
+irreparable injury. I got up and began to plot how I could best get
+even with them. Then the idea of setting fire to the theatre seized me.
+I had clear visions of a small, dimly lighted room, with which I was
+strangely familiar, down below the stage in a dark, draughty basement.
+I knew every inch of the place as if I had lived there all my life.
+'I will go there,' I said to myself, 'and apply a match. If anyone
+sees me, no one will suspect. They will only say, "It's old Tom. He
+didn't get the chuck after all. He's come back."' I was repeating the
+words 'It's old Tom,' and 'Fire,' when something seemed to strike me
+very forcibly on the forehead. This caused me the greatest agony for a
+moment. Then you spoke, and I was myself again."
+
+"Would you like to go home?" Miss Dawkins asked anxiously.
+
+"I think I would," was the response. And they went.
+
+Subsequently, a few judicious inquiries elicited no little light on the
+matter.
+
+Many years before, an old actor, called Tom Weston, had been employed
+annually in pantomime at the Lombard as clown. Like so many of his
+profession, however, particularly the older ones, he took to drink;
+and he was so often intoxicated on the stage that the management were
+at last obliged to dismiss him. He took his dismissal very badly, and
+one night, having gone to the theatre in disguise, he was discovered
+in the act of setting fire to a room immediately beneath the stage.
+In consideration for his many years' service and age, the management
+did not prosecute, but recommended his friends to keep him under close
+supervision. Tom, however, very soon ceased to cause the management
+any anxiety, for, two days after he had attempted, in so diabolical
+a manner, to wreak his vengeance on all who had been associated with
+him at the theatre, he shot himself dead in his own home. But on every
+anniversary of his death, so it is affirmed, he is either seen or
+heard, or his presence is in some way demonstrated, in box 3 of the
+Lombard Theatre. That his spirit should frequent that particular spot
+in the theatre seems to be a fact for which no reason can be assigned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE RETICULE
+
+
+Between Norwich and Swaffham, low down in a little valley, there once
+stood a mill. It is now a ruin, and all the people round studiously
+avoid it after nightfall. It must be admitted that they have some
+reason for doing so in view of the incidents I am about to relate.
+
+Some years ago on an early autumn afternoon two ladies, Miss Smith and
+Miss Raven, fashion designers to the firm of Kirsome & Gooting, Sloane
+Street, London, set out from Norwich for a tramp into the country. Both
+girls--for they were only girls--were typically modern; that is to say,
+they were bonny and athletic, and, despite the sedentary nature of
+their vocation, extremely fond of outdoor life. Miss Raven, the elder
+of the two, was nice-looking without perhaps being actually pretty;
+but Miss Smith was undeniably a beauty. Had she been a lady of title
+or an actress, all the society papers would have been full of her.
+She did not, however, crave for notoriety; she was quite content with
+the homage of most of the young men whom she knew, and the unspoken
+admiration of many men whom she did not know, but who looked at her
+out of doors or sat near to her in theatres and restaurants.
+
+She was much attached to Miss Raven, and as the two strode along,
+swinging their arms, their tongues wagged merrily and without
+intermission. On and on, down one hill and up another, past wood and
+brook and hamlet they went, till a gradual fading of the light warned
+them it was about time to think of turning back.
+
+"We must go as far as that old ruin," Miss Raven said, pointing to a
+tumble-down white building that nestled close to a winding stream.
+"I've never seen anything quite so picturesque."
+
+"And I've never seen anything quite so weird," Miss Smith replied. "I'm
+not at all sure I like it. Besides, I'm desperately thirsty. I want my
+tea. We'd much better go home."
+
+They had an argument, and it was eventually agreed that they should go
+on--but not beyond a certain point. "Not an inch farther, mind," Miss
+Smith said, "or I'll turn back and leave you."
+
+The ruin lay in a hollow, and as the two girls descended the slope
+leading to it, a mist rose from the ground as if to greet them. They
+quickened their steps, and, approaching nearer, perceived a mill
+wheel--the barest skeleton, crowned with moss and ferns and dripping
+with slime. The pool into which it dripped was overgrown in places with
+reeds and chickweed, but was singularly bare and black in the centre,
+and suggestive of very great depth. Weeping willows bordered the
+stream, and their sloping, stunted forms were gradually growing more
+and more indistinct in the oncoming mist.
+
+The space in front of the house, once, no doubt, a prettily cultivated
+garden, was now full of rank grass and weeds, and dotted here and there
+with unsightly mounds consisting of fallen bricks and mortar. Some of
+these mounds, long, low, and narrow, were unpleasantly suggestive of
+graves, whilst the atmosphere of the place, the leaden-hued and mystic
+atmosphere, charged to the utmost with the smell of decayed trees and
+mouldy walls, might well have been that of an ancient churchyard.
+
+A sense of insufferable gloom, utterly different from any they had ever
+before experienced, took possession of the two girls.
+
+"This place depresses me horribly. I don't know when I've felt so sad,"
+Miss Smith observed. "It's very stupid of me, I know, but I can't help
+thinking some great tragedy must have taken place here."
+
+"I feel rather like that too," Miss Raven responded. "I've never seen
+such dreariness. Do you see those shadows on the water? How strange
+they are! There's nothing that I can see to account for them. There's
+certainly nothing the least like them in the sedge. Besides, there
+oughtn't to be any shadows there. There are none anywhere else. Look!
+Oh, do look! They are changing. They are completely different now.
+See, I'll throw a stone at them." Her throw, missing its mark, was so
+characteristically girlish that Miss Smith, despite her leanings to
+suffragism, laughed. Miss Raven threw again, and this time a deep
+plomb announced her success. "There," she cried triumphantly. "Now do
+you see it?"
+
+"I see something," Miss Smith answered. Then, with sudden eagerness:
+"Yes, you are right. The shadows are continually changing. They seem
+to separate themselves from the sedge, and fall like live things into
+the pool. By the way, the pool seems to be growing darker and bigger. I
+don't like the place at all. For Heaven's sake let's get away from it!"
+
+Miss Raven, however, was too fascinated. Stepping carefully, so as to
+avoid the mud and long grass, she went right up to the pool and peered
+into it.
+
+"How fearfully deep and still it is," she said. "What a beastly place
+to end one's days in." Then she gave a sudden cry. "Aileen! Here! Come
+here, quick!"
+
+Miss Smith hastened up to her. "What is it?" she said. "How you
+frightened me!"
+
+Miss Raven pointed excitedly at the water. It was no longer tranquil.
+The chickweed round the edges began to oscillate, white bubbles formed
+in the centre, and then, quite suddenly, the entire surface became a
+seething, hissing, rushing, roaring whirlpool, which commenced rising
+in the most hideous and menacing manner. Seizing Miss Raven by the
+arm, Miss Smith dragged her back, and the two fled in terror. The fog,
+however, was so thick that they missed their way. They failed to strike
+the road, and, instead, found themselves plunging deeper and deeper
+into a fearful quagmire of mud and the rankest compound of rushes,
+weeds, and grass.
+
+They were just despairing of ever extricating themselves when Miss
+Smith felt a light tap on her shoulder, and swinging round, was almost
+startled out of her senses at the sight of a very white face glaring at
+her. Miss Raven, noticing that her companion had stopped, also turned
+round; and she too received a shock. The face she saw was so very
+white; the eyes--intently fixed on Miss Smith--so strangely luminous;
+the head--covered with red, shaggy hair--so disproportionately
+large; and the figure--that of a hunchback youth--as a whole so
+extraordinarily grotesque.
+
+He made no sound, but, signing to them to follow him, he began to
+move away with a queer, shambling gait. The girls, thankful enough
+to have found a guide, however strange, kept close at his heels, and
+soon found themselves once again on the roadway. Here their conductor
+came to a halt, and producing from under his coat what looked like a
+lady's reticule, he was about to thrust it into Miss Smith's hand when
+their eyes met, and, to her intense astonishment, he uttered a bitter
+cry of disappointment and vanished. His action and disappearance were
+so inexplicable that the girls, completely demoralised, took to their
+heels and ran without stopping till the ruins were far in their rear,
+and they were well on their way home.
+
+They related their experience to the people with whom they were
+staying, and were then told for the first time that the ruin was well
+known to be haunted. "Nothing will persuade any of the villagers to
+visit the mill pond after dusk," their hostess remarked, "especially at
+this time of the year, when they declare the water suddenly rises and
+follows them. The place has a most sinister reputation, and certainly
+several people, to my knowledge, have committed suicide there. The last
+to do so was Davy Dyer, the hunchback, whose ghost you must have just
+seen. His was rather a sad case, as I have good reason to know. Would
+you like to hear it?"
+
+The girls eagerly assented, and their hostess told them as follows:
+
+"Ten years ago there stood on the spot you visited this afternoon a
+very picturesque house called the 'Gyp Mill.' It was then extremely
+old, and as its foundations were faulty, it was thought a severe storm
+would, sooner or later, completely demolish it. Partly for this reason,
+and partly because the mill pool was said to be haunted, it stood for
+a long time untenanted. At last it was taken by a widow named Dyer.
+Mrs. Dyer was quite a superior kind of person. She had at one time, I
+believe, kept a fairly good class girls' school in Bury St. Edmunds,
+but losing her connection through illness, she had been obliged to
+think of some other means of gaining a livelihood. When she came to the
+Gyp Mill she cultivated the garden and sold its produce; provided teas
+for picnic parties in the summer; and let out rooms, chiefly to artists.
+
+"She had one son, Davy, a very intelligent boy of about eighteen,
+but hopelessly deformed. He was not only hunchbacked but he had an
+abnormally large head; and what was quite unpardonable in the eyes
+of the village children, who tormented him shamefully, a mass of the
+brightest red hair.
+
+"Well, one day, a girl whom I will call Beryl Denver, came to stay with
+me. Beryl was extremely pretty and horribly spoilt. She had gone on the
+stage against her parents' wishes and had been an immediate success. At
+the time I am speaking of she had just had an offer of marriage from a
+duke, and it was to hear what I had to say about it--for I am, I think,
+the only person from whom she ever asks advice--that she was paying
+me this visit. After being with me three days, however, and changing
+her mind with regard to the duke's offer at least a dozen times, she
+suddenly announced that she must seek some more countrified place to
+stay in. 'I want to go right away from everywhere,' she said, 'so that
+I can forget--forget that there is such a place as London. Don't you
+know of any pretty cottage or picturesque old farm, near here, that I
+could stay at?'
+
+"I suggested the Gyp Mill, and she started off at once to look at it.
+
+"She came back full of enthusiasm. 'It's a delightful spot,' she said.
+'I'm glad I went to see it--the flowers are lovely, and the old woman's
+a dear--but I couldn't stay there. I couldn't stand that hunchback son
+of hers. His white face and big dark eyes alarmed me horribly. I don't
+think it's at all right he should be at large.'
+
+"'Poor Davy,' I remarked. 'His appearance is certainly against him, but
+I can assure you he is absolutely harmless. I know him well.'
+
+"Beryl shook her head. 'You know my views, Aunty,' she said (she always
+calls me Aunty although I am not related to her in any way). 'All
+ugly people have a kink of badness in them somewhere. They must be
+either cruel, or spiteful, or treacherous, or, in some way or other,
+evilly disposed. I am quite certain that looks reflect the mind. No, I
+couldn't endure that boy. I can't stay there.'
+
+"In the morning, however, as I had fully anticipated, she changed her
+mind. A fly was sent for, and she drove off to the Gyp Mill, taking all
+her luggage with her. How Mrs. Dyer ever got it up her narrow staircase
+I can't think, but she must have managed it somehow, for Beryl stayed
+and, contrary to my expectations, for more than one night.
+
+"Davy, she afterwards informed me, soon got on her nerves. Always when
+she went out she caught him covertly peeping at her from behind the
+window curtain of the little front parlour; and if ever she stood for
+a moment to chat with his mother, she could see him slyly watching her
+through a chink in the doorway. She had seldom, so far, met him out of
+doors; but as she was returning from a walk one afternoon, she came
+across a group of village children shouting at and jostling someone
+very roughly in their midst, and approaching nearer saw that the
+object of their abuse was Davy, and that, in addition to pushing and
+pummelling him, they were tormenting him with stinging nettles--a very
+favourite device of the children in this district. Filled with disgust,
+rather than pity (Beryl, like most modern girls, is wanting in real
+sentiment, and in this instance simply hated to think that anyone could
+derive amusement from so ungainly a creature), she interfered.
+
+"'You abominable little wretches!' she cried. 'Leave him alone at once.
+Do you hear?'
+
+"Had a bomb fallen, the children could not have been more surprised.
+One or two of the boys were inclined to be rude, but on the rest the
+effect of Beryl's looks and clothes (the latter in particular) was
+magical. Gazing at her open-mouthed, they drew back and allowed Davy to
+continue his way.
+
+"After this, Davy peeped more than ever, and Beryl, losing patience,
+determined to put a stop to it. Catching him in the act of following
+her through the fields one morning, she turned on him in a fury.
+
+"'How dare you?' she demanded. 'How dare you annoy me like this? Go
+home at once.'
+
+"'This is my home, lady,' Davy replied, his eyes on the ground and his
+cheeks crimson.
+
+"'Then you must choose some other route,' Beryl retorted; 'and for
+goodness' sake don't be everlastingly looking at me. I can't stand
+it. No wonder those children rounded on you, you----' She was going
+to call him some very strong name--for Beryl when roused didn't stick
+at trifles--but suddenly checked herself. She began to realise that
+this queer, distorted little object was in love with her. Now no girl
+in London, probably, had more admirers than Beryl. Peers, politicians,
+authors, men of all vocations and classes had succumbed to her beauty,
+and she had deemed herself pretty well blasé. But here was a novelty.
+A poor, ostracised rustic hunchback--the incarnation of ugliness and
+simplicity. 'You know how the horrible often fascinates one,' she
+said to me later, 'for instance, a nasty tooth, or some other equally
+horrible defect in a person's face, which one keeps on looking at
+however much one tries not to--well, it was a fascination of this kind
+that possessed me now. I felt I must see more of the hunchback and egg
+him on to the utmost.'
+
+"Apparently it was owing to this fascination that Beryl, changing her
+tactics, encouraged Davy to talk to her, and assuming an interest in
+the garden, which she knew was his one hobby, gradually drew him out.
+Very shy and embarrassed at first, he could only very briefly answer
+her questions; but soon deceived by her manner--for Beryl could act
+just as cleverly off the stage as on it--he grew bolder, and talked
+well on his favourite subject, natural history. He really knew a
+great deal, and Beryl, despite the fact that she could hardly tell
+the difference between a hollyhock and marigold, couldn't help being
+impressed.
+
+"She walked home with him that day; and for days afterwards she was
+often to be seen in his company.
+
+"'He'll miss you dreadfully when you go, ma'am,' Mrs. Dyer said to
+her. 'He thinks the world of you. He told me last night that he only
+wished he could do something to show you how grateful he is for your
+kindness to him.' Of course, Mrs. Dyer did not say that Davy was in
+love--but Beryl knew it. She knew that to him she was a deified being
+and that he absolutely adored her. Thus matters stood, when a letter
+from the duke made Beryl decide to leave Gyp Mill at once and return
+with all speed to London. She walked to the post office to dispatch a
+telegram, and Davy went with her. Beryl knew that this would be the
+last time, in all probability, that she would ever walk with him; and
+feeling that she must find out how far his love for her had progressed
+she agreed to his proposal that they should return home by a rather
+longer route. He wished, he said, to show her a garden which was by
+far the prettiest in all the country round, and it would not take
+them more than a quarter of a mile or so out of their way. Of course
+Beryl looked upon this suggestion as a mere pretext on Davy's part for
+prolonging the walk, and she wondered whether he would say anything,
+or whether his passion would be held in check by his natural respect
+for her superior social position. She was disappointed. Although she
+saw love for her shining more brightly than ever in his eyes, he did
+not speak of it; he talked only of flowers and of the great beauties
+of nature. Bored to distraction, she at last cut him short, and,
+declaring that she had no time to waste, hurried on. It was not until
+they had reached home that she discovered she had lost her reticule,
+containing not only a purse full of sovereigns but the letter she had
+just received from the duke. She distinctly remembered having it with
+her, she said, when Davy was prosing over the stupid flowers, and she
+supposed she must have left it somewhere in the garden, probably on
+the seat where they had sat for a few minutes. Davy, of course, went
+back at once to look for it, but when he returned an hour or so later
+and in crestfallen tones told her that he could not find it, her anger
+knew no bounds. She did not actually call him a fool, but she made him
+clearly understand she thought him one; and he set off again almost
+immediately to have another look for it. He did not come back this time
+till close on midnight, and he had not the courage to tell her of his
+failure. His mother did it for him. Beryl went away early the following
+morning, too indignant to shake hands with either Mrs. Dyer or her son.
+'If Davy didn't actually take the reticule,' she wrote to me some days
+later, 'it was all owing to him--to his bothering me to see that rotten
+garden--that I lost it; but I firmly believe he has it. Ugly faces, you
+know, are indicative of ugly minds--of a bad kink somewhere.'
+
+"Of course the affair of the reticule soon became public property.
+It was advertised for in the local papers, and the woman in the post
+office told everybody that she remembered seeing it in Beryl's hand
+when she left the shop. 'Davy,' she said, 'was with Miss Denver at the
+time, and I particularly noticed that he walked very close to her and
+watched her in a peculiarly furtive manner.'
+
+"Now the villagers, with whom the Dyers had always been unpopular, were
+not slow in taking up the cue, and consequently Davy, now waylaid by
+armies of children calling him thief, and even beating him, never had a
+moment's peace.
+
+"At last he was found one morning in the mill-pond drowned, and it
+was generally believed that remorse for his sins had made him commit
+suicide. His mother alone thought otherwise. I did not see Beryl nor
+hear anything of her for at least two years after Davy's death, when
+to my surprise she drove up to the door one day with her usual pile of
+luggage.
+
+"'Who is it this time?' I said, after we had exchanged greetings. 'The
+duke again!'
+
+"'Oh dear no,' Beryl replied. 'I broke it off definitely with him
+long ago. He was too boring for words, always dangling after me and
+never letting me go out with anyone else. If he had been tolerably
+good-looking I might have stood it, but he wasn't. He was hopelessly
+plain. However, I made some use of him, and he certainly gave me good
+presents. I have been engaged several times since, and I've come now to
+ask your advice about the Earl of C----'s eldest son. Shall I marry him
+or not? Do you think he's worth it?'
+
+"I did not answer her at once, but let her ramble on, till she suddenly
+turned to me and said, 'Do you remember the last time I was here? Two
+years ago! You know I stayed at that delightful old mill house--the
+Gyp something, and lost my reticule. Well, I found it some time
+afterwards in my hat-box. I hadn't taken it out with me that day after
+all. And I could have sworn I had. Wasn't it funny?'
+
+"'Extraordinary, perhaps,' I remarked, with rather more severity in my
+voice than I had ever used to her before, 'but hardly funny.' And I
+was about to relate to her all that had occurred in the interim, when
+something checked me. After all, I thought, it would be just as well
+for this spoilt, heartless little London actress to go to the Gyp Mill
+and find out for herself.
+
+"'Oh, I suppose I ought to have written to the people and let them
+know,' she said carelessly, 'but I was really too busy. I always have
+such lots to do. Such heaps of correspondence to attend to, and so
+many visits to make. If it's a fine day to-morrow I'll walk over and
+explain.'
+
+"I did not, of course, expect Beryl would go, but greatly to my
+surprise, soon after luncheon, she came into my bedroom in her hat and
+coat. 'I'm off,' she said. 'I think the walk will do me good. And, look
+here, don't wait dinner for me, because in all probability I'll stay
+the night. It all depends upon how I feel. If I'm not back by eight you
+need not expect me till to-morrow. Bye-bye.'
+
+"She stole to my side and kissed me, and, armed with an umbrella and
+mackintosh, set off up the street. I watched her till she turned the
+corner. Then I lay down and wondered what sort of a reception she would
+meet with at the hands of Mrs. Dyer. As the afternoon waned the sky
+grew ominously dark, and the wind rose. Presently big drops of rain
+spluttered against the window, and there was every indication of a very
+severe storm. Had Beryl been on good terms with Mrs. Dyer my mind would
+have been at rest, as she would have been able to take refuge at the
+Mill, but, knowing Mrs. Dyer's feelings towards her, I doubted very
+much if Mrs. Dyer would allow her to set foot within the house; and she
+would have some distance to walk before she could reach another shelter.
+
+"Down came the rain in grim earnest, and that night witnessed the worst
+storm Norwich had known for many years. Beryl did not return. I sat up
+till twelve wondering what had become of her--for despite this wayward
+child's many faults I was much attached to her--and slept very little
+for the rest of the night. In the morning my maid came into my room in
+a breathless state of excitement.
+
+"'Oh, mum,' she exclaimed, 'the storm has destroyed half Norfolk.'
+(This, of course, I knew to be an exaggeration.) 'What do you think!
+Simkins' Store is blowed down, nearly all the chimneypots are off in
+Fore Street, and the milkman has just told me the Gyp Mill is under
+water and Mrs. Dyer is drowned!'
+
+"'What!' I shrieked. 'The Gyp Mill under water! Are you sure? Miss
+Denver was staying there last night. Call a cab--I must go there at
+once.'
+
+"The maid flew; and I was feverishly scrambling into my clothes, when,
+to my utmost relief, in walked Beryl.
+
+"'So you've heard,' she said, looking rather pale, but otherwise quite
+composed. 'The Gyp Mill valley is under water, and old Mrs. Dyer is
+drowned. It was rather lucky for me that I didn't go there after all,
+wasn't it? Quite a narrow escape, in fact.'
+
+"'Thank God, you're safe!' I exclaimed, drawing her into my arms and
+kissing her frantically. 'Tell me all about it.'
+
+"'Oh, there isn't much to tell,' she said. 'When I got a mile or two on
+the road I found I had quite forgotten the way, so I inquired of the
+first person I met, a labourer, and he said, "When you come to the duck
+pond bear sharply to your left." Well, I trudged on and on, and I am
+sure I must have gone miles, but no duck pond; and I was beginning to
+despair of ever seeing it, when a sudden swerve in the road revealed it
+to me. The sky was very dark and threatening, and the wind--you know
+how I detest wind--sorely tried my temper. It was perfectly fiendish.
+Well, when I got to the pond I found there were two roads and I had
+quite forgotten which of them I had to take. I was standing there
+shivering, feeling horribly bored, when to my joy a figure suddenly
+hove in view. It had grown so dark that I could not make out whether
+the stranger was a man or a woman. Besides, I couldn't see a face at
+all, only a short, squat body clad in some sort of ill-fitting fustian
+garment. I shouted out, "Can you tell me the way to the Gyp Mill?" but
+could get no reply. The strange creature simply put out one hand,
+and taking the road to the right, beckoned to me to follow. Then I
+suddenly remembered that the other person--the labouring man--had told
+me to take the road to the left, and I ran after the curious-looking
+individual shouting, "The Gyp Mill.--Do you hear?--I want to go to the
+Gyp Mill. Mrs. Dyer's." Again I got no response, but the hand waved me
+on more vigorously than before.
+
+"'It was now so dark that I could hardly see where I was treading, and
+the wind was so strong that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my
+feet. I battled on, however, and after what seemed to me an eternity,
+we eventually stopped outside a building that showed a twinkling light
+in one of the windows. My conductor opened a wicket gate and, signing
+to me to follow, walked me up a narrow winding path to the front door.
+Here he halted and, turning suddenly round on me, showed his face. It
+was the Dyer boy--Davy, I think they called him. Davy the hunchback.'
+Here Beryl paused.
+
+"'Are you quite sure?' I asked.
+
+"'Absolutely,' she replied. 'I couldn't mistake him. There he
+was--with his hunchback, huge head, cheeks looking whiter than
+ever--and red hair. How I could see that it was red in the dark I
+can't tell you, but all the same I could, and moreover, the colour
+was very clear and distinct. Well, he stood and looked at me for
+some seconds beseechingly, and then said something--but so quickly I
+couldn't catch what it was. I told him so, and he repeated it, jabber,
+jabber, jabber. Then I grew angry. "Why have you brought me here?" I
+shouted. "I wanted to go to the Gyp Mill." He spoke again in the same
+incomprehensible way, and holding out his hands as if to implore my
+forgiveness, suddenly disappeared. Where he went to is a mystery. The
+rain had now begun to fall in torrents, and to attempt to go on was
+madness. Consequently, I rapped at the door and asked the woman who
+opened it if she could put me up for the night. "Yes, miss," she said.
+"We have a spare room, if you don't mind it's being rather small. The
+gentleman that has been staying here left this morning. Did anyone
+recommend you?" "Mr. Dyer brought me here," I said, "and, I believe, he
+is somewhere outside." "Mr. Dyer!" the woman exclaimed, looking at me
+in the oddest manner. "I don't know a Mr. Dyer. Who do you mean?" "Why,
+Davy Dyer," I replied, "the son of the old woman who lives at the Mill.
+Davy Dyer, the hunchback."
+
+"'Then, to my amazement, the woman caught me by the arm. "Davy Dyer,
+the hunchback!" she cried. "Why, miss, you must either be dreaming or
+mad. Davy Dyer drowned himself in the Mill pool two years ago!"'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COOMBE
+
+A CASE OF A WILTSHIRE ELEMENTAL
+
+
+People are not half particular enough about new houses. So long as
+the soil is gravel, so long as the rooms are large and airy, the
+wall-papers artistic, and there's no basement, the rest does not
+matter; at least not as a rule. Few think of ghosts or of superphysical
+influences. And yet the result of such a consideration is what would
+probably weigh most with me in selecting a newly built house. But then,
+I have had disagreeable experiences, and others I know have had them
+too.
+
+Let me quote, for example, what befell my old acquaintance,
+Fitzsimmons. Robert Fitzsimmons was for years editor of the _Daily
+Gossip_, but finally retired from the post owing to ill health. His
+doctor recommended him some quiet, restful place in the country, so he
+decided to migrate to Wiltshire. After scouring the county for some
+time, he alighted on a spot, not very far from Devizes, that attracted
+him immensely.
+
+It was prettily wooded, at least he called it prettily wooded,
+within easy walking distance of the village of Arkabye, and about a
+quarter of a mile from the site of an ancient barrow that had just
+been removed to make way for several cottages. Fitzsimmons loved
+beeches, particularly copper beeches, which he noticed flourished here
+exceedingly, and the thought of living surrounded by these trees gave
+him infinite satisfaction. He finally bought a small piece of land
+in the coombe, getting it freehold at a ridiculously low figure, and
+erected a house on it, which he called "Shane Garth" after a remote
+ancestor.
+
+The first month seems to have passed quite uneventfully. It was true
+the children, Bobbie and Jane, said they heard noises, and declared
+someone always came and tapped against their window after they were
+in bed; but Fitzsimmons attributed these disturbances to mice and
+bats with which the coombe was infested. One thing, however, greatly
+disturbed his wife and himself, and that was the naughtiness of the
+children. Prior to their coming to the new house they had been as
+good as gold and had got on extremely well together; but the change
+of surroundings seemed to have wrought in them a complete change of
+character.
+
+They were continually getting into mischief of some sort, and hardly
+a day passed that they did not quarrel and fight, and always in a
+remarkably vindictive manner. Bobbie would creep up behind Jane,
+and pull her hair and pinch her, whilst Jane in revenge would break
+Bobbie's toys and do something nasty to him while he slept.
+
+Then their language was so bad. They used expressions that shocked
+everyone in the house, and no one could say where they had picked them
+up. But worst of all was their cruelty to animals. The nurse came to
+Mrs. Fitzsimmons one morning to show her a fowl that was limping across
+the yard in great pain. Bobbie had pelted it with stones and broken its
+leg.
+
+He was punished; but the very next day he and Jane were caught
+inflicting the most abominable tortures on a mouse. Jane rivalled the
+Chinese in the ingenuity of her cruelties. She scalded insects very
+slowly to death, and scandalised the village children by showing them a
+rabbit and sundry smaller animals which she had vivisected and skinned
+alive.
+
+One does occasionally hear of epidemics of cruelty breaking out in
+certain districts. A year or two ago, cats came in for especially bad
+treatment in the neighbourhood of Red Lion Square, and the culprits,
+girls as well as boys, were invariably excused, it being suggested that
+the war had excited their naturally high spirits. I remember, too, in
+Cornwall, not so very long ago, children being seized with a mania for
+torturing birds. They caught them with fish-hooks, and never grew tired
+of watching them choke and writhe and otherwise distort themselves in
+their death agonies. In Wales, too, there are periodical outbursts of
+similar passions. Some years ago a child was prosecuted in South Wales
+for pulling a live rabbit in half; but the magistrates acquitted the
+accused on the plea that it was only following the example of nearly
+all the other children in the district. Well, Robert Fitzsimmons
+wondered if his children had fallen victims to one of these epidemics,
+and he suggested to his wife that they should be sent away to a
+boarding school. To his astonishment, however, Mrs. Fitzsimmons took a
+more lenient view of their conduct.
+
+"It's no use being too hard on them," she said. "I don't believe for
+one moment that Bobbie and Jane realise that animals can feel as we
+do--that human beings have not the monopoly of the nervous system.
+We must get a governess--someone who can explain things to them with
+tact and patience, and not get out of temper, like you do, Robert. The
+children must be treated with kindness and sympathy."
+
+Fitzsimmons could hardly believe that it was his wife speaking; she
+had been such a keen champion of animals, and had boxed the ears of
+more than one London ragamuffin whom she had caught ill-treating a dog
+or cat. However, he gave way, and agreed that the children should be
+committed to the care of a benevolent old lady whom Mrs. Fitzsimmons
+knew, and who might be engaged as governess and domiciled in the house.
+This matter was barely settled when Mr. Merryweather, an artist friend
+of Robert Fitzsimmons, came to stay at Shane Garth, and it was on
+the evening after his arrival that Fitzsimmons first came to realise
+that the coombe was haunted. He had been out all day fishing, alone,
+his friend, Merryweather, being engaged painting a portrait of Mrs.
+Fitzsimmons and Jane; and the evening having well set in, he was now
+on his way home. Passing the site of the ancient barrow, he could see
+in the hollow beneath him the welcome lights of Shane Garth. He paused
+for a moment to refill his pipe, and then commenced to descend into
+the coombe. It was an exquisite night, the air warm and fragrant with
+the scent of newly mown hay, the moon full, and the sky one mass of
+scintillating stars. Fitzsimmons was enchanted. Again and again he
+threw back his head and drew in the air in great gulps. When halfway
+down the hill, however, he became aware of a sudden change; the
+atmosphere was no longer light and exhilarating, but dark, heavy, and
+oppressive.
+
+He noticed, too, that there were strange lights and that the shadows
+that flickered to and fro the broad highway continually came and went,
+and differed, in some strangely subtle fashion, from any shadows he
+had ever seen before. But what attracted his attention even more was
+a tree--a tall tree with a trunk of the most peculiar colour. In the
+quick-changing light of the coombe it looked yellow--a lurid yellow
+streaked with black after the nature of a tiger's skin--and Fitzsimmons
+never remembered seeing it there before. He halted for a moment to look
+at it more intently, and it seemed to him to change its position. He
+rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming and looked again. Yes,
+without a doubt it was nearer to the roadway, and very gradually it was
+getting nearer still.
+
+Moreover, although the night was still, so still that hardly a leaf of
+any of the other trees quivered, its branches were in a state of the
+most violent agitation.
+
+Fitzsimmons was not normally nervous, and on the subject of the
+superphysical he was decidedly sceptical; but he could not help
+admitting that it was queer, and he began to wonder whether there was
+not some other way of getting home. Ashamed, however, of his cowardice,
+he at length made up his mind to look closer at the tree, and ascertain
+if possible the cause of its remarkable behaviour. He advanced towards
+it, and it moved again. This time the moonlight threw it into such
+strong relief that it stood out with photographic clearness, every
+detail in its composition most vividly portrayed.
+
+What exactly he saw, Fitzsimmons has never been prevailed upon to
+say. All one can get out of him is "that it had the semblance to a
+tree, but that the semblance was quite superficial. It was in reality
+something quite different, and that the difference was so marked and
+unexpected that he was immeasurably shocked." I asked Fitzsimmons
+why he was shocked, and he said, "By the obscenity of the thing--by
+its unparalleled beastliness." He would not say any more. It took
+him several minutes to sum up courage to pass it, and all the while
+it stood close to the roadside waiting for him. Fitzsimmons had been
+a tolerably good athlete in his youth--he won the open hundred at
+school--and though well over forty, he was spare and tough, and as
+sound as a bell with regard to his heart and lungs. Bracing himself up,
+he made a sudden dash, and had passed it, by some dozen or so yards,
+when he heard something drop with a soft plumb, and the next minute
+there came the quick patter of bare feet in hot pursuit. Frightened as
+he was, Fitzsimmons does not think his terror was quite so great as his
+feeling of utter loathing and abhorrence. He felt if the thing touched
+him, however slightly, he would be contaminated body and soul, and
+would never be able to look a decent person in the face again.
+
+Hence his sprint was terrific--faster, he thinks, than he ever did in
+the school Close--and he kept praying too all the while.
+
+But the thing gained on him, and he feels certain it would have been
+all up with him, had not a party of cyclists suddenly appeared on the
+scene and scared it off. He heard it go back pattering up the coombe,
+and there was something about those sounds that told him more plainly
+than words that he had not seen the last of it, and that it would come
+to him again. When he entered the house he encountered Merryweather
+and his wife together, and he could not help noticing that they seemed
+on strangely familiar terms and very upset and startled at seeing him.
+He spoke to his wife about it afterwards, and though she vehemently
+denied there was any truth in his suspicions, she could not meet his
+gaze with her customary frankness. Merryweather was the last person on
+earth he would have suspected of flirting with anyone, and up to the
+present time Mrs. Robert Fitzsimmons had always behaved with the utmost
+propriety and decorum; indeed, everyone regarded her as a model wife
+and mother, and particular, even to prudishness.
+
+The incident worried Fitzsimmons a great deal, and for nights he lay
+awake thinking about it.
+
+The governess was the next person to experience the hauntings. Her room
+was a sort of attic, large and full of quaint angles, and it looked out
+on to the coombe. Well, one night she had gone to bed rather early,
+owing to a very bad headache which had been brought on by the behaviour
+of the children, who had been naughty with a naughtiness that could
+scarcely have been surpassed in hell, and was partly undressed when her
+eyes suddenly became centred on the wall-paper, which had a curious
+dark pattern running through it.
+
+She looked at the pattern, and it suddenly took the form of a tree. Now
+some people are in the habit of seeing faces where others see nothing.
+The governess belonged to the latter category. She was absolutely
+practical and matter-of-fact, a typical Midland farmer's daughter,
+and had no imagination whatever. Consequently, when she saw the tree,
+she at once regarded it in the light of some peculiar phenomenon, and
+stared at it in open-mouthed astonishment. At first it was simply a
+tree, a tree with a well-defined trunk and branches. Soon, however, the
+trunk became a vivid yellow and black, a most unpleasant, virulent
+yellow, and the branches seemed to move. Much alarmed, she shrank away
+from it and clutched hold of the bed. She afterwards declared that
+the tree suddenly became something quite different, something she
+never dare even think of, and which nothing in God's world would ever
+make her mention. She made one supreme effort to reach the bell, just
+touched it with the tips of her fingers, and then sank on the bed in a
+dead swoon.
+
+She told her story next morning to Mrs. Fitzsimmons, and although asked
+on no account to breathe a word of it to the children, she told them
+too. That night she took her departure, and Mrs. Fitzsimmons refused
+her a character.
+
+Curious noises were now frequently heard in the house. Door handles
+turned and footsteps tiptoed cautiously about the hall and passages at
+about two o'clock in the morning.
+
+Mrs. Fitzsimmons was the next to have a nasty experience. Going to her
+room one evening, when everyone else was at supper, she saw the bed
+valance suddenly move. Thinking it was the cat, she bent down, and
+was about to call "Puss," when a huge striped thing, shaped, so she
+thought, something like the trunk of a much gnarled tree, shot out and,
+rolling swiftly past her, vanished in the wainscoting. She called out,
+and Fitzsimmons, who came running up, found her leaning against the
+doorway of their room, laughing hysterically.
+
+Two days later, on his return from another fishing expedition, he
+found that his wife had gone, leaving a note for him pinned to the
+dressing-table.
+
+  "You won't see me again," she wrote. "I'm off with Dicky
+  Merryweather. We have discovered we love one another, and that
+  life apart would be simply unendurable. Take care of the children,
+  and try and make them forget me. Get them away from here, if you
+  possibly can. I attribute everything--my changed feelings towards
+  you, and Bobbie and Jane's naughtiness--to the presence of that
+  beastly thing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course it was a terrible blow to Fitzsimmons, and he told me that if
+it had not been for the children he would have committed suicide there
+and then. He was devotedly attached to his wife, and the thought that
+she no longer cared for him made him yearn to die.
+
+However, Bobbie and Jane were dependent on him, and for their sakes he
+determined to go on living.
+
+A week passed--to Fitzsimmons the saddest and dreariest of his
+life--and he once again came tramping home in the twilight.
+
+Not troubling now whether he saw the ghost or not, for there was no
+one to care whether he was good or bad, or what became of him, he
+slouched through the coombe with his long stride more marked and
+apparent than usual. On nearing the house and noticing that there was
+no bright light, such as he had been accustomed to, in any of the
+front windows, but only the feeble flare of the oil lamp over the front
+door, a terrible feeling of loneliness came over him. He let himself
+in. The hall was in semi-darkness, and he could hear no sounds from the
+kitchen. He could see a glimmer of light, however, issuing from under
+the kitchen door, and he promptly steered for it. The cook, Agatha, was
+sitting in front of the fire, reading a sixpenny novel.
+
+"Why is the house in darkness?" Fitzsimmons asked angrily. "Surely it
+is dinner-time."
+
+The cook yawned, and looking up at Fitzsimmons, said: "It's not my
+place to light up. It's Rosalie's."
+
+"Where is Rosalie?" Fitzsimmons demanded.
+
+"I don't know," the cook replied. "I can't be expected to know
+everything. The cooking's enough for me--at least for the wages I get.
+Rosalie's been gone somewhere for the last two hours. I haven't seen or
+heard anything of her since tea."
+
+"And the children?" Fitzsimmons inquired.
+
+"Oh, the children's all right," the cook answered--"at least I suppose
+so; and, you bet, they'd have let me know fast enough if they hadn't
+been. I don't know which of the two hollers loudest."
+
+"Well, get my supper, for mercy's sake, for I'm famishing," Fitzsimmons
+said; and he stalked back again into the darkness.
+
+After groping about the hall for some time and knocking over a good
+few things, he at length put his hands on a match-box, and lighting
+a candle made straight for the nursery. The children had got into
+bed partially undressed, and were sound asleep, with their heads
+well buried under the bedclothes. Fitzsimmons contrived to uncover
+their faces without waking them, and kissing them both lightly on the
+forehead, he left them and went downstairs to his study. Here he drew
+up a chair close to the fire and, throwing himself into it, prepared
+to wait till the gong sounded for supper. A slight noise in the room
+made him look round. Across the window recess, from which the sound
+apparently came, a pair of heavy red curtains were tightly drawn.
+Fitzsimmons rather wondered at this, because Rosalie did not usually
+draw the curtains before she lighted up; so he was still looking
+at them and wondering, when they were suddenly shaken so violently
+that the metal rings made a loud rattling and jarring on the brass
+pole to which they were attached. Fitzsimmons watched in breathless
+anticipation. Every second he expected to see the curtains part and
+some ghoulish face peering out at him. Drawn curtains so often suggest
+lurking horrors of that description. Instead, however, the curtains
+only grew more and more agitated, shaking violently as if they had the
+ague. Then, all of a sudden, they were still. Fitzsimmons rose and was
+about to look behind them, when they started trembling again, and the
+one nearest the fireplace began to bulge out in the middle. Fitzsimmons
+stared at it with a sickening sense of foreboding. At first it had
+no definite form, but, very gradually, it assumed a shape, the shape
+he felt it would, and moved nearer him. For some seconds he was too
+overcome with horror to do anything, but his recollections of what it
+had looked like in the coombe that night, and his utter detestation
+of it, increased his fear, and in a frenzy of rage he snatched up a
+revolver from the mantelpiece and fired at it. Fitzsimmons thinks
+it was the bullet that made it suddenly collapse; but I am inclined
+to think it was the sound of the report--as sound undoubtedly
+does, at times, bring about dematerialisation. There are, I think,
+certain sounds that generate vibrations in the air favourable to the
+manifestation of spirits, and other sounds that create vibratory motion
+destructive to the composition of what are termed ghosts. And here
+was an instance of the latter. Fitzsimmons waited for a few minutes,
+until he felt sure the thing was gone altogether, entirely quit of the
+premises, and then, revolver in hand, pulled aside the curtains.
+
+The next moment he reeled back, stupefied with horror. Lying at full
+length on the floor, her white face turned towards him, with a hideous
+grin of agony on her lips, was Rosalie.
+
+"Good God!" Fitzsimmons said to himself. "Good God! I've killed her.
+What in Heaven's name can I do?"
+
+He deliberated shooting himself; and then the cries of the children,
+who had been wakened by the noise, reminding him of his duties to them,
+he grew calmer, and telephoned at once for the nearest doctor. The
+latter, happening to be at home, was speedily on the spot.
+
+"You say you shot her," he remarked to Fitzsimmons, after he had
+examined the body very carefully. "You must be dreaming, sir. There's
+not the slightest sign of any bullet. Moreover, the girl's been dead
+at least two hours. From the look of her, I should say she died from
+strychnine poisoning."
+
+The doctor was right. The girl's death was due to strychnine, and from
+the bottle that was found in her possession and a message she scribbled
+on the study wall, there is no doubt whatever she committed suicide.
+"I was a nice enough girl till I came here," she wrote, "but it's
+the coombe that's done it. Mother warned me against it. Coombes make
+everyone bad."
+
+After this, Fitzsimmons decided to clear out. Indeed, he could hardly
+have done otherwise, for Shane Garth was now placed under a rigorous
+ban. Agatha left--she did not even wait till the morning, but cleared
+out the same night--and after that it was impossible to get a woman
+to come in, even for the day. Consequently, Fitzsimmons had not only
+to cook and look after the children, but to do all the packing as
+well. At last, however, it was all over, and the carriage stood at the
+door, waiting to take him and the children to the station. As he came
+downstairs, followed by Bobbie and Jane, someone, he fancied, called
+his name. He turned, and Bobbie and Jane turned too.
+
+Bending over the balustrades of the top landing, and looking just like
+she had done in her lifetime, save perhaps for the excessive pallor of
+her cheeks, and a curious expression of fear and entreaty in her eyes,
+was Rosalie.
+
+She faded away as they stared, and close beside the spot where she had
+stood, they saw the dim and shadowy outline of a gnarled tree.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE TRUNK
+
+A STRANGE CASE OF HAUNTING IN SYDENHAM
+
+
+The other day I went to a matinée at "The St. James's." I am fond of
+French Revolutionary plays, and _The Aristocrat_ appealed to me, not
+only by reason of its picturesqueness, which is happily unimpaired by
+any slavish adherence to historical accuracy, but also, and mostly,
+perhaps, by reason of its pretty and unimpeachable sentiment. The
+abandoned woman--a type so many of our modern dramatists consider
+cannot be dispensed with--apparently did not figure in this play at all.
+
+On this particular afternoon one of the principals happened to be away,
+but as the part was played to perfection by my young and charming
+compatriot, Miss Nina Oldfield, instead of being disappointed, I only
+experienced an additional pleasure. I was leaning back in my seat
+during the interval, thinking of Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, and other
+of the romantic figures of that period, when someone touched me on the
+shoulder and whispered, "Ghost man."
+
+Not recognising the voice, I turned round sharply. It was John
+Boulton, late dramatic critic of the _Arctus_, now a staff captain,
+home on leave from Egypt.
+
+"I've just heard of a case that will interest you," he said. "It bears
+out two of your theories, namely, that all animals and insects have
+spirits, and that spirits of all kinds, when freed from the material
+body, can assume dimensions far exceeding--in height especially--the
+dimensions of the material body that they once inhabited. But come on
+to my Club as soon as this show is over, and I'll tell you all about
+it."
+
+I accepted Boulton's invitation, and subsequently listened to the
+following:
+
+"Some friends of friends of mine, the Parminters, recently took a
+small house in Sydenham. Now Sydenham is not in the hey-day of its
+popularity. Scores of the bigger houses are to let, and the smaller
+ones--the majority at least--have not even that air of genteel
+respectability which characterises houses of the same size in some of
+the less remote suburbs. Of course the train service is responsible
+for much--even to think of a twenty-five minutes' journey into Town
+by train, when one can go any distance on tube in next to no time, is
+both intolerable and demoralising. But the decay of the Palace--the
+Palace that twenty years ago all London flocked to see--is in itself
+sufficient to have generated that all-pervading atmosphere of sadness
+that seems to have permeated people and houses, alike, with its spirit
+of abandonment and desolation. However, as a set-off against the
+many disadvantages of Sydenham, including its high rates and dull,
+unattractive shops, there is its wonderful air--the purest, so many
+doctors say, in England. And, after all, what is of more consequence
+than pure air which means health? At least, so the Parminters argued
+when they gave up the idea of living right in Town and bought this
+little two-storeyed villa close to the Crystal Palace Station.
+
+"It had stood empty for years and was in a sad state of dilapidation;
+but the owner, being on the verge of bankruptcy, had no money to lay
+out on it.
+
+"'I will let you have it for a very low figure,' he had said to them,
+'provided you take it as it stands.'
+
+"The sum named was £120, and this the Parminters considered, in
+spite of there being a pretty stiff ground rent, a bargain price.
+Consequently, they closed with the offer, had the house renovated, and
+eventually moved in. On the day after their arrival Mrs. Parminter
+made a discovery. Stowed away in the loft was a long, weather-worn,
+bolster-shaped, brown wooden trunk, bearing on it two steamship
+company's labels, one marked Suez and the other London.
+
+"There was no address on it--no name. The Parminters made inquiries
+of the builder who had done the repairs and of the late owner of the
+house, and neither could give them any clue as to the person to whom
+it belonged. The landlord declared that he had gone through all the
+rooms, including the loft, immediately before giving up the keys to
+Mrs. Parminter, and that he could swear that when he did so there was
+nothing in the house at all, no trunk of any description; whilst the
+builder declared that both he and his men, when doing the repairs, had
+seen the trunk in the loft and had concluded that it belonged to the
+Parminters.
+
+"'Well, as nobody seems to want it, we had better keep it,' Mrs.
+Parminter remarked. 'I wonder what it contains! It would be a pity to
+force the lock, we must get a key to fit it.'
+
+"As no one happened to be going out just then, the trunk was pushed
+on one side, and the Parminters, having many other things to occupy
+their minds, did not give it another thought. Tired out with all the
+worry and work of 'moving in,' they went to bed early that night, in
+the room immediately beneath the loft, and fell asleep almost as soon
+as they had lain down. Parminter had the digestion of an ox and, never
+over-taxing his brain, slept, as a rule, right through the night.
+On this occasion, however, he awoke with a violent start to hear a
+strange, scraping sound on the floor overhead.
+
+"It was just as if someone was drawing the rough edge of a stone
+backwards and forwards on the floor.
+
+"This went on for some seconds; then it abruptly ceased, and the
+stairs, leading from the landing outside the Parminters' room to the
+loft, gave a series of loud creaks. Of course stairs often creak,
+and one excuses their conduct on the ground of natural causes. The
+wood, we say, cannot expand or contract, when certain changes in the
+temperature take place, without making some little noise, and vibration
+due to the passing by of some heavy vehicle must be accompanied by some
+slight sound. But why, I ask, do we not hear creaks in the daytime,
+when the traffic is more constant and changes in the temperature quite
+as marked? Parminter was not an imaginative man; on the contrary, he
+was practical to a degree. He had a hearty contempt for anything in the
+nature of superstition, and regarded all so-called psychists either
+as charlatans or lunatics. Yet, when he listened to this creaking, he
+was bound to admit that there was something about it that bothered
+and perplexed him. He got up and opened the door. There was no moon,
+but, on the staircase, there was a long streak of leadish blue light,
+that moved as Parminter stared at it, and slowly began to descend. The
+stairs creaked under it and, though he could see nothing beyond the
+light, he could hear the most peculiar rattling, scraping sound, as if
+some metal-clad body was in course of transit. The thing, whatever it
+was, at last arrived on the landing, where it remained stationary. A
+feeling of unutterable horror and repulsion now came over Parminter,
+and, springing back into the room, he shut and locked the door. The
+noise awoke his wife, and they both stood by the door and listened, as
+the creaking and rattling was renewed and the thing crossed the landing
+and descended the stairs into the hall. Presently there came a savage
+snarl, which ended in a shrill whine, that was almost human in the
+intensity of its agony and terror, and after that, silence.
+
+"'Puck!' Mrs. Parminter ejaculated, her teeth chattering. 'What can
+have happened to him?'
+
+"'God knows,' Parminter replied. 'I'm not going to see.'
+
+"They stood there shivering in their night clothes, until, from
+the absolute stillness of the house, they concluded that the thing
+had gone; then they lighted candles and, slipping into their
+dressing-gowns, descended the stairs. Puck was crouching on the mat
+by the drawing-room door, in an attitude he often assumed when well
+scolded. They called him by his name. He did not answer. Then they bent
+over him and patted his head. Still he did not stir, and when they came
+to examine him more closely they discovered he was dead.
+
+"Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Parminter, the
+following night, sprinkled the stairs all over with flour and sand. The
+same thing happened. First of all the scraping immediately overhead,
+then the creaking and rattling on the stairs, then the pause, and then
+the slow and stealthy descent, accompanied by the same combination
+of noises, into the hall. When all was still again, they examined
+the flour and sand. There were no imprints on it of any kind, and
+apparently it had not been touched, for it bore no sign whatever of
+anything having passed over it.
+
+"Still Parminter would not acknowledge the possibility of the
+superphysical. 'The noises we've heard,' he remarked, 'are simply the
+result of some curious acoustic property, not uncommon, perhaps, if
+we only knew it, in houses of this description. And what I saw on the
+stairs is, of course, merely the effect of some trick of the light
+which anyone who understands natural science could easily explain.'
+
+"'Well, all I can say is that I should like to have the whole thing
+explained, and to know what these natural causes that you're so fond of
+talking about really are,' rejoined Mrs. Parminter.
+
+"'So should I,' Parminter replied. 'But I can't explain it, because I'm
+not a scientist.'
+
+"'Well, get one,' was the reply. 'Get Professor Keipler.'
+
+"Professor Keipler was the only scientist the Parminters knew. He was a
+German, and at that time happened to be living in Penge. At Parminter's
+request he came over to Sydenham and accepted an invitation to stay the
+night. Parminter showed him the loft, and the Professor made a very
+careful examination of it, pulling up one or two boards and peering
+into all the cracks and crevices. He tested the walls and stairs too,
+and admitted that he could discern nothing there that could account for
+some, at least, of the noises the Parminters described. When bedtime
+came, instead of retiring to rest, Parminter lowered all the lights,
+and they all three sat on the landing and waited.
+
+"Precisely at the same time as on the previous night they heard the
+scraping sound in the loft, then the gentle opening of a door, then
+a rattling of metal; and then--Parminter caught the Professor by the
+arm--a long, luminous something came into view. Instead, however, of
+descending the stairs, it mounted the wall and suddenly shot down
+towards them like a streak of lightning.
+
+"Mrs. Parminter screamed, Parminter tightened his hold of the
+Professor, and the next thing they knew was that they were all three
+rolling on the floor with something huge and scaly crawling over them.
+It conveyed the impression that it was some gigantic, venomous, and
+indescribably hideous insect, furnished with many long and dreadful
+legs, and they shrank from its touch just as they would have shrunk
+from the touch of an enormous spider, black-beetle, or other creature
+to which they had a special aversion. The Professor had brought with
+him a very powerful electric torch. In the first panic it had slipped
+from his grasp and rolled away into the darkness, but his fingers
+eventually coming into contact with it, he pressed the button. In an
+instant the landing was flooded with light, and the thing of horror had
+gone. Parminter then lit the incandescent gas, and they all three went
+downstairs into the dining-room and had brandies and soda.
+
+"'Well, how do you account for it?' Parminter said to the Professor.
+'What do you think it was?'
+
+"'Nothing that I can explain by any known physical law,' the Professor
+replied. 'I never believed in the possibility of the superphysical
+before, but I am convinced of it now. What struck me most about
+that thing, even more than its extraordinary property of completely
+vanishing under the influence of light, was its malignancy. Didn't you
+feel how intensely antagonistic it was to us?'
+
+"'Yes,' Parminter said. 'I did.'
+
+"'Well,' the Professor went on, 'such antagonism, such concentrated
+spleen and venom and bloodthirstiness--I felt the thing wanted to
+crush, tear, mangle, lacerate, poison me--could only originate in
+Hell--in a world altogether distinct from ours, where cruelty and
+maliciousness attain dimensions entirely beyond the scope of the
+physical. My advice to you is to quit the house with all haste, lest
+something really evil befall you.'
+
+"Having only just moved in, and spent a lot of money on the place, the
+Parminters naturally did not feel inclined to carry out this advice.
+
+"'If the place is haunted,' they argued, 'we can surely get rid of the
+ghost by exorcism or some other device.'
+
+"They consulted several of their friends, and were finally persuaded to
+call in a priest--an Anglican, from a parish in the East End, that Mrs.
+Parminter used to visit when they lived in town.
+
+"The Parminters did not tell me exactly what Father S---- did (I
+believe there is a special form of exorcism practised in the Church),
+but anyhow he could not proceed; his nerves, so he himself admitted,
+went all to bits, and directly the long streak of light began to crawl
+towards him he turned tail and fled.
+
+"Another clerical friend whom the Parminters called in to exorcise the
+ghost did, I believe, complete the service; but it had no effect--the
+thing mounted the wall, just as it had done before, and darting
+downwards put the exorciser to instant flight. The Parminters next
+resolved to try a West End occultist. It was an expensive proceeding;
+but terms were at length agreed upon, and the following night the
+renowned psychic arrived to lay the ghost. When it was time for it to
+appear, this exorciser insisted upon the Parminters retiring to their
+room, whilst he himself remained outside on the landing alone.
+
+"They heard him repeat a lot of gibberish, as Parminter afterwards
+described it to me; and then he rapped at their door and told them they
+need not worry any more as he had seen the ghost, the spirit of a monk,
+and given it the consolation it needed.
+
+"'But why did the monk crawl and make such a queer rattling noise?'
+Mrs. Parminter inquired.
+
+"'Because just before he died he lost the use of his limbs,' was the
+reply. 'Spirits, you know, always come back in the state they were in
+immediately prior to their death. The rattling was due to the fact that
+he wore armour; so many of the old monks combined two professions,
+that of soldier and priest.'
+
+"'But how about the speed with which the thing darted at us,' Parminter
+said, 'and the feeling we all had that it possessed innumerable legs?
+That doesn't look much like a disabled monk, does it?'
+
+"'He didn't appear like that to me,' the occultist replied. 'In all
+probability you had that impression because your psychic faculties
+are not sufficiently developed. At present you see spirits all out of
+focus, as it were--not in their true perspective. If you went through a
+proper course of training at some psychic college, you would see them
+just as I do.'
+
+"'Possibly,' Parminter said, 'but how about the gas? I see you had it
+full on all the time.'
+
+"'That would make no difference in my case,' the occultist replied,
+'because to anyone of my advanced learning ghosts can materialise in
+the light just as well as in the dark.'
+
+"'Then you feel certain the hauntings have now ceased?' Mrs. Parminter
+observed.
+
+"'That is what the monk told me,' was the reply; 'and now, if you will
+kindly pay me my fee, I will go.'
+
+"Parminter gave him a cheque, and he went. An hour later, when the
+Parminters were in bed and the house was still and dark, they heard
+the scraping on the floor overhead, and the thing came down. This time
+neither of them stirred, and the thing, as before, passed their room
+and descended into the hall.
+
+"The following morning Mrs. Parminter received a letter from her
+sister, Mrs. Fellowes, asking her if she could put up the two children,
+Flo and Maisie, their maid, and herself for a week. It was extremely
+inconvenient just then for Mrs. Parminter to have visitors, and had it
+been anyone else she would have refused; but she was devoted to this
+particular sister, and at once wrote back bidding her come.
+
+"The house was rather oddly constructed. On the top story were three
+rooms, two quite a decent size, but the third barely big enough for a
+bed, and having two doors, one of which opened on to the landing and
+the other into the loft. The loft was very large, but so dark and badly
+ventilated that it could not possibly be used for sleeping purposes.
+Every room in the house being required, Mrs. Fellowes' nursemaid, Lily,
+was put to sleep in the room adjoining the loft, whilst Flo and Maisie
+occupied one of the two larger rooms, and the Parminters' cook and
+housemaid the other. For the first two nights after the arrival of the
+visitors there were no disturbances, although Lily complained that she
+had never slept worse in her life. On the third day of their stay the
+children were invited out to tea, and their mother accompanied them.
+When they returned they inquired for Lily, and being told that she
+had been in her room all the afternoon, they ran upstairs to see if
+anything was the matter with her.
+
+"Maisie knocked, and receiving no reply, opened the door and peeped in.
+
+"Lily was lying on the bed, and on the top of her, its long antennæ
+waving over her face, was an enormous scaly thing with a hideous
+jointed body and hundreds of poisonous-looking black legs. Its
+appearance was so terrific, so unmistakably evil and savage, that
+Maisie was petrified, and stood staring at it, unable to move or utter
+a sound.
+
+"Flo, wondering what had happened, peeped over her sister's shoulders,
+and was equally shocked. Just then someone came running upstairs,
+making a great noise, and the thing slowly vanished. The children then
+recovered the use of their tongue, and shrieked for help.
+
+"Parminter, happening to enter the house at that moment, ran to the
+assistance of the children, and in a few moments the whole household
+was on the top landing. Lily was unconscious, and for days she was so
+ill that the doctor held out very little hope of her recovery. In the
+end, however, she pulled round, but both her throat and heart were
+permanently affected. Soon after this event the Parminters resold the
+house, as they felt they could not remain in it any longer. They had
+stored a good many things in the loft, and, on removing them, they came
+across the trunk.
+
+"'Why, we never opened it,' Mrs. Parminter cried, trying in vain to
+lift up the lid.
+
+"'No; we were going to get a key, and then forgot all about it,'
+Parminter replied. 'But we'll soon remedy that. I'll send for a
+locksmith at once.'
+
+"He did so, and the man, at last finding a key that fitted, opened the
+box.
+
+"It was not quite empty; on the bottom of it, stuck firmly down with
+two big hatpins, its long legs spread out on either side of it like a
+hideous fringe, was a black Indian centipede."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE COUGH
+
+A CASE OF HAUNTING IN REGENCY SQUARE, BRIGHTON
+
+
+I know a man called Harrison. So, in all probability, do you; so, in
+all probability, do most people. But it is not everyone, I imagine,
+that knows a Harrison who delights in the Christian name of Pelamon,
+and it is not everyone that knows a Pelamon Harrison who indulges in
+psychical research. Now some people think that no one unless he be a
+member of the Psychical Research Society can know anything of ghosts.
+That is a fallacy. I have met many people who, although they have had
+considerable experience in haunted houses, have never set a foot in
+Hanover Square; and, vice versa, I have met many people who, although
+they have been members of the Psychical Research Society, have assured
+me they have never seen a ghost. Pelamon Harrison belongs to the former
+category. He is by vocation a gentleman undertaker, and he lives in
+Sussex. Some years ago, after the publication of my novel _For Satan's
+Sake_, which was very severely criticised in certain of the religious
+denominational papers, Pelamon Harrison, championing my cause, wrote
+me rather an interesting letter. I went to see him, and ever since
+then he has not only supplied me with detailed information of all the
+hauntings he has come across, but he has at times sent me accounts of
+his own experiences. This is one of them.
+
+Pelamon was seated in his office one day reading Poe, when the
+telephone at his elbow started ringing.
+
+"Hullo!" said Pelamon. "Who's there?"
+
+"Only me--Phoebe Hunt," was the reply. (Phoebe Hunt was Pelamon
+Harrison's housekeeper.)
+
+"Anything the matter?" Pelamon asked anxiously. "What is it?"
+
+"Oh, nothing," Mrs. Hunt replied, "only a rather queer-looking
+gentleman has just called and seemed most anxious to see you. He says
+he has been told about you by Mr. Elliot O'Donnell, and he wants you to
+go at once to a house in Regency Square, Brighton, No. --. He says it
+is very badly haunted."
+
+"What's his name?" Pelamon demanded.
+
+"Nimkin," Mrs. Hunt answered, and she very carefully spelt the
+name--"N I M K I N."
+
+"I'll think it over," Pelamon said, "and if I'm not home by seven
+o'clock, don't expect me till the morning." He then rang off, and
+thinking it was time he did some work, he took up his account book.
+
+Try as he would, however, he could not keep his mind from wandering.
+Something kept whispering in his ear "Nimkin," and something kept
+telling him that his presence was urgently needed in Regency Square.
+
+At last, unable to stand it any longer, he threw down his pen and,
+picking up his hat and coat, hurried off to the railway station.
+
+At seven o'clock that evening he stood on the pavement immediately in
+front of No. -- Regency Square. All the blinds were down, and this
+circumstance, combined with an atmosphere of silence and desolation,
+told him that the house was no longer inhabited. Somewhat perplexed,
+he asked the servant next door if she could tell him where Mr. Nimkin
+lived.
+
+"Not in Heaven," the girl replied tartly. "He did live in No. -- till
+his wife died, but after that he went to live on the other side of the
+town. He died himself a few days ago, and I believe his funeral took
+place this afternoon."
+
+"And No. -- where his wife died is now empty," Pelamon observed.
+
+"Yes, it's been empty ever since," she replied, and, sinking her voice
+to a whisper, "folks say it's haunted. I can't altogether bring myself
+to believe in ghosts--but I've heard noises," and she laughed uneasily.
+
+"Had he any children?" Pelamon asked.
+
+"No," the girl answered, "and he has left the money he hoarded--he was
+the meanest of old sticks--to the hospital for consumptives."
+
+"A worthy cause," Pelamon commented.
+
+The girl nodded. "His wife was a consumptive," she went on. "I
+remember her well--a pretty, fair-haired creature with a lovely skin,
+and"--here she shuddered--"a shocking cough." Then, thrusting her
+head close to Pelamon, and fixing him with a frightened glance, she
+whispered, "It was the cough that killed her!"
+
+Pelamon stared at her in astonishment. "Why, of course," he said. "It's
+the cough that kills all consumptives. I've buried scores of them."
+
+The girl shook her head. "You don't understand," she said, "but I
+daren't tell you any more; and, after all, it's only what we thought.
+Anyhow, he's dead now, and a good job too. Did you want to see him?"
+
+"Oh, it was nothing very particular," Pelamon replied. "Who has the
+keys of the house?"
+
+The girl's jaws dropped and her eyes grew as big as turtle's eggs.
+
+"The keys!" she exclaimed. "Mercy on us, you don't intend going there?"
+
+"That's my business," Pelamon replied haughtily; and then, not wishing
+to offend her, he added: "I heard the place was to be let, and as I
+want a house in this particular locality, I thought I would call and
+look at it, that's all! I am not a burglar!"
+
+The girl giggled. "A burglar!" she said. "Oh no, you're not sharp
+enough for that. Besides, the house is empty."
+
+"What!" Pelamon exclaimed. "Has all the furniture been taken away?"
+
+"All but the blinds," the girl nodded. "There was a sale here the day
+after Mrs. Nimkin was buried, and at it crowds of people; some of the
+furniture fetched an enormous price. I did hear that the house was sold
+too, but I'll ask the missus to make sure."
+
+She ran upstairs, and returned in a few minutes.
+
+"Yes," she said, "the house is sold, and the new people are coming in
+soon."
+
+"Then that settles the matter," Pelamon said, and, thanking her in his
+usual terse and precise way, he withdrew.
+
+He took a brief turn on the sea front, thinking all the time of Regency
+Square and the mysterious individual who had interviewed Mrs. Hunt, and
+who must be, he thought, related to the Nimkin who had been buried that
+afternoon. At nine o'clock he was once again in the square. Entering
+the garden of No. --, he crept round to the back of the house and,
+finding the catch of one of the windows undone, he raised the sash and
+climbed in.
+
+He had an electric torch with him, and consequently he was able to
+find his way about. Pelamon is very susceptible to the influence of
+the superphysical, and is probably far more of a psychic than the
+majority of those who earn their living as professional mediums. He
+told me afterwards that he knew No. -- was haunted the moment he set
+his foot inside it. He could detect the presence of the superphysical
+both in the atmosphere and also in the shadows. Frequently in the death
+chambers which he had attended he had seen a certain type of shadow on
+the floor by the bed; and it was this same queer kind of shadow, he
+said, that now crept out from the wall to meet him. But it was not the
+only phenomenon. From just where the shadow lay, there came a cough, a
+nervous, worrying cough, a regular hack, hack, hack, and when Pelamon
+moved, the cough and the shadow moved too. He went all over the house,
+into every room; and the cough and the shadow followed him. Hack, hack,
+hack, he could not get rid of it. At first it merely irritated him; but
+after a while he grew angry, infuriated, maddened.
+
+"Damn you!" he yelled. "Stop it! Stop that vile, infernal hacking. Damn
+you! Curse you! STOP it!"
+
+But the coughing went on, and in a hideous fit of rage, Pelamon flew
+at the shadow, jumped on it, stamped on it, and drawing out his clasp
+knife, knelt down and deliberately stabbed it. Still it went on,
+untiringly, ceaselessly, significantly, hack, hack, hack. Pelamon was
+still on the floor cutting, stabbing, blaspheming, when a taxi suddenly
+drew up outside the house, and the next moment the front-door bell gave
+a loud birr. Pelamon waited till it had rung twice; then he answered
+it. A chauffeur stood on the doorstep.
+
+"You've come to the wrong house," Pelamon said to him. "No taxi is
+wanted here."
+
+"This is No. --, ain't it?" the man ejaculated.
+
+"Yes," Pelamon replied. "It is No. --, but that doesn't simplify
+matters. Who sent for you?"
+
+"A gentleman as lives on t'other side of the town," the chauffeur
+replied. "He called out to me as I was passing his house. 'Do you want
+a job?' he says. 'Will you drive to No. -- Regency Square and fetch a
+lady and gentleman? You'll find them there waiting for you. The gent's
+name is Harrison' (Pellijohn Harrison, I think he said, but I couldn't
+quite catch it). 'Never mind the lady's. Bring 'em both here.'"
+
+"That's very extraordinary," Pelamon exclaimed, "for that's my name,
+without a doubt. But I don't know who the gentleman could have been,
+and there's no lady here."
+
+"Maybe there ain't no lady in the house now," the chauffeur said dryly,
+"because she's just got in the taxi. But she was there a second or two
+ago. You do like your bit of fun, don't yer?"
+
+Pelamon, in a great state of bewilderment, was about to say something,
+when from the direction of the taxi came the cough, hack, hack, hack.
+He knew it too well.
+
+"There you are," the chauffeur said, with a leer. "You must admit she's
+in there right enough, and waiting till you're ready to join her."
+
+Possessed with the feeling that he must see the thing through, Pelamon
+hesitated no longer. He got into the taxi. The coughing went on, but he
+could see no lady.
+
+They drove right through the town, and at last stopped outside a
+small villa facing a church or chapel. Concluding this must be their
+destination, Pelamon got out and, bidding the chauffeur wait, rang the
+front-door bell. There was no response. He looked at the windows; there
+was not a vestige of light anywhere and the blinds were all tightly
+drawn. He rang again, and rapped as well, and was about to do so a
+third time, when a window in the next house was raised and a voice
+called out: "There's no one there. There's been a funeral to-day and
+the house is empty."
+
+"Whose funeral was it?" Pelamon asked eagerly.
+
+"Mr. Nimkin's," was the reply; "he died last Tuesday."
+
+"Why, what are you a-talking about?" the chauffeur called out,
+descending from his perch and joining Pelamon on the doorstep. "Nimkin!
+Why, that was the name of the bloke as was here less than an hour ago
+and told me to fetch this gentleman. No one in the house indeed, why,
+he's in it, and the lady that came along with this gentleman here,
+she's in it too. Listen to her coughing," and, as he spoke, from the
+other side of the closed door came the familiar sounds, hack, hack,
+hack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SYDERSTONE HAUNTINGS
+
+
+Some years ago I published in a work entitled _Ghostly Phenomena_
+(Werner Laurie & Co.) an account, sent me by the late Rev. Henry
+Hacon, M.A., of Searly Vicarage, North Kelsey Moor, of hauntings that
+once occurred in the Old Syderstone Parsonage (the present Rectory
+has never, so I understand, been in any way disturbed). Thanks to
+the kindness and courtesy of Mr. E. A. Spurgin of Temple Balsall,
+Warwickshire (grandson of the Rev. John Spurgin), I am now able to
+reproduce further correspondence relative to the same case, written at
+the time of the occurrence--over eighty years ago.
+
+The following paragraphs appeared in the _Norfolk Chronicle_, June 1,
+1833:--
+
+"A REAL GHOST
+
+"The following circumstance has been creating some agitation in the
+neighbourhood of Fakenham for the last few weeks.
+
+"In Syderstone Parsonage lives the Rev. Mr. Stewart, curate, and rector
+of Thwaite. About six weeks since an unaccountable knocking was heard
+in it in the middle of the night. The family became alarmed, not
+being able to discover the cause. Since then it has gradually been
+becoming more violent, until it has now arrived at such a frightful
+pitch that one of the servants has left through absolute terror. The
+noises commence almost every morning about two, and continue until
+daylight. Sometimes it is a knocking, now in the ceiling overhead,
+now in the wall, and now directly under the feet; sometimes it is a
+low moaning, which the Rev. Gentleman says reminds him very much of
+the moans of a soldier on being whipped; and sometimes it is like the
+sounding of brass, the rattling of iron, or the clashing of earthenware
+or glass; but nothing in the house is disturbed. It never speaks,
+but will beat to a lively tune and moan at a solemn one, especially
+at the morning and evening hymns. Every part of the house has been
+carefully examined, to see that no one could be secreted, and the doors
+and windows are always fastened with the greatest caution. Both the
+inside and outside of the house have been carefully examined during
+the time of the noises, which always arouse the family from their
+slumbers, and oblige them to get up; but nothing has been discovered.
+It is heard by everyone present, and several ladies and gentlemen in
+the neighbourhood, who, to satisfy themselves, have remained all night
+with Mr. Stewart's family, have heard the same noise, and have been
+equally surprised and frightened. Mr. Stewart has also offered any of
+the tradespeople in the village an opportunity of remaining in the
+house and convincing themselves. The shrieking last Wednesday week was
+terrific. It was formerly reported in the village that the house was
+haunted by a Rev. Gentleman, whose name was Mantal, who died there
+about twenty-seven years since, and this is now generally believed
+to be the case. His vault, in the inside of the church, has lately
+been repaired, and a new stone put down. The house is adjoining the
+churchyard, which has added, in no inconsiderable degree, to the horror
+which pervades the villagers. The delusion must be very ingeniously
+conducted, but at this time of day scarcely anyone can be found to
+believe these noises proceed from any other than natural causes.
+
+"On Wednesday se'nnight, Mr. Stewart requested several most respectable
+gentlemen to sit up all night--namely, the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon of
+Docking, the Rev. Mr. Goggs of Creake, the Rev. Mr. Lloyd of
+Massingham, the Rev. Mr. Titlow of Norwich, and Mr. Banks, surgeon, of
+Holt, and also Mrs. Spurgeon. Especial care was taken that no tricks
+should be played by the servants; but, as if to give the visitors a
+grand treat, the noises were even louder and of longer continuance than
+usual. The first commencement was in the bed-chamber of Miss Stewart,
+and seemed like the clawing of a voracious animal after its prey.
+Mrs. Spurgeon was at the moment leaning against the bed-post, and the
+effect on all present was like a shock of electricity. The bed was on
+all sides clear from the wall; but nothing was visible. Three powerful
+knocks were then given to the side-board, whilst the hand of Mr. Goggs
+was upon it. The disturber was conjured to speak, but answered only by
+a low hollow moaning; but on being requested to give three knocks, it
+gave three most tremendous blows apparently in the wall. The noises,
+some of which were as loud as those of a hammer on the anvil, lasted
+from between eleven and twelve o'clock until near two hours after
+sunrise. The following is the account given by one of the gentlemen:
+'We all heard distinct sounds of various kinds--from various parts of
+the room and the air--in the midst of us--nay, we felt the vibrations
+of parts of the bed as struck; but we were quite unable to assign any
+possible natural cause as producing all or any part of this. We had a
+variety of thoughts and explanations passing in our minds _before_ we
+were on the spot, but we left it all equally bewildered.' On another
+night the family collected in a room where the noise had never been
+heard; the maid-servants sat sewing round a table, under the especial
+notice of Mrs. Stewart, and the man-servant, with his legs crossed
+and his hands upon his knees, under the cognisance of his master.
+The noise was then for the first time heard there--'above, around,
+beneath, confusion all'--but nothing seen, nothing disturbed, nothing
+felt except a vibratory agitation of the air, or a tremulous movement
+of the tables or what was upon them. It would be in vain to attempt
+to particularise all the various noises, knockings, and melancholy
+groanings of this mysterious something. Few nights pass away without
+its visitation, and each one brings its own variety. We have little
+doubt that we shall ultimately learn that this midnight disturber is
+but another '_Tommy Tadpole_,' but from the respectability and superior
+intelligence of the parties who have attempted to investigate into the
+secret, we are quite willing to allow to the believers in the earthly
+visitations of ghosts all the support which this circumstance will
+afford to their creed--that of _unaccountable mystery_. We understand
+that inquiries on the subject have been very numerous, and we believe
+we may even say troublesome, if not expensive."
+
+(_Norfolk Chronicle_, June 1, 1833.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"SYDERSTONE PARSONAGE
+
+"_To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle._
+
+"SIR,--My name having lately appeared in the _Bury Post_, as well as in
+your own journal, without my consent or knowledge, I doubt not you will
+allow me the opportunity of occupying some portion of your paper, in
+way of explanation.
+
+"It is most true that, at the request of the Rev. Mr. Stewart, I was
+at the Parsonage at Syderstone, on the night of the 15th ult., for the
+purpose of investigating the cause of the several interruptions to
+which Mr. Stewart and his family have been subject for the last three
+or four months. I feel it right, therefore, to correct some of the
+erroneous impressions which the paragraph in question is calculated to
+make upon the public mind, and at the same time to state fairly the
+leading circumstances which transpired that night.
+
+"At ten minutes before two in the morning, '_knocks_' were distinctly
+heard; they continued at intervals, until after sunrise--sometimes
+proceeding from the bed's-head, sometimes from the side-boards of the
+children's bed, sometimes from a three-inch partition, separating
+the children's sleeping-rooms; both sides of which partition were
+open to observation. On two or three occasions, also, when a definite
+number of blows was requested to be given, the precise number required
+was distinctly heard. _How_ these blows were occasioned was the
+subject of diligent search: every object was before us, but nothing
+satisfactorily to account for them; no trace of any human hand, or of
+mechanical power, was to be discovered. Still, I would remark, though
+perfectly distinct, these knocks were by no means so powerful as your
+paragraph represents--indeed, instead of '_being even louder, and of
+longer continuance that night_, as if to give _the visitors a grand
+treat_,' it would seem they were neither _so_ loud nor _so_ frequent
+as they commonly had been. In several instances they were particularly
+gentle, and the pauses between them afforded all who were present
+the opportunity of exercising the most calm judgment and deliberate
+investigation.
+
+"I would next notice the '_vibrations_' on the side-board and post of
+the children's beds. These were distinctly felt by myself as well as
+others, not only once, but frequently. They were obviously the effect
+of different blows, given in some way or other, upon the different
+parts of the beds, in several instances while those parts were actually
+under our hands. It is not true that '_the effect on all present was
+like a shock of electricity_,' but that these '_vibrations_' did take
+place, and that too in beds, perfectly disjointed from every wall, was
+obvious to our senses; though in what way they were occasioned could
+not be developed.
+
+"Again--our attention was directed at different times during the
+night to certain sounds on the bed's-head and walls, resembling the
+scratchings of two or three fingers; but in _no_ instance were they
+'_the clawing of a voracious animal after its prey_.' During the night
+I happened to leave the spot in which the party were assembled, and to
+wander in the dark to some more distant rooms in the house, occupied
+by no one member of the family (but where the disturbances originally
+arose), and there, to my astonishment, the same scratchings were to be
+heard.
+
+"At another time, also, when one of Mr. Stewart's children was
+requested to hum a lively air, '_most scientific beatings_' to every
+note was distinctly heard from the bed-head; and at its close, '_four
+blows_' were given, louder (I think) and more rapid than any which had
+before occurred.
+
+"Neither ought I to omit that, at the commencement of the noises,
+several feeble '_moans_' were heard. This happened more than once;
+after a time they increased to a series of '_groanings_' of a
+peculiarly distressing character, and proceeding (as it seemed) from
+the bed of one of Mr. Stewart's children, about ten years of age. From
+the tone of voice, as well as other circumstances, my own conviction
+is, that these '_moans_' could not arise from any effort on the part
+of the child. Perhaps there were others present who might have had
+different impressions; but be this as it may, towards daybreak four or
+six shrieks were heard--not from any bed or wall, but as hovering in
+the atmosphere in the room, where the other noises had been principally
+heard. These screams were distinctly heard by _all_, but their cause
+was discoverable by _none_.
+
+"These, Sir, are the chief events which occurred at Syderstone
+Parsonage on the night alluded to in your paragraph. I understand
+the '_knockings_' and '_sounds_' have varied considerably in their
+character on different nights, and that there have been several nights
+occurring (at four distinct periods) in which _no noises_ have been
+heard.
+
+"I have simply related what took place under my own observation. You
+will perceive that the noises heard by us were by no means so loud
+and violent as would be gathered from the representations which have
+been made. Still, as you are aware, they are not on that account the
+less real; nor do they, on that account, require the less rational
+explanation. I trust, however, Mr. Editor, your readers will fully
+understand me. I have not related the occurrences of the night for the
+purpose of leading them to any particular views, or conclusions upon a
+subject which, for the present at least, is wrapt in obscurity: such is
+very remote from my object. But Mr. Stewart having requested me, as a
+neighbouring clergyman, to witness the inconveniences and interruptions
+to which the different members of his family have been subject for
+the last sixteen weeks, I have felt it my duty, as an honest man
+(particularly among the false statements now abroad) to bear my feeble
+testimony, however inconsiderable it may be, to their actual existence
+in his house; and also since, from the very nature of the case, it
+is not possible Mr. Stewart can admit the repeated introduction of
+strangers to his family, I have thought it likewise a duty I owed to
+the public to place before them the circumstances which really did take
+place on that occasion. In the words of your paragraph, I can truly
+say: '_I had a variety of thoughts and explanations passing in my mind
+before I was on the spot, but I left it perfectly bewildered_,' and I
+must confess the perplexity has not been diminished by the result of an
+investigation, which was most carefully pursued for five days, during
+the past week, under the immediate direction of Mr. Reeve, of Houghton,
+agent to the Marquis of Cholmondeley, the proprietor of Syderstone and
+patron of the Rectory, and who, on learning the annoyances to which
+Mr. Stewart was subject, directed every practicable aid to be afforded
+for the purpose of discovery. Mr. Seppings and Mr. Savory, the two
+chief inhabitants of the parish, assisted also in the investigation. A
+'_trench_' was dug round the back part of the house, and '_borings_'
+were resorted to in all other parts of it to the depth of six or seven
+feet, completing a chain round the entire buildings, for the purpose of
+discovering any subterranean communication with the walls, which might
+possibly explain the noises in question. Many parts of the interior of
+the house, also, such as '_the walls_,' '_floors_,' '_false roofs_,'
+etc., have been minutely examined, but nothing has been found to throw
+any light upon the source of the disturbances. Indeed, I understand the
+'_knockings_' within the last four days, so far from having subsided,
+are become increasingly distressing to Mr. Stewart and his family--and
+so _remain_!--I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
+
+  "JOHN SPURGIN.
+
+"DOCKING, _June 5, 1833_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle_.
+
+  "NORWICH, _June 5, 1833_.
+
+"SIR,--The detail of circumstances connected with the _Syderstone
+Ghost_, as reported in the public papers, is in my opinion very
+incorrect, and calculated to deceive the public. If the report of
+noises heard on other evenings be as much exaggerated as in the report
+of the noises which five other gentlemen and myself heard on Wednesday
+evening, the 15th of May, nothing could be better contrived to foster
+superstition and to aid deception. I was spending a few days with a
+friend in the neighbourhood of Syderstone, and was courteously invited
+by Mr. Stewart to sit up at the Parsonage; but I never imagined the
+noises I heard during the night would become a subject of general
+conversation in our city and county. As such is the case, and as I
+have been so frequently appealed to by personal friends, I hope you
+will afford the convenience of correcting, through the medium of your
+journal, some of the errors committed in the reports made of the
+disturbances which occurred when I was present. If the other visitors
+thought proper to make their statements known to the public, I have no
+doubt they would nearly accord with my own, as we are not, though so
+represented in the _Bury Post_, 'those who deal in contradictions of
+this sort.'
+
+"The noises were _not loud_; certainly they were not so loud as to be
+heard by those ladies and gentlemen who were sitting at the time of
+their commencement in a bedroom only a few yards distant. The noises
+commenced as nearly as possible at the hour we had been prepared
+to expect they would--or at about half-past one o'clock a.m. It is
+true that knocks seemed to be given, or actually were given, on the
+side-board of a bed whilst Mr. Goggs' hands were upon it; but it is
+not true that they were 'powerful knocks.' It is also true that Mr.
+Goggs requested the ghost, if he could not speak, to give three knocks,
+and that three knocks--gentle knocks, not 'three most tremendous
+blows'--were heard as proceeding from the thin wall against which were
+the beds of the children and the female servants. I heard a scream as
+of a female, but I was not alarmed; I cannot speak _positively_ as to
+the origin of the scream, but I cannot deny that such a scream may be
+produced by a ventriloquist. The family are highly respectable, and I
+know not any good reason for a suspicion to be excited against any one
+of the members; but as it is _possible_ for one or two members of a
+family to cause disturbances to the rest, I must confess that I should
+be more satisfied that there is not a connection between the ghost and
+a member of the family if the noises were distinctly heard in the rooms
+when _all_ the members of the family were known to be at a distance
+from them. I understood from Mr. Stewart that on one occasion the whole
+family--himself, Mrs. Stewart, the children, and servants--sat up in
+his bedroom during the night; that himself and Mrs. Stewart kept an
+attentive watch upon the children and servants; and that the noises,
+though seldom or never heard before in that room, were then heard in
+all parts of the room. This fact, though not yet accounted for, is not
+a proof but that some one or more of the family is able to give full
+information of the cause of the noises.
+
+"Mr. Stewart and other gentlemen declared that they have heard such
+loud and violent knocking, and other strange noises, as certainly throw
+a great mystery over the circumstance. I speak only in reference to
+the knockings and the scream which I heard when in company with the
+gentlemen whose names have been already made known to the public; and
+confining my remarks to those noises, I hesitate not to declare that I
+think similar noises might be caused by visible and internal agency.
+
+"I do not deny the existence of supernatural agency, or of its
+occasional manifestation; but I firmly believe such a manifestation
+does not take place without Divine permission, and when permitted it
+is not for trifling purposes, nor accompanied with _trifling effects_.
+Now there are effects which appear to me _trifling_, connected with the
+noises at Syderstone, and which therefore tend to satisfy my mind that
+they are _not caused by supernatural agency_. On one occasion the ghost
+was desired to give ten knocks; he gave nine, and, as if recollecting
+himself that the number was not completed, he began again, and gave
+ten. I heard him beat time to the air of the verse of a song sung by
+Miss Stewart--if I mistake not, 'Home, Sweet Home'; and I heard him
+give three knocks in compliance with Mr. Goggs' request.
+
+"Mr. Editor, noises are heard in Syderstone Parsonage the cause or
+agency of which is at present unknown to the public, but a full, a
+diligent investigation ought _immediately_ to be made--Mr. Stewart, I
+believe, is willing to afford facility. If, therefore, I may express an
+opinion, that if two or three active and experienced police officers
+from Norwich were permitted to be the sole occupants in the house
+for a few nights, the ghost would not interrupt their slumbers, or,
+if he attempted to do it, they would quickly find him out, and teach
+him better manners for the future. The disturbances at the Parsonage
+House, Epworth, in 1716, in some particulars resemble those which have
+occurred at Syderstone, but in these days we give little credit to
+tales of witchcraft, or that evil spirits are permitted to indicate
+their displeasure at prayers being offered for the King, etc.; and
+therefore I hope that deceptions practised at Syderstone, if there be
+deceptions, will be promptly discovered, lest that parsonage become
+equal in repute to the one at Epworth.--I am, Sir, your humble servant,
+
+  "SAMUEL TITLOW."
+
+(_Norfolk Chronicle_, June 8, 1833.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SYDERSTONE PARSONAGE
+
+"_To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle._
+
+"SIR,--Having already borne my testimony to the occurrences of the
+night of the 15th ult. in the Parsonage at Syderstone, and finding that
+_ventriloquism and other devices_ are now resorted to as the probable
+causes of them (and that, too, under the sanction of certain statements
+put forth in your last week's paper), I feel myself called on to state
+publicly that, although a diligent observer of the different events
+which then took place, I witnessed no one circumstance which could
+induce _me_ to indulge a conjecture that the _knocks_, _vibrations_,
+_scratchings_, _groanings_ etc., which I heard, proceeded from any
+member of Mr. Stewart's family, through the medium of mechanical or
+other trickery:--indeed, it would seem to me utterly impossible that
+the scratchings which fell under my observation during the night, in a
+remote room of the house, could be so produced, as, at that time, every
+member of Mr. Stewart's family was removed a considerable distance from
+the spot.
+
+"While making this declaration, I beg to state that my only object in
+bearing any part in this mysterious affair has been to investigate
+and to elicit the _truth_. I have ever desired to approach it without
+_prejudging_ it--that is, with a mind willing to be influenced by
+_facts_ alone,--without any inclination to establish either the
+intervention of _human_ agency on the one hand, or of _super-human_
+agency on the other hand:--at the same time, it is but common honesty
+to state that Mr. Stewart expresses himself so fully conscious of his
+own integrity towards the public that he has resolved on suffering all
+the imputations and reflections which _have_ been or which may be cast
+either upon himself or upon his family to pass without remark; and
+as he has, at different times and upon different occasions, so fully
+satisfied his own mind on the _impossibility_ of the disturbances in
+question arising from the agency of any member of his own household
+(and from the incessant research he has made on this point, he himself
+must be the best judge), Mr. Stewart intends declining all future
+interruptions of his family, by the interference of strangers.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Editor, your distant readers may not be aware that Mr.
+Stewart has not been resident at Syderstone more than fourteen months,
+while mysterious noises are _now_ proved to have been heard in this
+house, at different intervals and in different degrees of violence, for
+the last thirty years and upwards. Most conclusive and satisfactory
+affidavits on this point are now in progress, of the completion of
+which you shall have notice in due time.--I am, Sir, your obedient
+servant,
+
+  "JOHN SPURGIN.
+
+"DOCKING, _June 7, 1833_."
+
+(_Norfolk Chronicle_, June 15, 1833.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These Declarations were inserted in the _Norfolk Chronicle_, June 22,
+1833:--
+
+"SYDERSTONE PARSONAGE
+
+"For the information of the public, as well as for the protection
+of the family now occupying the above residence from the most
+ungenerous aspersions, the subjoined documents have been prepared.
+These documents, it was proposed, should appear before the public as
+Affidavits, but a question of law having arisen as to the authority
+of the Magistrates to receive Affidavits on subjects of this nature,
+the Declarations hereunder furnished have been adopted in their stead.
+The witnesses whose testimony is afforded have been all separately
+examined--their statements, in every instance, have been most
+cheerfully afforded--and the solemn impression under which the evidence
+of some of them particularly has been recorded, has served to show how
+deeply the events in question have been fixed in their recollection.
+Without entering upon the question of Causes, one Fact, it is presumed,
+must be obvious to all (namely): That various inexplicable noises
+have been heard in the above residence, at different intervals, and
+in different degrees of violence, for many years before the present
+occupiers ever entered upon it: indeed, the Testimony of other
+respectable persons to this Fact might have been easily adduced, but
+it is not likely that any who are disposed to reject or question the
+subjoined evidence would be influenced by any additional Testimony
+which could be presented:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Elizabeth Goff_, of Docking, in the county of Norfolk, widow, now
+voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at any time to confirm the
+same on oath, and say: That she entered into the service of the Rev.
+William Mantle about the month of April 1785, at which time her said
+master removed from Docking to the Parsonage at Syderstone, and the
+said Elizabeth Goff further states, that at the time of entering upon
+the said parsonage, two of the sleeping rooms therein were nailed up:
+and upon one occasion, during the six months of her continuance in the
+service of her said master, she well remembers the whole family were
+much alarmed in consequence of Mrs. Mantle's sister having either seen
+or heard something very unusual, in one of the sleeping rooms over the
+kitchen, which had greatly terrified her.--This Declaration was made
+and signed this 18th day of June 1833, before me, Derick Hoste, one of
+His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+"The mark (X) of Elizabeth Goff."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Elizabeth_, the wife of George _Parsons_, of Syderstone, in the
+county of Norfolk, blacksmith, now voluntarily declareth, and is
+prepared at any time to confirm the same on oath, and say: That she
+married about nineteen years ago, and then entered upon the occupation
+of the south end of the Parsonage at Syderstone, in which house she
+continued to reside for the space of nine years and a half. That she,
+the said Elizabeth Parsons, having lived at Fakenham previously to
+her marriage, was ignorant of the reputed circumstances of noises
+being heard in the said house, and continued so for about nine or ten
+months after entering upon it; but that, at the end of that time, upon
+one occasion during the night, she remembers to have been awoke by
+some 'very violent and very rapid knocks' in the lower room occupied
+by them, immediately under the chamber in which she was sleeping;
+that the noise appeared to her to be as against the stove which she
+supposed must have been broken to pieces; That she, the said Elizabeth
+Parsons, awoke her husband, who instantly heard the same noise; that he
+immediately arose, struck a light, and went downstairs; but that, upon
+entering the room, he found everything perfectly safe, as they had been
+left upon their going to bed; that her husband hereupon returned to the
+sleeping room, put out the light, and went to bed; but scarcely had he
+settled himself in bed, before the same heavy blows returned; and were
+heard by both of them for a considerable time.--This being the first of
+the noises she, the said Elizabeth Parsons, ever heard, she was greatly
+alarmed, and requested her husband not to go to sleep while they
+lasted, lest she should die from fear; but as to the causes of these
+noises, she, the said Elizabeth Parsons, cannot, in anywise, account.
+And the said Elizabeth Parsons further states, that about a year
+afterwards at midnight, during one of her confinements, her attention
+was particularly called to some strange noises heard from the lower
+room. These noises were very violent, and, as much as she remembers,
+were like the opening and tossing up and down of the sashes, the
+bursting of the shutters, and the crashing of the chairs placed at the
+windows: that her nurse hereupon went downstairs to examine the state
+of the room, but, to the surprise of all, found everything perfectly
+in order, as she had left it.--And likewise the said Elizabeth Parsons
+further states, that besides the occurrences hereinbefore particularly
+stated and which remain quite fresh in her recollection, she was, from
+time to time, during her residence in Syderstone Parsonage, constantly
+interrupted by very frightful and unusual knockings, various and
+irregular;--sometimes they were heard in one part of the house, and
+sometimes in another;--sometimes they were frequent, and sometimes two
+or three weeks or months or even twelve months would pass, without any
+knock being heard. That these knocks were usually never given till the
+family were all at rest at night, and she has frequently remarked, just
+at the time she hoped she had got rid of them, they returned to the
+house, with increased violence.--And finally the said Elizabeth Parsons
+declares, that during a residence in the Syderstone Parsonage of
+upwards of nine years, knocks and noises were heard by her therein, for
+which she was utterly unable to assign any cause.--This Declaration was
+made and signed this 18th day of June 1833, before me, Derick Hoste,
+one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+  "ELIZABETH PARSONS."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Thomas Mase_, of Syderstone, in the county of Norfolk, carpenter,
+now voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at any time to confirm
+the same on oath, and say: That one night, about eleven years ago,
+while Mr. George Parsons occupied part of the Parsonage at Syderstone,
+he happened to be sleeping in the attic there; and about midnight he
+heard (he thinks he was awoke out of sleep) a dreadful noise, like the
+sudden and heavy fall of part of the chimney upon the stove in the
+lower sitting-room.--That the crash was so great that, although at a
+considerable distance from the spot, he distinctly heard the noise, not
+doubting the chimney had fallen and dashed the stove to pieces:--that
+he arose and went downstairs (it being a light summer's night): but
+upon examining the state of the room and stove, he found, to his
+astonishment, everything as it ought to have been. And the said Thomas
+Mase further states, that, upon another occasion, about eight or nine
+years ago, while sleeping a night in Syderstone Parsonage in a room at
+the south end thereof, the door of which room moved particularly hard
+upon the floor, requiring to be lifted up in order to close or open
+it, and producing a particular sound in its movement, he distinctly
+heard all the sounds which accompanied its opening.--That he felt
+certain the door was opened, and arose from his bed to shut it, but,
+to his great surprise, he found the door closed, just as he had left
+it.--And finally the said Thomas Mase states, that the circumstances
+above related, arose from causes which he is totally at a loss to
+explain.--This Declaration was made and signed this 18th day of June
+1833, before me, Derick Hoste, one of His Majesty's Justices of the
+Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+  "THOMAS MASE."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_William Ofield_, of Syderstone, in the county of Norfolk, gardener
+and groom, now voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at any time to
+confirm the same on oath, and say: That he lived in the service of the
+Rev. Thomas Skrimshire, about nine years ago, at which time his said
+master entered upon the occupation of the Parsonage at Syderstone, and
+that he continued with him during his residence in that place. The said
+William Ofield also states, that, as he did not sleep in the house,
+he knows but little of what took place therein during the night, but
+that he perfectly remembers, on one occasion, while sitting in the
+kitchen, he heard in the bedroom immediately over his head, a noise
+resembling the dragging of furniture about the room, accompanied with
+the fall as of some very heavy substance upon the floor.--That he is
+certain this noise did take place, and verily believes no one member
+of the family was in the room at the time.--The said William Ofield
+likewise states, that the noise was loud enough to alarm part of the
+family then sitting in the lower room, in the opposite extremity of
+the house; that he is quite sure they were alarmed, inasmuch as one of
+the ladies immediately hastened to the kitchen to make inquiry about
+the noise, though his said master's family never seemed desirous of
+making much of these occurrences:--that he, the said Wm. Ofield, was
+ordered to go upstairs to see what had happened, and upon entering the
+room he found everything right:--he has no hesitation in declaring that
+this noise was not occasioned by any person in the house. The said Wm.
+Ofield likewise states, that, at different times during the evenings,
+while he was in his said master's service, he has heard other strange
+noises about the house, which he could never account for, particularly
+the rattling of glass and china in the chiffonier standing in the
+drawing-room, as if a cat were running in the midst of them, while he
+well believes no cat could be there, as the door was locked. And the
+said Wm. Ofield likewise states, that he has been requested by some of
+the female servants of the family, who had been frightened, to search
+the false roof of the house, and to quiet their alarms, he has done so,
+but could never discover anything out of order.--This Declaration was
+made and signed this 18th day of June 1833, before me, Derick Hoste,
+one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+  "WILLIAM OFIELD."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Elizabeth_, the wife of John _Hooks_, of Syderstone, in the county
+of Norfolk, labourer, now voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at
+any time to confirm the same on oath, and say: That she entered the
+service of the Rev. Thomas Skrimshire, at Syderstone Parsonage, about
+seven years ago, and continued with him about four years; that in the
+last year of her service with Mr. Skrimshire, about Christmas-time,
+while sitting by the kitchen fireside, she heard a noise resembling
+the moving and rattling of the chairs about the sleeping rooms
+immediately over her;--that the noise was so great that one of Mr.
+Skrimshire's daughters came out of the drawing-room (which was removed
+a considerable distance from the spot in which the noise was heard)
+to make inquiry about it: that the manservant and part of the family
+immediately went upstairs, but found nothing displaced;--and moreover
+that she verily believes no member of the family was upstairs at
+the time.--The said Elizabeth Hooks also states, that, upon another
+occasion, after the above event, as she was going up the attic stairs
+to bed, with her fellow-servant, about eleven o'clock at night, she
+heard three very loud and distinct knocks, as coming from the door
+of the false roof. These knocks were also heard by the ladies of the
+family, then separating for the night, who tried to persuade her it was
+someone knocking at the hall door. The said Elizabeth Hooks says, that
+although convinced it was from no person out doors, yet she opened the
+casement to look and, as she expected, found no one;--indeed (being
+closest to the spot on which the blows were struck) she is sure they
+were on the door, but how and by whom given she is quite at a loss
+to conjecture.--And finally the said Elizabeth Hooks states, that
+at another time, after she had got into her sleeping-room (the whole
+family besides being in bed, and she herself sitting up working at her
+needle) she heard noises in the passage leading to the room, like a
+person walking with a peculiar hop: that she was alarmed, and verily
+believes it was not occasioned by any member of the family.--This
+Declaration was made and signed this 18th day of June 1833, before me,
+Derick Hoste, one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County
+of Norfolk.
+
+"The mark (X) of Eliz. Hooks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Phoebe Steward_, of Syderstone, in the county of Norfolk, widow,
+now voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at any time to confirm
+the same on oath, and say: That about twenty years ago, a few days
+after Michaelmas, she was left in charge of Syderstone Parsonage,
+then occupied by Mr. Henry Crafer; and about eight o'clock in the
+evening, while sitting in the kitchen, after securing all the doors,
+and no other person being in the house, she heard great noises in
+the sleeping rooms over her head, as of persons 'running out of one
+room into another'--'stumping about very loud'--and that these noises
+continued about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour:--that she felt
+the more alarmed, being satisfied there was, at that time, no one but
+herself in the house.--And the said Phoebe Steward further states,
+that on Whitsun-Tuesday, eighteen years ago, she was called to attend,
+as nurse, on Mrs. Elizabeth Parsons, in one of her confinements, then
+living in Syderstone Parsonage:--That about a fortnight after that
+time, one night, about twelve o'clock, having just got her patient to
+bed, she remembers to have plainly heard the footsteps, as of someone
+walking from their sleeping-room door, down the stairs, step by step,
+to the door of the sitting-room below:--that she distinctly heard the
+sitting-room door open, and the chair placed near one of the windows
+moved; and the shutters opened. All this the said Phoebe Steward is
+quite sure she distinctly heard, and thereupon immediately, on being
+desired, she came downstairs, in company with another female, whom she
+had awakened to go with her, being too much alarmed to go by herself:
+but on entering the room she found everything just as she had left
+it.--And the said Phoebe Steward further states, that about a fortnight
+after the last-named event, while sleeping on a bureau bedstead in
+one of the lower rooms in Syderstone Parsonage,--that is, in the room
+referred to in the last statement,--she heard 'a very surprising and
+frightful knock, as if it had struck the head of the bed and dashed
+it in pieces': that this knock was so violent as to be heard by Mrs.
+Crafer in the centre of the house:--that she, the said Phoebe Steward,
+and another person who was at that time sleeping with her, were very
+much alarmed with this heavy blow, and never knew how to account
+for it. And finally, the said Phoebe Steward states, that, during
+the forty-five years she has been in the habit of frequenting the
+Syderstone Parsonage (without referring to any extraordinary statements
+she has heard from her sister, now dead, and others who have resided in
+it), that she, from her own positive experience, has no hesitation in
+declaring, that in that residence noises do exist which have never been
+attempted to be explained.--This Declaration was made and signed this
+18th day of June 1833, before me, Derick Hoste, one of His Majesty's
+Justices of the Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+"The mark (X) of Phoebe Steward."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Robert Hunter_, of Syderstone, in the county of Norfolk, shepherd,
+now voluntarily declareth, and is prepared at any time to confirm the
+same on oath, and say: That for twenty-five years he has lived in the
+capacity of shepherd with Mr. Thomas Seppings, and that one night in
+the early part of March 1832, between the hours of ten and eleven
+o'clock, as he was passing behind the Parsonage at Syderstone in a
+pathway across the glebe land near the house, when within about twelve
+yards of the back part of the buildings, his attention was arrested
+all on a sudden by some very loud 'groanings,' like those 'of a dying
+man--solemn and lamentable,' coming as it seemed to him from the centre
+of the house above:--that the said Robert Hunter is satisfied these
+groans had but then just begun, otherwise he must have heard them long
+before he approached so near the house.--He also further states, that
+he was much alarmed at these groans, knowing particularly that the
+Parsonage at that time was wholly unoccupied, it being about a month
+before Mr. Stewart's family came into residence there:--that these
+groans made such an impression upon his mind, as he shall never lose,
+to his dying hour. And the said Robert Hunter likewise states, that,
+after stopping for a season near the house, and satisfying himself
+of the reality of these groans, he passed on his way, and continued
+to hear them as he walked, for the distance of not less than 100
+yards. The said Robert Hunter knows 100 yards is a great way, yet if
+he had stopped and listened, he, the said Robert Hunter, doubts not
+he could have heard them to a still greater distance than 100 yards:
+'so loud and so fearful were they, that never did he hear the like
+before.'--This Declaration was made and signed this 19th day of June
+1833, before me, Derick Hoste, one of His Majesty's Justices of the
+Peace for the County of Norfolk.
+
+"The mark (X) of Robt. Hunter."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We, the undersigned chief inhabitants of the parish of Syderstone, in
+the county of Norfolk, do hereby certify that Elizabeth Parsons, Thomas
+Mase, William Ofield, Elizabeth Hooks, Phoebe Steward, and Robert
+Hunter, who are now residing in this parish, and whose Declarations are
+hereto annexed, have been known to us for some years, and are persons
+of veracity and good repute.
+
+"Witness our hands, this 18th day of June 1833.
+
+  "THOMAS SEPPINGS.
+  "JOHN SAVORY."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE GREEN VAPOUR
+
+
+Near Bournemouth there is a house called the Caspar Beeches that
+never lets for any length of time. It has a very remarkable history,
+which, in the words of Mr. Mark Wildbridge, I now append. (Mr. Mark
+Wildbridge, by the way, was a clever amateur detective who died about
+the middle of last century, and many of his experiences, including the
+following, were narrated to me by one of his descendants.)
+
+I had been attending to some newly planted shrubs in my garden, and was
+crossing the lawn on my way to the back premises to wash my hands, when
+the gate was swung open vigorously and a voice called out, "Can you
+tell me if Mr. Mark Wildbridge lives here?"
+
+I looked at the speaker. He was a tall young man, slim and clean built,
+obviously an athlete, a public schoolman, and very much the gentleman.
+
+I was by no means in the mood to receive strangers, but as his type
+especially appeals to me, I decided to be gracious to him. "I am Mark
+Wildbridge," I replied. "Can I be of any service to you?"
+
+"Are you Mr. Wildbridge?" the young man said in astonishment. "Somehow
+I had formed such a different picture of you. But, of course, there is
+no reason why a detective should carry his trade in his face any more
+than an artist or author."
+
+"Rather less reason, perhaps," I responded dryly. "Have you come to
+consult me professionally?"
+
+The young man nodded. "Yes," he answered. "May I speak to you in
+private, somewhere where there is no chance of our being overheard?"
+
+I conducted him to my study, and, after seeing him seated, begged him
+to proceed.
+
+"Mr. Wildbridge," he began, leaning forward and eyeing me intently, "do
+you believe in family curses?"
+
+"It depends," I said. "I have come across cases where there seems
+little doubt a family is labouring under some malign superphysical
+influence. But why do you ask?"
+
+"For this reason," he replied, sitting up straight and assuming an
+expression of great intensity. "Two years ago I was living with my
+parents at the Caspar Beeches, near Bournemouth. My brother was coming
+home from India on sick leave, and my father and I had gone up to town
+to meet him, when, the day after we arrived, we got a wire to say
+that my mother had died suddenly. She had been absolutely well when
+we left her, so that the shock, as you may imagine, was terrible. Of
+course we hastened home at once, but the news was only too true--she
+was dead, and, at the inquest which followed in due course, a verdict
+of death from asphyxiation--cause unknown--was returned. Well, Mr.
+Wildbridge, exactly six months later my father was also found dead in
+his bedroom, and, as everything pointed to his having died in exactly
+the same manner as my mother, my brother and I had a detective down
+from Scotland Yard to inquire into the affair. He could, however, make
+nothing of it. The door of my father's room was found locked on the
+inside, the windows were all fastened, so that no one could have gained
+admission; and, besides, as nothing had been touched, and not a single
+article was missing, there was no apparent motive for a crime. At the
+same time, my brother and I were far from satisfied. Although, as the
+detective had pointed out to us, my father was alone when he met his
+death, it seemed to us that his end must have been brought about by
+some unnatural and outside agency. The coroner's verdict was death from
+asphyxiation, the medical evidence tending to show that he had died
+from the effects of some poisonous gas. Yet whence came the gas and
+how was it administered? The sanitary authorities, whom we called in,
+declared, after a very careful examination, that all the drains were
+in the most excellent repair, so we simply didn't know what to think.
+My brother, who had imbibed mysticism in India, at length came to the
+conclusion that there was some curse on us. He said that my father had
+on several occasions spoken very gloomily about the parents' sins being
+visited on their children, and I, too, had noticed that my father at
+times was very despondent; but I had attributed this despondency merely
+to moodiness, and at the time pooh-poohed my brother's suggestion that
+there existed a mystery--something sinister in connection with some
+member of our own family. But since then I have altered my opinion,
+for my brother, who inherited the property, has also been found
+dead--killed by the same diabolical agency that for some unknown reason
+brought about the deaths of my mother and father. The Caspar Beeches is
+now mine, Mr. Wildbridge, and I have come to ask you what I had better
+do."
+
+"You think, of course, that you may share the fate of your mother,
+father, and brother?" I asked.
+
+"I think it extremely likely," he replied.
+
+"You are the only one left in your family?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "the only one."
+
+"And what are your plans with regard to the Caspar Beeches?" I
+inquired. "Do you think of residing there?"
+
+"I haven't made up my mind," he replied; "that is one of the points
+upon which I want your advice. I want to know what you think about
+these deaths. Do you think they were due to some as yet undiscovered
+physical cause, as, for instance, some unknown disease, or some gas
+the sanitary authorities have not been able to trace--or, to the
+superphysical?"
+
+"I can form no opinion at present," I replied; "I must first have more
+details. But from what you have said, I think this case presents some
+novel and very extraordinary features. I should like to see the house.
+By the way, you haven't told me your name."
+
+"Mansfield," the young man said--"Eldred Mansfield."
+
+"The son of Sir Thomas Mansfield, the Bornean explorer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you are the present baronet?"
+
+The young man nodded.
+
+"And in the event of your death," I remarked, "to whom do the title and
+estates revert?"
+
+"I believe to some distant relative," Sir Eldred replied. "I cannot say
+definitely, for I have never inquired. I have no first cousins, and I
+know nothing about any others."
+
+"That is rather odd," I observed, "not to know who succeeds you. Now,
+tell me--of whom does your household at the Caspar Beeches consist?"
+
+"The butler Parry, his wife, who is housekeeper, and four other
+servants."
+
+"Have the Parrys been with you long?"
+
+"About four years."
+
+"Do you like them?"
+
+"Not altogether," Sir Eldred replied. "Parry is rather fussy and
+officious, and his wife much too soapy. My father, however, found them
+honest, and I don't suppose I could improve on them."
+
+"Well," I said, "as I have already remarked, I can't give you an
+opinion till I've seen the house. Supposing you engage me as your
+secretary?"
+
+"An excellent idea," Sir Eldred cried, his face lighting with
+enthusiasm. "To tell the truth, I don't much like the idea of sleeping
+there alone. Will you go back with me to-night? I will wire to Parry to
+get a room ready for you."
+
+As my time was my own just then, I agreed, and that afternoon saw me
+tearing off in a taxi to meet Sir Eldred at Waterloo.
+
+The Caspar Beeches, a large old family mansion, is situated nearer
+Winton than Bournemouth proper, and in the midst of the most lovely
+forest scenery. An air of impressive sadness hung around it, which,
+although no doubt largely due to the season and lateness of the hour,
+still, I thought, owed its origin, in part, to some very different
+cause; and when, on entering, I glanced round the big, gloomy,
+oak-panelled hall with its dim, far-reaching galleries, I inwardly
+remarked that this might well be the home of a dozen hidden mysteries,
+a dozen lurking assassins, that could prowl about and hide there,
+without the remotest fear of discovery.
+
+The door had been opened to us by a tall, thin, bald-headed old man,
+with small and rather deep-set eyes of the most pronounced blue, and a
+rather cut-away chin. He expressed himself overjoyed to see his young
+master back again, and was most emphatic in his assurances that our
+rooms were quite ready for us.
+
+His wife, an elderly woman with dark, keen, penetrating eyes and
+slightly prominent cheekbones, met us in the hall. I knew, of course,
+that she was Mrs. Parry, when she spoke, but her voice came as a
+surprise. In striking contrast to her appearance it was soft and low,
+and not altogether unmusical. The other servants did not interest me
+much--they were the type one sees in all well-to-do establishments--and
+yet I felt that if I were to get at the bottom of the mystery that
+unquestionably shrouded the deaths of Sir Eldred's three relatives,
+I must watch everyone very closely; for the key to a great secret is
+often found where least expected.
+
+We dined at eight o'clock, and after dinner I took a brief survey of
+the house. This enabled me to form some idea of the general arrangement
+of the rooms and where certain of them were situated. My bedroom, I
+found, was separated from that of Sir Eldred by the entire length of a
+corridor, and at my suggestion the room adjoining his own was allotted
+to me instead. Mrs. Parry demurred a little at the change, remarking
+that the room next Sir Eldred's had not been aired; but I told her I
+was not in the least degree likely to catch cold, as I had often slept
+in queer places, having spent a considerable portion of my life in the
+backwoods of Canada. Sir Eldred laughed.
+
+"You don't know what care we are taken of here," he said. "I can assure
+you, if I were to feel even the suspicion of a draught it would be
+considered a most terrible calamity."
+
+"Yes, indeed," Mrs. Parry said, with a sigh, "after what has happened,
+Sir Eldred's life is so precious we feel we cannot be too careful."
+
+"Have you any idea what killed your late master and mistress?" I asked
+her aside. "What terrible times you have gone through!"
+
+"Ay, terrible indeed," she said. "A kinder master and mistress no one
+could have had. Parry and I always thought something blew in from
+outside. There is too much vegetation in the grounds, and it grows so
+near the house. They do say the place is built on the site of a morass."
+
+"A morass, and in Hampshire!" I laughed. "Why, that sounds incredible.
+The soil is surely gravel."
+
+"So it may be--now," she replied. "I'm speaking of many years ago. The
+house is very ancient, sir."
+
+I asked Sir Eldred afterwards if there was any truth in her remark, and
+he said, "Yes, I believe there was a swamp here once; at least there is
+mention of one in a very old history of Hampshire that we have in the
+library. It was drawn off towards the end of the sixteenth century when
+the house was built. But I'm surprised at the Parrys knowing anything
+about it, for I've never heard anyone allude to it--not even my father."
+
+"Are the Parrys of the ordinary servant class?" I asked.
+
+"I believe so," Sir Eldred replied; "but I really know nothing of their
+antecedents, for I seldom encourage them to speak. As I told you, they
+both rather get on my nerves."
+
+That night, some hours after the household had retired to rest, I took
+a rope out of my portmanteau, and, fixing one end of it securely
+to the bedstead, lowered myself out of the window on to the ground
+beneath. Then, keeping under cover of the pine trees, and evading the
+moonbeams as much as possible, I made a detour of the house. The night
+air smelt pure and sweet. Heavily charged with the scent of pinewood
+and heather, there was absolutely nothing about it even remotely
+suggestive of poisonous gas.
+
+As I was about to emerge from the trees to re-enter the house, I heard
+a slight crunching sound on the gravel. I sprang back again into the
+gloom, and as I did so, two figures--a man and girl--stole noiselessly
+past me.
+
+The girl I could not see distinctly, as her head was partly enveloped
+in a cloak, but the face of the man stood out very plainly in the
+moonlight--it was the face of a black!
+
+What could a black man and a young girl be doing prowling about the
+grounds of the Caspar Beeches at that hour of night? Who were they?
+
+I did not say a word to anyone, but the following night--at the same
+hour--I again hid amongst the trees, and the same figures passed me.
+Then I stole out of my lair and followed them.
+
+On quitting the premises they took the high road to Bournemouth, and
+finally entered a house in the Holdenhurst Road. Making a mental note
+of the number of the house, I retraced my steps homeward, and early
+the next morning I sent the following telegram to Vane, who often
+accompanies me on my expeditions, and to whose quick wits I owe much:
+
+  "Have an important case on hand. Meet me this evening entrance to
+  Bournemouth pier 7 p.m."
+
+After dispatching this telegram I returned to the Beeches, and asked
+Sir Eldred to show me the rooms in which the three deaths had taken
+place. I then examined these rooms most minutely, but I could discover
+nothing in them that could in any way help me to form a theory or even
+get a suggestion.
+
+"When were the deaths first discovered?" I asked.
+
+"Not until the morning," Sir Eldred replied, "when the servants,
+getting no reply to their knocks, became alarmed, and eventually the
+doors were forced open."
+
+"And in each case death had taken place in bed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you have the same doctor to all three of your relatives after
+their deaths had been discovered?" I asked Sir Eldred.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Dr. Bowles. He has attended us for years."
+
+"What age is he?" I inquired.
+
+Sir Eldred thought a moment. "About sixty-four or five," he replied.
+"He attended my father long before he was married."
+
+"Then he would be a little old-fashioned," I said. "He might not, for
+instance, have much knowledge of the newest poisons. New poisons, you
+know, both in the form of liquid and gases, are constantly being
+discovered. Many are imported from Germany and the East. Might I see
+Dr. Bowles?"
+
+"Certainly," Sir Eldred replied; "but I fear he cannot help you much,
+as all he knew he made public at the inquests."
+
+Sir Eldred was right practically. In my interview with Dr. Bowles, I
+found that he could tell me little beyond what I already knew. "Can
+you," I asked him, "describe the appearance of the bodies and the
+effect on them of the gas which you say, in all probability, caused the
+asphyxiation? Was there anything specially remarkable in the facial
+contractions or colour of the skin?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "there was an infinite horror, such horror as I have
+never seen in human faces before," and he shuddered as he spoke. Then
+he gave me a minute description of the bodies, which I took down in my
+notebook and posted to a specialist in Oriental poisons whom I knew in
+London.
+
+"Was there nothing else in the three cases that struck you as unusual?"
+I asked Dr. Bowles. "No peculiarity in common?"
+
+He thought for a moment, and then said, "Nothing beyond the fact that
+all three died precisely at the same time--ten minutes past two in the
+morning."
+
+"The time when human vitality is at the lowest, and superphysical
+phenomena the most common. Were the victims in a normal state of
+health? Was there any family or hereditary disease?"
+
+"Yes, valvular weakness of the heart."
+
+"Which would render them more susceptible to the influence of poison?"
+
+"Poison and shock. The inhalation of certain poisons has a particularly
+deadly effect on people suffering from cardiac defection."
+
+"Could the poison have been self-inflicted? Are people suffering with
+such a disease prone to suicide?"
+
+"Only, as a rule, when the disease is in a very advanced state--you
+then get delirium, hallucinations, and morbid impulses."
+
+"And none of these symptoms were noticeable in the deceased?"
+
+"Not in a sufficiently marked degree to warrant the suggestion of
+suicide."
+
+"Have you no theory?"
+
+The doctor shook his head. "None whatever," he said; "and yet I'm sorry
+to say I can't help feeling there is something very sinister about it
+all--something that bodes ill for Sir Eldred."
+
+Much disappointed, I returned to the Caspar Beeches, and was making
+another inspection of the room in which one of the tragedies had
+occurred when, chancing to glance at the mirror over the mantelshelf, I
+caught the reflection of a pair of dark eyes fixed inquiringly at me. I
+looked round, and a figure passed along the passage. It was Mrs. Parry.
+She had evidently been peeping at me through the slightly open door,
+which I could have sworn I had closed. This made me careful. If I meant
+to unravel this mystery, I must on no account be seen doing anything
+that might arouse suspicion as to my real identity. Hence I determined
+to confine myself more to the study in future, and the rest of the
+morning I spent taking down in shorthand letters which Sir Eldred
+dictated. Walls have ears, and the sound of Sir Eldred dictating to me,
+I argued, might prove convincing.
+
+A week passed and I discovered nothing. There was nothing in the
+demeanour of any of the servants to give me the slightest reason for
+suspecting them; if any of them were "in the know" they kept their
+secret absolutely to themselves. At night, as soon as I deemed it
+safe, I slipped on a pair of rubber shoes and crept about the house
+and grounds, but with no result. On the morning of the eighth day I
+received two letters--one from Vane, who had taken furnished apartments
+next door to the house I had noted in the Holdenhurst Road, and the
+other from Craddock, the poison specialist.
+
+  "I have at last found out something about those two people," Vane
+  wrote. "They call themselves Effie and George Tyson. Tyson is an
+  assumed name; the girl is the daughter of Parry, Sir Eldred's
+  butler, and the man is Henry Mansfield, nephew of Sir Thomas."
+
+"Great heavens!" I could not help exclaiming. "This is news indeed. Sir
+Eldred assured me that he had no very near relatives."
+
+  "Their bedroom is only separated from mine," the letter went on,
+  "by a very thin wall, and when I had removed a brick I could catch
+  every word they said. There's some mystery, and I'm going to try
+  and solve it for you. Watch at the Beeches. I believe there is
+  something extra in the wind. Effie has been there already this
+  morning, and she and George are both going there again late this
+  evening."
+
+The other letter, from Craddock, was as follows:
+
+  "There's only one gas that produces all the effects you describe,"
+  he said, "and that has certainly been hitherto unknown in England;
+  indeed, the knowledge of it has been strictly confined to one
+  region--a district in the south-east of Borneo. The natives there
+  worship a great spirit, which they name the Arlakoo or Hell-faced
+  one, and they never invoke it save when they desire the death of
+  a criminal, or some very aged, useless member of the tribe. They
+  then prepare a mixture of herbs and berries, which they first of
+  all dry, and, at the psychical hour of two in the morning, put in
+  an iron pot and take into the presence of their intended victim.
+  Then, having set fire to the preparation, which, though rather
+  difficult to ignite, burns slowly and surely when once aflame, they
+  close all the openings of the hut or room and beat a precipitate
+  retreat. A few minutes later the spirit they have invoked appears,
+  and, simultaneous with its materialisation, the mixture burns a
+  bright green and emits a peculiarly offensive gas. The result is
+  invariably death: the shock produced by the harrowing appearance of
+  the apparition, coupled with the poisonous nature of the fumes, is
+  more than the human mechanism can stand. Of course all this would
+  be mere moonshine to anyone who is uninitiated in Eastern ways and
+  doesn't believe in ghosts. The Bournemouth doctors would pooh-pooh
+  it altogether. There is no other gas that I know of that produces
+  the effects you have described. If there is another case, let me
+  know, as I should much like to see the victim."
+
+A ghost! A ghost employed for the purpose of murdering someone! Even to
+me, confirmed believer in the Unknown as I am, the idea seemed wildly
+improbable and fantastic. And yet, what else could have produced that
+look of horror in the faces? What else could have killed them?
+
+That evening, Sir Eldred and I sat in the smoke-room after dinner and
+chatted away as usual. We had our coffee brought to us at nine o'clock,
+and at ten-thirty we retired to bed. Sir Eldred had appeared fidgety
+and nervous all the evening, and, as we were ascending the stairs, he
+asked me if I would mind sitting up with him.
+
+"I feel I shan't sleep to-night," he said, "as I've got one of my
+restless moods on. If it won't be tiring you too much, will you come
+and sit with me?"
+
+I said I would with pleasure, but I did not join him at once, as I
+wanted the servants to think we had gone to our respective rooms and
+to bed as usual. I also wanted whatever there might be in the wind to
+mature.
+
+On entering my room, I opened the window with as little noise as
+possible, and was on the verge of lowering myself into the garden when
+I espied someone among the trees. I was going to draw back, when the
+figure signalled, and I at once knew it was Vane.
+
+Another minute and I had found him. "He's here," he whispered, "be
+on the qui vive, and if you want help call. See, I'm armed." And
+he pointed significantly to his breast pocket. He was going to say
+something else when we heard steps--soft, surreptitious steps that
+hardly sounded human--coming in our direction. I immediately withdrew
+to the house and hastened to Sir Eldred. At my suggestion we both sat
+by the window, which I noticed was shut--Sir Eldred, I knew, was very
+susceptible to the cold--and I arranged the curtains so that we could
+not be seen from the outside. Sir Eldred occupied a sofa and I an easy
+chair. For some time we talked in low voices, and then Sir Eldred grew
+more and more drowsy till he finally fell asleep.
+
+It was one of the most exquisite nights I had ever seen--the moon, so
+full and silvery, and everywhere so calm, so gentle, and so still. Not
+a breath of air, not a leaf stirring, not a sound to be heard; nothing
+save the occasional burr of a great black bat as it hurled itself past
+the window and went wheeling and skimming in and out the tall, slender
+pines. I sat still, my eyes wandering alternately from the window to
+Sir Eldred. Whence would come the danger my instinct told me threatened
+him? How calmly he slept! How marked and handsome were his boyish
+features!
+
+Suddenly from afar off a distant church clock began to strike two, each
+chime falling with an extraordinary distinctness on the preternatural
+hush.
+
+Hardly had the last reverberating echoes ceased before there was a loud
+click from somewhere near the fireplace, and the next moment came a
+faint smell of burning. Then I confess--remembering all Craddock had
+told me--I was afraid. Everything in the room--the big, open fireplace,
+the dark, gleaming wardrobe, the quaintly carved chairs, the rich
+but fantastically patterned curtains, the sofa, and even Sir Eldred
+himself--I hardly dared look at him--seemed impregnated with a strange
+and startling uncanniness. The green light! Was this the prelude to it?
+Was the terrible Bornean phantasm getting ready to manifest itself?
+
+I struggled hard, and, at last, overcoming the feeling of utter
+helplessness that had begun to steal over me, rushed to the windows.
+Frantically throwing them open, I was preparing to do the same to the
+door, when a low, ominous wail, sounding at first from very far away,
+and then all of a sudden from quite close at hand, brought me to a
+standstill, and the whole room suddenly became illuminated with a glow,
+of a shade and intensity of green I have never seen before. Again there
+came an awful struggle. I felt eyes glaring at me, eyes that belonged
+to something of infinite hideousness and hate, to something that was
+concentrating its very hardest to make--to force--me to look; and it
+was only by an effort that smothered my chest and forehead in beads
+of cold sweat I desisted. Groping my way across the room, with my eyes
+tightly closed, I eventually reached the sofa. Thank God! Sir Eldred
+was still asleep. Tired with a day's hard exercise, he had fallen into
+the soundest of slumbers. Putting one hand over his eyes, and seizing
+him by the shoulder with the other, I speedily roused him. "Quick,
+quick!" I shouted. "For the love of God get up quick! Keep your mouth
+tightly shut and follow me." Pushing and dragging him along, I made for
+the direction of the door. The poison fumes now began to take effect;
+my temples throbbed, my brain was on fire, a tight, agonising feeling
+of suffocation gripped my chest and throat, and, as I staggered with
+Sir Eldred across the threshold on to the landing beyond, a sea of
+blackness suddenly enveloped me, and I knew no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On coming to, I found myself lying on the floor of the corridor with
+Vane bending over me. "I was just in time," he said. "I saw you at the
+window, saw you suddenly throw up your arms and stagger away from it,
+and, guessing what was happening, I ran to the house and, climbing up
+the rope you had left hanging out of your window, I managed to reach
+you."
+
+"Sir Eldred?" I panted.
+
+"Oh, he's all right," Vane replied. "He wasn't really so far gone as
+you. A few minutes more, though, and you would both have been dead.
+Now keep cool and don't say anything about it. As soon as the air has
+cleared--quite cleared mind--go to bed, and come down in the morning
+as if nothing had happened. Fortunately you made no noise, and I feel
+sure no one saw me enter the house. If you will let me take the lead in
+this affair, I think we may ferret the whole thing out. But we must go
+carefully. You don't mind my playing the part of instructor?"
+
+"No," I laughed, "I don't mind how despotic you are so long as we get
+to the bottom of this mystery. Fire ahead."
+
+"Very well then," Vane said. "Get up now and hurry off to bed. And
+remember--both of you--not a word to anyone."
+
+Vaulting on to the window-sill as he spoke, he caught hold of the rope
+and was speedily lost to view.
+
+When we came down in the morning we were very careful to make no
+allusion to the night's happening before the servants, but strove to
+appear quite normal and unconcerned.
+
+I watched Parry's face when he first encountered us, but it was quite
+immobile. "He is either quite innocent," I thought, "or a very old
+hand."
+
+When we were alone, Sir Eldred was very anxious to hear what I thought.
+"Have you been able to form any theory," he asked, "because I haven't.
+I don't see how any of the servants could have let that infernal stuff
+loose in the room last night. I can swear there was no one there but
+ourselves. And for the life of me I can't see any motive. If any living
+person is responsible for it, he must be a lunatic, for no one here
+has anything to gain by my death."
+
+"You are quite sure you have no near relatives?" I said.
+
+"Absolutely," he replied. "To the best of my knowledge I am the very
+last of the Hampshire Mansfields."
+
+Our conversation was abruptly ended by the entrance of a maid with a
+sealed note. It was from Vane.
+
+  "At eleven o'clock to-night," he wrote, "get Sir Eldred to tell the
+  Parrys they must sit up with him and you in his bedroom. See that
+  he doesn't let them off, as they are sure to make excuses. Also get
+  Craddock to come down by an early afternoon train, and tell him to
+  call round and see me immediately he arrives. Leave the rest to me."
+
+This note needing no reply, I hastened off at once to the General
+Post Office and telegraphed to Craddock. Fortunately he was at home,
+and wired that he would leave Waterloo by the two o'clock train. The
+remainder of the day passed very slowly. At ten o'clock that night
+someone whistled from the pines, and I knew at once that it was Vane.
+Craddock was with him. I conducted them both into Sir Eldred's room,
+where they were closeted together for some time, neither Sir Eldred
+nor I being allowed to enter. At last eleven o'clock arrived, and Sir
+Eldred went to fetch the Parrys. Both strongly demurred. Parry declared
+he was unwell, and Mrs. Parry said she had never heard of such a
+thing; but Sir Eldred insisted, and they were obliged at last to follow
+him upstairs. Vane and Craddock had hidden themselves so that the
+Parrys only saw me.
+
+"What do you want us to do?" Parry asked nervously.
+
+"Merely to sit up with us and watch," Sir Eldred said. "Mr. Anderson"
+(my alias) "and I have a presentiment that something may happen
+to-night and we don't relish the idea of facing it alone."
+
+"I'd really rather not, sir," Parry faltered.
+
+"That doesn't matter," Sir Eldred said sternly. "It is my wish. Come,
+if you talk like that, I shall begin to think you are both afraid. We
+will arrange ourselves round the fireplace. I've an idea that whatever
+comes will come down the chimney. You sit there, Parry, next to Mr.
+Anderson. Mrs. Parry shall sit by me." And without further to do he
+pushed them both into their seats. I could see they were very much
+agitated, but they both lapsed into silence, and for some considerable
+time no one in the room spoke. My thoughts, as I presumed did Sir
+Eldred's, chiefly centred round the question as to what was the great
+surprise Vane had in store for us. What had he discovered? What had he
+been so carefully plotting with Craddock?
+
+On flew the minutes, and at last Sir Eldred struck a match; for the
+moon was temporarily hidden by big, black, scouring clouds. "Egad!" he
+said, "It's close on two. The hour fatal to my family. If anything is
+going to happen to-night it should take place almost immediately."
+
+"If I was you, sir," Mrs. Parry burst out, "I wouldn't sit up any
+longer. I feel sure nothing will happen to-night, and if it does, our
+being here can do no good."
+
+"That's the truth," Parry echoed.
+
+"You must wait a little longer," Sir Eldred said. "See, it's almost on
+the stroke!" As he spoke, the moon shone out again in all her brilliant
+lustre, and every object in the room became clearly visible. Every eye
+was fixed on the clock.
+
+"I'm going," Mrs. Parry cried, springing to her feet. "I'm going,
+Sir Eldred, if you give me notice to leave. I've had enough of this
+nonsense." She was about to add more, when there was a sudden click,
+exactly similar to the click we had heard the preceding night, the
+dome-shaped top of the clock flew open, and the smell of something
+burning, but a far sweeter and more subtle odour than that of the
+night before, filled the room. In an instant the whole place was in
+an uproar. Mrs. Parry shrieked for help, and declared she was being
+choked, whilst Parry, falling on his knees, clutched hold of Sir Eldred
+and implored his forgiveness.
+
+"Now I'm about to die, sir," he whined, "I'll confess all. It's that
+cousin of yours, George, who you never heard tell of. He's married to
+my daughter Effie, and he wanted to come into your property. He put us
+up to it; we only acted at his bidding."
+
+"That's a lie," a voice called out, and from behind the window-curtain
+stepped Vane, closely followed by Craddock. "You see, you can't help
+lying, Parry, even when death stares you in the face. Open the window
+a little wider, Mr. Craddock, so that all this smoke, which is quite
+harmless, by the way, can get out, and I'll explain everything. The
+two people who have been in the habit of prowling about your premises
+at night, Sir Eldred, are Effie, the daughter of these miscreants
+here, and George Mansfield, the son of your Uncle Richard, whom Parry,
+truthful for once in his life, said you had never heard of. Your
+father never mentioned his nephew to you because he was a half-caste,
+Richard Mansfield, to your father's undying disgust, having married a
+native of Borneo. George was brought up in Borneo, and only came to
+England for the first time three years ago, shortly after his father's
+death. He had heard all about the family quarrel, and, arriving in
+this country with none too friendly feelings towards your parents,
+sought an interview with Sir Thomas, who, if George's version of it
+is correct, was very curt, forbidding him ever again to enter the
+house. Filled with intense hatred against you all, George Mansfield
+went to London, and about that time met Effie Parry, who was then on
+'the halls,' acting under the name of Grahame. In due course of time
+he married her, and it was she who first suggested to him the idea of
+contriving by some means or other to come into the family estate. It
+is easy enough to gather what lay at the back of her brain when she
+used the euphemism 'some means or other.' Life in the south-eastern
+states of Borneo, from which George Mansfield hails, is held of small
+account; he at once tumbled to the suggestion, and decided to summon
+to his assistance a spirit they worship out there called Arlakoo. In
+order to invoke the Arlakoo it was essential that certain herbs should
+be procured, and this necessitated time and expense. Eventually,
+however, through the agency of friends--Borneans--they were obtained.
+Then came the question of introducing them into the right quarters.
+Effie's parents both inherit criminal tendencies: Parry's Uncle James
+was a notorious forger, and Mrs. Parry's grandmother was hanged for
+baby-farming. You needn't look so indignant, you two, for I've been
+to the C.I.D.--you know what the C.I.D. is--for my information. Well,
+the Parrys were taken into confidence, and Sir Thomas, being in need
+of both a butler and housekeeper just then, the two applied for the
+posts and got them. The rest was comparatively easy. George is an
+engineer by profession and has a good inventive faculty. Coming to
+this house when the family were all away, he espied the clock you see
+on the mantelshelf, in the room your mother and father slept in, and,
+on examining the dome, discovered that it opened, and that there was
+a Cupid inside it which, when in proper working order, bounced out
+whenever the hour struck. It appears to have been in your family a good
+many years, Sir Eldred, for George Mansfield had previously come across
+a reference to it in one of his father's diaries, and his fertile
+brain now conceived the idea of using it in the process of carrying his
+scheme into effect. In the place of the Cupid he resolved to insert a
+miniature brazier containing the herbs and supplied with an electric
+fuse, the mechanism of which could be so contrived that whenever the
+clock should strike two, and two only, the dome would fly open, the
+brazier spring up, and the herbal preparation be ignited. He was only
+too well aware of the hereditary tendency of the Mansfield family to
+heart disease, and calculated that the shock of seeing so awful an
+apparition as the Arlakoo (which he firmly believed he could call
+up), together with the poisonous fumes that accompanied it--provided
+the door and windows were shut, which could be accomplished with the
+assistance of the Parrys--would encompass the deaths he desired. He
+chose, for his first victim, your mother. The day you and your father
+went to London to meet your brother, Parry smuggled George Mansfield
+into the house, and the latter, seizing an opportunity when your
+mother was out, fitted up the clock with the brazier containing the
+herbal preparation and the fuse. As you know, his diabolical scheme
+succeeded only too well, not only your mother, but your father and
+brother falling victims to it. This morning Mrs. Parry paid a visit to
+her son-in-law, and I overheard their conversation. Great surprise was
+expressed at the failure of the clock yesterday, and it was decided
+to try it again to-night. This is the result. The vapour you saw come
+out of the clock just now was a quite harmless gas which Mr. Craddock
+substituted for the original preparation George Mansfield had put
+there. We caught George nicely in the garden shortly after nine. We
+threatened to treat him in a thoroughly Bornean fashion"--and Vane
+produced his revolver--"and he then confessed everything. He is now in
+the safe custody of the C.I.D. men."
+
+"How did you come to suspect the clock, Vane?" I asked.
+
+"You forget the hole in the wall," he said, laughing. "I overheard
+continual allusion to the clock, and 'filling and charging' it again,
+and as I knew it was not customary to fill and charge clocks, I at once
+smelt a rat. My suspicions were confirmed when I came to your rescue
+last night and saw tiny spirals of the green vapour still emanating
+from the dome-shaped top. I consulted with Mr. Craddock, and with his
+assistance I was able to carry out this little plot which, I think,
+we will all agree has succeeded almost beyond expectation. Any more
+questions?"
+
+"Not for the present, Mr. Vane," Sir Eldred said. "I must, first of
+all, express my deep sense of gratitude to you for the clever way in
+which you have managed to frustrate the plot to take my life. You have
+captured one villain; it now remains to deal with these scoundrels
+here. I wish to goodness my cousin had not been involved in it. I
+suppose, by the way, there is no doubt that this George Mansfield is my
+cousin?"
+
+"I fear none whatever," Vane said. "I called at his rooms when I knew
+he was out, and found documents there which fully established his
+identity. I'm afraid you must prosecute him with the others."
+
+But Sir Eldred, fortunately, was spared that degradation; for hardly
+had Vane finished speaking when one of the C.I.D. men arrived at the
+house and informed us that George Mansfield was no more. He had evaded
+justice by swallowing a poisonous lozenge which he had secreted in his
+handkerchief.
+
+The Parrys were let go; the law does not acknowledge the superphysical,
+and Sir Eldred recognised the futility of prosecuting them. They
+eventually went to Canada and were heard of no more. The Caspar
+Beeches, however, had got a sinister name; no tradespeople would
+venture within its grounds after dusk, and no servants would stay
+there. Sir Eldred himself lived in a constant state of fear, and
+confided in me that he frequently heard strange noises--doors opening
+and shutting of their own accord, and soft, inexplicable footsteps.
+Eventually the house was shut up, and, although it has since been
+periodically occupied, no one ever cares to remain in it for long.
+
+When once invoked, it seems that spirits, especially evil ones, have
+an unpleasant habit of clinging to a person or place, and, in spite of
+what some people assert, can seldom, if ever, be laid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE STEPPING-STONES
+
+
+Between Coalbrookdale and the Wrekin, in a charmingly wooded valley,
+flows a stream crossed by seven stepping-stones, and on one bank of the
+stream are the ruins of what was once a farmhouse. People shun the spot
+at night, and tell strange tales of the uncanny things that are seen
+there.
+
+The following narrative may very possibly afford an explanation of the
+alleged hauntings.
+
+About noon one stifling hot day in August, rather more than thirty
+years ago, Robert Redblake Casson, senior partner of the firm of
+Casson, Hunter & Co., ivory merchants, of Old Queen Street, London,
+walked into the Fox and Greyhound Inn, Coalbrookdale, and ordered
+luncheon. While he was eating--there was no one else in the dining-room
+at the time--his eyes wandered to a large oil-painting hanging on
+the wall facing him. It represented a stream spanned by seven large
+stepping-stones. In the background of the picture, and leading to
+the bank of the stream, was a broad and very white pathway, bordered
+on either side by a thickly planted row of lofty pines. The artist,
+Casson thought, had depicted this scene with a more than ordinary
+touch of realism. The trees were no mere paint-and-canvas duds, but
+things of life--things that stood out prominently, each with an
+individuality of its own. He could almost see them move, see the
+rustling of their foliage and hear the creaking of their gently swaying
+bodies. Their shadows, too, were no empty, meaningless daubs, such as
+one too often sees in pictures, but counterparts, living, breathing
+counterparts, that, while conveying a sense of the physical, conveyed
+also a suggestion of the inexplicable. As to the water in the stream
+which rippled and babbled as it flowed, Casson could feel the speed
+and gauge the shallowness of it everywhere, saving round the centre
+stepping-stone, where it was green, and seemed to possess the stillness
+that great depths alone can generate. There was sunlight everywhere on
+the surface of the water, and here and there it shone and sparkled with
+all the brilliant lustre of the goldfishes' scales; but despite this
+animation, a sense of utter loneliness, a feeling of intense isolation,
+seemed to permeate the whole thing, and Casson, as he gazed, felt both
+chilled and depressed.
+
+He was still looking at the picture, and wondering what there could be
+in it to cause such a sensation of chilliness, when something made him
+glance at the stepping-stones, and, to his utter amazement, he saw the
+centre one suddenly begin to oscillate.
+
+Thinking it must be some kind of optical illusion, Casson rubbed his
+eyes and looked again, but the stone was still shaking, and he fancied
+he could discern the shadowy and indistinct outline of something or
+someone standing on it, swaying violently to and fro.
+
+The phenomenon lasted some seconds, and then very abruptly ceased.
+
+Casson got up from the table and walked right up to the picture. He
+examined it closely, and, oddly enough, although he was standing on the
+floor a foot or so away from the canvas, he yet felt he was absorbed
+by it, and part and parcel of the surroundings it depicted. The stone
+was quite motionless now, but despite this fact, the fact that it now
+lay firmly embedded in its cup-like basin, Casson was acutely conscious
+that it had moved. Moreover, its present stillness was of the most
+impressive nature; it was, as it were, the stillness that only comes
+after great emotion. Casson looked for the name of the artist, and at
+last, in one corner of the canvas, painted in sepia to tone with the
+general colouring, he found the signature. It was "Ralph L. Wotherall."
+
+"Good heavens!" he ejaculated; "this must be my old friend. There
+cannot be two Ralph L. Wotheralls. Besides, I remember he used to be
+fond of painting, and, judging from this specimen, he must have taken
+to it professionally. How I should like to meet him again!"
+
+His memory ran back a clear score of years. He and Wotherall had been
+the staunchest of friends; they had shared a study in Dempster's
+House at Harley. Wotherall was quite the best boy in the school in
+drawing; indeed, it was about the only subject he was good in; and he
+had often remarked to Casson that whatever his father, who was a big
+timber merchant, might desire to the contrary, he meant to go to the
+Slade School in London and be an artist. He decorated the walls of the
+study with sketches and caricatures of the boys and masters--Casson
+even now laughed as he thought of some of them--and during his last
+term at the old place he had executed an oil-painting. If Casson
+remembered correctly, it depicted a river (Wotherall had always evinced
+a very strong fascination for water scenery), and was hung in a very
+conspicuous place over the mantelpiece.
+
+Wotherall had not been popular at Harley. He was no good at games, and
+did not take the trouble to conceal his dislike of them. Besides, he
+had no respect for conventions; he did not have a fag, and inveighed
+hotly against those who did; he thought nothing of the "caps" and
+other big-wigs, and was invariably in trouble, either with a master, a
+House Sixth, or somebody of an equally recognised importance. Still,
+for all that, he had been a most excellent chum, and he, Casson, had
+repeatedly felt a longing to see him again, if only to chat about
+the many escapades they had had together. What had become of him, he
+wondered? Strange that that stone in the picture should have attracted
+his attention--should have led him to look for the name of the artist,
+and to discover in it his old friend! Of course the rocking of the
+stone was a hallucination. Probably his sight had played him a trick or
+his brain had suddenly become giddy. How could a stone in a picture--a
+thing of mere paint and canvas--suddenly start rocking? The thing was
+too fantastic for words, and he walked back to his seat, laughing.
+Ringing the bell, he asked to see the landlord, and when the latter
+appeared, he inquired of him how he had come by the picture, and if he
+knew the artist.
+
+"I bought that picture, sir," the landlord replied, "of a woman of the
+name of Griffiths. I happened to be passing her house--Stepping-Stone
+Farm, they call it--one day, when she was having a sale of some of her
+live stock, together with a few odds and ends in the way of surplus
+furniture, books, pictures, etc. I am very fond of a good landscape,
+sir, particularly with a bit of water in it, and there was something
+about this one that specially appealed to me. That, sir, is the stream
+that flows outside the old woman's house, and it was painted, so she
+informed me, by an artist who used to lodge with her, but had to leave
+in the end because he was stony-broke, and hadn't the wherewithal to go
+on paying the rent. A not uncommon happening with artists, sir, so I
+have always been given to understand. From what I gathered he owed the
+old woman pounds, and the few things he left behind him--knick-knacks
+and a couple of pictures--I bought the lot--was all the compensation
+she could ever get out of him."
+
+"You don't know where he went, I suppose?" Casson said.
+
+"No," the landlord replied, shaking his head. "Mrs. Griffiths did not
+volunteer that information, and, as I was not particularly interested
+in the fellow, I didn't ask her. She doesn't live very far from here,
+however, and if you would like to see her, sir, you could hire a trap
+and drive over, or even walk--though, maybe, you'd find walking a bit
+too tiring this weather."
+
+Casson thanked the landlord, and, feeling particularly fit and well,
+decided to set off at once on foot to Stepping-Stone Farm. He had
+little difficulty in finding the way, thanks to the prodigality of
+the local authorities in their distribution of signposts, and the sun
+had hardly begun to set, when a sudden swerve of the road showed him
+an avenue of trees that he instantly identified as that depicted in
+Wotherall's picture. Everywhere he encountered the same atmosphere of
+intense loneliness and isolation, not untinged with a melancholy, that
+had the most depressing effect, and filled his mind with a hundred and
+one dismal reflections.
+
+Advancing over the white soil he soon heard the rushing of water, and
+saw, straight ahead of him and apparently barring his progress, a broad
+stream, that seemed unusually full of water for the time of year. As he
+drew near he perceived the stream was spanned by seven stepping-stones,
+and, drawing nearer still, he saw that, just as in Wotherall's picture,
+the water on either side the middle and largest of the stones formed
+two big pools, one of which was singularly green and suggestive of very
+great depth.
+
+On the opposite side of the stream, almost on its very bank, a
+farmyard encircled a long, low building, the walls of which were
+barely visible beneath a profusion of pink and white roses, clematis
+and honeysuckle. Casson thought he had never seen anything quite
+so enchanting, and, being a man who invariably acted upon impulse,
+decided to ask Mrs. Griffiths, whose house it undoubtedly was, to
+put him up for the night. To do that, however, he would of course
+have to cross the stream. Now Casson had often crossed deep rivers in
+Norway by stepping-stones, and in crossing these rivers he had twice
+seen a man slip and, with one agonising shriek of despair, plunge
+headlong into the seething foam, his body, bruised and battered and
+hardly recognisable, being found many days later, calmly floating in
+some obscure nook maybe a mile or so away; and compared with these
+Scandinavian rivers the stream that now faced him was but a brooklet.
+All the same, he had never experienced such an intense fear and feeling
+of insecurity as now, when, stepping lightly over the first three
+stones, he landed on the centre one and gazed into the green, silent
+depths of the largest and deepest of the two pools that lay on either
+side of it. There was something curiously unnatural about this pool; he
+had never seen such a pronounced green in fresh water before, and its
+depth was in such marked contrast to the shallow, babbling water all
+around it. As he peered into it, a dark shadow seemed to well up to its
+surface, but he could trace no likeness in it to himself, and the trees
+were too far off for it to be produced by any one of them. He was
+asking himself how it could have come there, when his eyes wandered to
+the stone on which he was standing.
+
+What an odd shape it was, nearly round and slightly convex, like the
+back of a turtle or some other queer amphibious creature, and it
+moved; he was positive of that, but it did not move with the rocking,
+vibrating movement he had witnessed in the picture; it moved with a
+furtive, sidelong, crawling action, as if it were alive. The sensation
+was unendurable. He turned to go, and, as he leaped through the air to
+the fourth stone, something whose attitude towards him he could not
+exactly define seemed to rise out of the green pool with astonishing
+celerity and leap with him. Arriving on the seventh and last stone,
+he was conscious of a strong restraining influence, an enigmatical
+something that seemed to be trying to pull him back, and it was only
+by exerting every atom of his will power that he succeeded in forcing
+himself forward. However, the moment his feet touched the bank and
+he was quite clear of the water, he was himself again. He turned and
+looked at the stone. It was absolutely motionless, while a stray
+sunbeam, gilding the surface of the silent pool, made it appear quite
+ridiculously cheerful. Vexed with himself for being such a fool, Casson
+now crossed the farmyard and, going up to the house, knocked at the
+door. It was opened by a middle-aged woman, who might once have been
+the village belle, but who was now thin and worn.
+
+"Yes," she said, running her eyes carefully over Casson's face and
+clothes. "What is it?"
+
+"Are you Mrs. Griffiths?" Casson ejaculated. "I am a friend of Mr.
+Wotherall. I understand he once boarded with you."
+
+"That's right," the woman replied. "He lived with me more than six
+months, and left two years ago last May. He didn't owe you anything,
+did he?"
+
+"Oh no," Casson replied quickly; "far from it. He and I were old
+schoolfellows. I saw a picture of his at the place I lunched at to-day,
+and, hearing he had been in the neighbourhood, I thought I would like
+to find out his present whereabouts."
+
+"If you've come to inquire of me, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed,"
+Mrs. Griffiths responded, "for I've neither seen him nor heard from him
+since he went away, and he would not leave any address for letters to
+be forwarded, as he said he had written to all his friends to tell them
+not to write here any more. A good many bills, but nothing else, came
+for him after he left, and those I have returned to the Dead Letter
+Office. He was very hard up, poor gentleman, and it's my opinion he
+didn't want his creditors to know what had become of him."
+
+"I suppose he must have lost money then," Casson murmured, "for I
+always understood that his people were very comfortably fixed, and that
+he was an only child. Poor old Wotherall, I should so like to have met
+him again! Do you still let rooms?"
+
+"Yes, sir," Mrs. Griffiths replied; "a top bedroom and parlour. The
+same two as Mr. Wotherall had. The last people that occupied them, a
+commercial traveller and his wife from Leeds, only left last week.
+Would you like to see them?"
+
+Casson acquiesced, and, liking the look of the rooms immensely, took
+them for a fortnight, which was all that remained of his seven weeks'
+holidays.
+
+"It is a charming spot," he argued, "and I can easily amuse myself
+mooching about the fields or lying by the stream reading. Rest and
+quiet, and a plain, wholesome diet, such as one always gets at a farm,
+are just the very things I need."
+
+He had a gorgeous tea that evening--strawberries, freshly gathered from
+the garden, cream, delicious butter and bread, none of that mysterious
+substitute that is palmed off on one nowadays in most of the London
+hotels and restaurants, but real home-made bread, which tasted far
+nicer than anything he had ever eaten in Bond Street or Piccadilly--and
+he enjoyed the meal so much, in fact, that he felt in a particularly
+amiable frame of mind, and thoroughly well satisfied with the world in
+general.
+
+Presently he got up, intending to go out. He crossed the stone-flagged
+hall, and, passing the kitchen, the door of which was slightly open,
+he perceived Mrs. Griffiths busily engaged at a pastry-board rolling
+away as if for dear life. Wishing to be sociable, he called out, and
+as soon as she invited him in, opened up a conversation with her,
+inquiring how many cows she kept, how much land she rented, and had
+she a good crop of fruit. Whilst she was answering these questions,
+expatiating to no small degree on the trials and drawbacks of having to
+run a farm without a husband to look after it (she had, she remarked,
+with much emphasis and a dangerous approach to tears, been married
+twice, her first husband, "the best man as ever breathed," dying of
+consumption, and her second, a drunkard and a bad lot in every way,
+deserting her and going off to America, so she had always believed,
+with some other woman); whilst, I say, she was engaged telling him all
+this, he suddenly found himself gazing at an object hanging on the wall
+near the grandfather clock. It was a striped chocolate, white, and blue
+scarf, with the letters H.C. in white standing out in bold relief. He
+recognised the colours at once; they were the colours of Dempster's
+House at Harley. Evidently Wotherall had left the scarf behind as part
+of the personal effects that he had had to hand over to Mrs. Griffiths,
+in order to appease her indignation at his failure to produce the rent.
+Poor beggar, he must indeed have been hard pushed to part with so
+sacred a memento of his early life. Casson, like every other Harleyan,
+had the greatest reverence and affection for everything associated with
+the old School, the mere thought of which even now sent a thrill of
+genuine emotion through him.
+
+"I see you have got a souvenir of my friend over there," he said,
+pointing to the scarf. "I suppose he made you a present of it when he
+left."
+
+"What do you mean?" Mrs. Griffiths demanded, abruptly breaking off from
+her pastry-making "A souvenir of your friend? I don't understand."
+
+"I mean that scarf hanging on the wall there," Casson cried, again
+indicating with his hand its whereabouts. "It's my old School, or
+rather House, scarf. But what makes it blow about so? There doesn't
+seem to be any wind."
+
+"House! scarf! colours!" Mrs. Griffiths ejaculated. "I never heard tell
+of such things. You must be crazy. There's nothing on the wall saving
+that almanac that was given me by the grocer over in Coalbrookdale for
+a Christmas present. Have you never seen an almanac before?"
+
+"Not made of wool and behaving like that," Casson remarked. Then, going
+a few steps nearer, he gave vent to a loud exclamation of surprise.
+There was no scarf there at all, not the vestige of one, only a
+picture almanac representing an intensely silly-looking girl holding a
+lawn-tennis racket.
+
+"My liver must be very wrong and I must be more than ordinarily
+bilious," Casson said. "I could have sworn it was a scarf."
+
+"You're run down; been working too hard, Mr. Casson," Mrs. Griffiths
+observed. "What you want is a rest. Go to bed early, and don't try your
+eyes over books and letter-writing."
+
+Casson thanked her for her advice and, turning on his heels, left the
+kitchen. For one brief second he paused to look back. Mrs. Griffiths
+was staring after him, and in the depths of her large china-blue eyes,
+the pupils of which seemed to have grown to an unusual size, he read
+an expression of curiosity intermingled with fear.
+
+The next few hours Casson spent lying on the grassy bank of the stream.
+There was something wonderfully soothing in the constant rustling of
+the leaves of the big trees in the avenue, and the eternal babble,
+babble, babble of the water. At times he construed the sounds into
+real sighings and whisperings, and fancied he could hear his name
+called, "Casson! Casson! Casson!" very softly and plaintively, but
+occasionally with such reality that he started, and had to reassure
+himself earnestly that it was all imagination. Then the shadows on the
+white soil of the avenue riveted his attention. That they were only
+the shadows of the trees he had no doubt, and yet he queried every now
+and then if he had ever before seen shadows flit about and contort
+themselves in quite such an incomprehensible manner. The emptiness of
+the avenue, too, seemed so emphasised. Why was it so deserted? Why
+weren't there people about--living beings among those dark swaying
+trees and bushes like there were in the London parks? He did not know
+if he altogether liked the avenue now, when twilight was coming on. His
+eyes had tricked him in the kitchen; might they not trick him again
+out here, and in a rather more alarming manner? He would not look at
+the avenue again, not till it was broad daylight; he would turn his
+attention to something else. And then, of course, his eyes rested on
+the stepping-stones. One, two, three, four, he counted. There was that
+confounded queer-shaped middle stone again, and that pool! How black
+and sinister they both looked in the semi-darkness! He would sound the
+pool in the morning and see if it was really as deep as he fancied. He
+turned away his eyes and tried to keep his attention concentrated on
+something else, but it was never any good, and in the end he invariably
+caught himself gazing at the stones, and particularly at the middle
+one. At last, tearing himself away with an effort, he went indoors and
+had supper, and at ten o'clock by his watch wended his way upstairs
+to bed. Just outside his door he suddenly pulled himself up sharply.
+Another step, and he felt he would have collided with something or
+somebody, and yet, when he looked there was nothing--nothing save
+space. More convinced than ever now that there was something wrong
+either with the place or himself, Casson entered his room and proceeded
+to get into bed. The exertions of the day had made him tired, and he
+was soon asleep. He supposed he slept for about three hours, for he
+awoke with a start to hear the kitchen clock hurriedly strike two.
+His heart was beating furiously, and he had the most uncomfortable
+feeling that there was someone besides himself in the room. He fought
+against this feeling for some time, until, at last, unable to endure it
+any longer, he got out of bed, lit the candle, and searched the room
+thoroughly. The door was locked on the inside--he remembered locking
+it--and he was quite alone. "It must be nerves," he said, getting back
+into bed and blowing out the light. "A strong tonic is what I want.
+I will write to Dr. Joyce for one to-morrow. But I've never been
+afflicted with nerves before! And in all consciousness I live simply
+enough; so I don't know why I should suddenly develop biliousness."
+Then seized with a sudden desire to blow his nose, and recollecting
+that his handkerchief was on the chair by the bedside, he was putting
+out his hand to grope for it, when he felt it quietly thrust into his
+palm.
+
+After that he pulled the bedclothes tightly over his head and kept them
+there till the morning. With the sunlight all doubts and uneasiness
+vanished, and Casson got out of bed fully convinced that all his
+experiences of the previous night were due to mere nervousness.
+
+"I'm a Londoner," he argued, "and, not being used to the quiet and
+loneliness of these out-of-the-way places, I got the wind up."
+
+Breakfast made him even more confident, and he went out into the yard
+in the cheeriest mood possible. After amusing himself watching the
+poultry, pigs, and other animals, he wandered through a wicket-gate
+into a field, and then through another field down to the stream. While
+he was threading his way back to the farm, through a mass of gorse
+and other undergrowth, he came upon a boy bending over a fishing-rod,
+busily intent on putting something red and raw--like uncooked meat--on
+a hook. "Whatever's that horrid-looking stuff," Casson said. "You'll
+never catch fish with bait like that. Why don't you use dough?"
+
+"'Cos I know they like this best," was the answer, and the boy looked
+up at Casson and grinned.
+
+Casson was now so taken up with the boy's appearance that he forgot
+all about the bait. He had never seen such an unpleasant, queer,
+malshapen face before. The cranium was disproportionately large; the
+forehead and sides of the head immediately above and behind the ears
+were enormously developed; the chin was small and retreating; the ears,
+which stood very pronouncedly out from the head, were very big and
+pointed; the mouth huge; the eyes big, dark, and very heavily lidded;
+the skin yellow and unhealthy. The face was unprepossessing enough in
+repose, but when the lips opened and it smiled, the likeness to some
+ghoulish, froggish, and wholly monstrous kind of animal was increased a
+hundredfold, and Casson started back in dismay.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded, "and what right have you to fish here?"
+
+"I like that--I do," the boy grunted. "Why, I've every right. I'm
+Ephraim Owen Lloyd. My mother, her you're staying with, was Mrs. Owen
+Lloyd before she married again and took the name of Griffiths. No right
+to fish here! You tell my mother that and see what she says." And,
+grinning wider than ever, he picked up the baited hook and flung it far
+into the stream.
+
+Not wishing to have any further conversation with him, and feeling
+thoroughly disgusted and repelled, Casson walked on towards the stones.
+"Fancy being under the same roof with a young degenerate like that!"
+he said to himself. "I wish now I hadn't decided to stay so long."
+
+Slashing at the grass and other herbage with his stick--a trick Casson
+always resorted to when unsettled or annoyed--he reached the stones,
+and was about to turn into the yard when he received something of a
+surprise. A man in flannels, with a chocolate, white, and blue striped
+blazer, passed him by and, crossing the yard, vanished round an angle
+of the house. Casson did not see his face, but the back of his head,
+his figure, and walk at once recalled Wotherall. "If that's not Ralph,"
+Casson exclaimed, "I'll eat my hat! I wonder why he's come back? It
+will give him a bit of a surprise when he sees me."
+
+At the front door he ran into Mrs. Griffiths, who, with an apron full
+of French beans, was making for the kitchen.
+
+"Have you seen him?" Casson inquired.
+
+"Seen who?" Mrs. Griffiths rejoined.
+
+"The man in the blazer, of course," Casson replied. "Mr. Wotherall,
+wasn't it?"
+
+"Mr. Wotherall!" Mrs. Griffiths exclaimed, stopping short and staring
+hard at Casson. "You seem to have got Mr. Wotherall on the brain. Mr.
+Wotherall is nowhere near here--leastways, if he is, I've seen no signs
+of him."
+
+"Why, there he is!" Casson cried excitedly, pointing at a window,
+through which he saw a figure in the familiar Harleyan House blazer
+saunter slowly by. "That is Wotherall. He hasn't altered in the least.
+See, he's looking straight in here--at me! I'll go and speak to him!"
+
+He ran to the door and threw it open. To his astonishment, there was no
+one there but young Ephraim Lloyd, who met his puzzled expression with
+an impudent leer.
+
+"Where's Mr. Wotherall?" Casson cried. "What's become of him?"
+
+The boy's countenance instantly underwent a change. "Mr. Wotherall!" he
+stammered. "What do you know of Mr. Wotherall?"
+
+"Know of him?" Casson retorted angrily. "That's my business. He was
+here a few seconds ago, and now I can see no trace of him. Where is he,
+I say?"
+
+By this time Mrs. Griffiths had deposited the beans on the kitchen
+table and joined the two at the door. "Take no notice of the
+gentleman," she said to Ephraim, "it's overwork. Been a-studying too
+hard. I've told him he must throw aside his books and letter-writing
+while he is here, and rest."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," Casson said "that neither of you saw a man in
+a blazer pass here just now?"
+
+"Naw!" Ephraim drawled. "I ain't seen no one. There's no man in a
+blazer or in any other kind of thing anywhere about here. There's no
+man at all except yourself."
+
+"That's right!" Mrs. Griffiths chipped in. "I told the gentleman so,
+only he won't believe me."
+
+"I must have been dreaming, then," Casson replied reluctantly; "but, at
+all events, I am awake now, and should like my dinner, Mrs. Griffiths,
+as soon as you can get it."
+
+That ended the incident. Casson retreated to his parlour, and the other
+two, after mumbling for awhile in the hall, retired together to the
+kitchen. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and, once again,
+Casson found himself, candle in hand, wending his way upstairs to bed.
+
+Just outside his door the same thing happened as on the previous night.
+He thought he saw someone standing there, and pulled himself up sharply
+to avoid a collision.
+
+Once inside his room he locked the door, and then looked everywhere
+to make sure no one was hiding. That preliminary over, he stood for
+a while by the window smoking, then undressed, and got into bed.
+Leaning on his elbow, he was about to blow out the candle, which was
+on the chair by his side, when there was a big puff and it was blown
+out for him. No thought of investigating this time entered Casson's
+mind; he dived deep under the bedclothes, and did not emerge till Mrs.
+Griffiths, almost thumping his door down, announced that his breakfast
+was on the table getting cold. After breakfast he went for a ramble in
+the fields, and as he had no desire to come in contact with Ephraim,
+towards whom he had taken a most violent dislike, he headed in a
+direction away from the stream. He had not gone many yards, however,
+when he heard a cat screaming as if in fearful pain. Thinking some dog
+had got hold of it and was worrying it to death, and being very fond of
+cats, Casson at once made for the sounds, and in an open space, within
+a few yards of the stream, came upon a spectacle that he felt he could
+never forget, even if he lived a thousand years.
+
+Tied down securely with cord to the top of a big wooden box was a black
+and white cat. Ephraim had hooked out one of its eyes, which was on the
+ground near his fishing-line, and was now about to hook out the other.
+The mystery of the bait Casson had seen him using the day before was
+thus explained.
+
+With something like a howl of fury Casson rushed at Ephraim, and,
+seizing him by the scruff of his neck, thrashed him until his arms
+ached. Then flinging him on the ground with the remark, "You little
+devil, I hope I've killed you," he untied the cat. Weak with pain and
+loss of blood, the wretched animal had not the strength to move, and
+Casson, lifting it tenderly up, carried it to the house. Going straight
+into the kitchen, he showed it to Mrs. Griffiths.
+
+"This is your son's work," he said. "I'm going to show it to the police
+at once, and I only hope he'll get a thorough good birching."
+
+Mrs. Griffiths ceased what she was doing and looked at Casson defiantly.
+
+"What do you want to interfere with Ephraim for?" she remarked. "He
+ain't done nothing to you, has he?"
+
+"He's done nothing to me, perhaps," Casson retorted, "but he's done
+something to this cat. You can see for yourself."
+
+"Well, he's only a boy," Mrs. Griffiths responded; "and if he has
+ill-treated the cat, there's not much harm done. I expect it's the same
+cat that has been after the chickens. The cats about here are a perfect
+pest."
+
+"That's no excuse for hooking their eyes out," Casson said hotly. "I
+intend leaving at once. Here's a week's rent," and, taking some money
+from his pocket, he deposited it on the table.
+
+At that moment there were sounds of steps on the gravel outside, loud
+hullabalooings, and Ephraim burst into the kitchen.
+
+"The gentleman's been hitting me," he bellowed. "He struck me on the
+head and boxed my ears."
+
+"You struck him!" Mrs. Griffiths screamed, her cheeks white with fury.
+"You dared to strike him! I'll have the law on you, see if I don't.
+There, there, Ephraim, cease crying, and you shall have what is left of
+that custard pudding you liked so much yesterday."
+
+This bribe apparently taking effect, Mrs. Griffiths gave her offspring
+a final cuddle, and then veered round with the intention of renewing an
+attack upon Casson. Before she could open her mouth to speak, however,
+there was another howling on the part of Ephraim, and Casson, under
+cover of it hurried off to his bedroom to collect his things. As he
+went upstairs, both the boy and his mother showered abuses on him, and
+he thought he heard Ephraim say something to the effect that he wished
+they could serve him as they had served someone else--the name of the
+someone else being drowned in a loud hush from Mrs. Griffiths, who
+afterwards began to speak very excitedly in Welsh.
+
+On reaching his room Casson sought to revive the cat. He gave it some
+brandy from his flask, but the animal had been so badly mauled that
+all his efforts were in vain, and in a very few minutes it succumbed.
+He was thinking how he should carry it to the police station, when he
+heard a growl, and, looking round, saw a big black retriever dog, with
+a bright steel collar, standing on its hind legs, with its back towards
+him, gazing out of the window. Wondering whose dog it was, and what it
+was growling at, Casson went to the window, and, looking out, saw Mrs.
+Griffiths and the boy, each armed with a long pole, making off in the
+direction of the stream. Once or twice they peeped round, (whereupon
+Casson quickly hid himself behind the curtain), and then, apparently
+satisfied that they had not been seen, kept on following the course
+of the stream till they arrived at the stepping-stones. Crossing the
+first two, they stood on the third, and, thrusting the tops of their
+poles under the middle one, began to lever it up. Casson now thought
+it high time to depart. He felt convinced that they were setting some
+kind of trap for him, and that the exact nature of it was only known
+to themselves. Thanking his lucky stars that he had happened to look
+out of the window in time to see their little game, and determining
+to escape at once, avoiding the stepping-stones at all costs, he was
+preparing to leave the room, when he suddenly thought of the dog.
+It was nowhere to be seen, and the door and the window were both
+shut. Where could it be? He looked under the bed, in the cupboard,
+everywhere; it was useless--the dog had vanished!
+
+"The sooner I am out of this house," he muttered, as he ran downstairs
+and out at the kitchen door, "the better." And taking care, as he
+crossed the yard, to keep well out of sight of the stepping-stones, he
+ran in an opposite direction, without stopping for at least a mile.
+
+Eventually he crossed the stream by a bridge, and found his way to a
+village, from whence he was able to proceed by train to Coalbrookdale.
+Arriving at the latter place, he went at once to the police, and
+telling them first of all about the cat, went on to narrate all that
+had happened to him at the farm. The police were not altogether
+unsympathetic; they could, however, so they said, do nothing with
+regard to the cat without corroborative evidence, and, as to the
+other matter, they were afraid the law did not take cognizance of
+the superphysical, or suspicion founded on anything so immaterial as
+ghosts, although they themselves would not like to go as far as to deny
+their existence altogether. At length, being unable to prevail upon the
+police to do anything, Casson, by offering a handsome remuneration,
+persuaded two labourers to accompany him back to the stream. Arriving
+at the stepping-stones, they cautiously examined the middle one, and
+found it to be so poised that anyone standing on it would, by its
+unexpected tilt, suddenly be precipitated into a deep hole directly
+underneath it.
+
+After considerable difficulty the stone was sufficiently moved on one
+side to enable the workmen to explore this hole, and at the bottom of
+it the skeletons of two men and a dog were discovered.
+
+There was nothing on the one skeleton that could in any way help to
+identify it; but remnants of clothes, ragged and rotten, still adhered
+to the other, and from the name engraven on a card-case in the pocket
+of the coat, which tallied with the initials on the undergarments and a
+signet ring, there was little doubt but that the remains were those of
+Ralph Wotherall. [From subsequent inquiries it was ascertained that the
+friends and relatives of Ralph Wotherall had heard from him immediately
+prior to the time he was supposed to have left Stepping-Stone Farm,
+but had not heard from him since, a fact to which they had attributed
+little importance, as Wotherall, on more than one occasion, had
+suddenly decided to go abroad, where he had stayed for a couple of
+years or so without letting anyone know where he was or what he was
+doing. The story, they said, of his being so hard up as to be unable to
+pay the rent could be discredited by his solicitors, who would testify
+to the fact that they had but recently invested a large sum of money
+for him, from which he was deriving a not inconsiderable income.] A
+steel collar bearing the initials R. L. W. was found round the neck
+of the third skeleton, and as several people remembered having seen a
+big black retriever with Wotherall while he was staying at the farm,
+it was pretty certain that the canine remains were those of his dog.
+However, Mrs. Griffiths, who appeared to be quite as astonished as
+anyone at the discovery of the skeletons, still stuck to her original
+story that Wotherall had left the neighbourhood, taking his dog with
+him, and against her statements Casson could only reiterate his
+surmises. He was quite certain that Mrs. Griffiths and her evil-faced
+son were guilty of murder, that, having done away with Wotherall and
+some other man by means of the stepping-stone, they had deliberately
+set the same deathtrap for him, and that he had only been saved from
+falling into it by the apparition of his old friend's dog; but he could
+not, of course, expect the police to work up a case, which, from their
+point of view, rested upon such an unsubstantial foundation, and as on
+examination the skeleton showed no evidence of foul play, there was no
+alternative, the usual verdict of "Death from misadventure" had to be
+returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE PINES
+
+
+"Who is the most interesting person in this institution?" my friend Dr.
+Custance remarked, repeating my words. "If you mean from your point of
+view--ghosts, I should say Dacre, George Richard Dacre. He is pretty
+old now--close upon seventy, and very possibly you have never heard of
+him. The case, with which he was somewhat closely connected, took place
+in Cumberland about forty years ago, and the spot is still said to be
+haunted. If you would like to hear all about it, come along, and I will
+introduce you to him."
+
+Custance led me into a room, where an old man, with a glistening bald
+head and white beard, sat, leaning back in his chair, and examining his
+hands with an air of strange intensity.
+
+"Mr. Dacre," Custance remarked, "I have brought you a visitor, a Mr.
+Elliot O'Donnell, who is very interested in the supernatural, and would
+much like to hear some of your experiences."
+
+The old man raised his eyes; they did not look at me, but beyond, far
+beyond, into a world that seemed known only to himself.
+
+"I have only had one experience," he said, "and that was a long while
+ago; so long that, at times, it seems as if it must have happened to
+me in another incarnation, when I was something out of doors--a pine or
+an elm--something growing in a wood. I can still, occasionally, smell
+resin, after one of those long hot summers we used to have,--seventy
+or eighty years ago,--and occasionally hear the wind, the deliciously
+cool, evening breezes, rustling and sighing, as it were, through my
+branches and fanning my perspiring bark. Sit down, and I will tell you
+all about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It was a cold night. Rain had been falling steadily not only for hours
+but days--the ground was saturated. As I walked along the country
+lane, the slush splashed over my boots and trousers. To my left was a
+huge stone wall, behind which I could see the nodding heads of pines;
+and through them the wind was rushing, making a curious whistling
+sound--now loud, now soft--roaring and gently murmuring. The sound
+fascinated me. I fancied it might be the angry voice of a man and the
+plaintive pleading of a woman, and then, a weird chorus of unearthly
+beings, of grotesque things that stalked across the moors and crept
+from behind huge boulders. Nothing but the wind was to be heard. I
+stood and listened to it. I could have listened for hours, for I felt
+in harmony with my surroundings--lonely. The moon showed itself at
+intervals from behind the scudding clouds and lighted up the open
+landscape to my right. A gaunt hill covered with rocks, some piled up
+pyramidically, others strewn here and there; a few trees with naked
+arms tossing about and looking distressfully thin beside the more
+stalwart boulders; a sloping field or two, a couple of level ones,
+crossed by a tiny path; and the lane, where I stood. The scenery was
+desolate--not actually wild, but sad and forlorn; and the wood by my
+side lent an additionally weird aspect to the place, which was pleasing
+to me.
+
+"Suddenly I heard a sound--a sound, familiar enough at other times;
+but, at this hour, and in this place, everything seemed different. A
+woman was coming along the road--a woman in a dark cloak, with a basket
+under her arm; and the wind was blowing her skirts about her legs.
+
+"I looked at the trees. One singularly gaunt and fantastic one
+appalled me. It had long, gnarled arms, and two of them ended in
+bunches of twigs like hands--yes, they were exactly like hands--huge,
+murderous-looking hands, with bony fingers. The moonlight played over
+and around me--I was bathed in it. I had no business to be on the
+earth--my proper place was in the moon. I no longer thought it--I knew
+it. The woman was close at hand. She stopped at a little wicket gate
+leading into the lane skirting the northern boundary of the wood. I
+felt angry; what right had she to be there, interrupting my musings
+with the moon! The tree with the human hands appeared to agree. I saw
+anger in the movements of its branches--anger, which soon blazed into
+fury. It gave a mighty bend towards her, as if longing to rend her in
+pieces.
+
+"I followed the woman; and the wind howled louder and louder through
+those rustling leaves.
+
+"How long I scrambled on I do not know. As soon as the moonlight left
+me, I fell into a kind of slumber--a delicious trance, broken only
+by the restless murmurings, the sighings and groanings of the wind.
+Sweeter music I never heard. Then came a terrible change. The charm of
+my thoughts was broken--I awoke from my reverie.
+
+"A terrific roar broke on my ears, and a perfect hurricane of rain
+swept through the wood. I crept cold and shivering beneath the shelter
+of the trees. To my surprise a hand fell on my shoulder: it was a man,
+and, like myself, he shivered.
+
+"'Who are you?' he whispered, in a strangely hoarse voice. 'Who are
+you? Why are you here?'
+
+"'You wouldn't believe me if I told you,' I replied, shaking off the
+man's grasp.
+
+"'Well,--tell me,' he rejoined; 'for God's sake tell me.' He was
+frightened--trembling with fright. Could it be the storm, or was
+it--was it those trees?
+
+"I told him then and there why I had trespassed. I was fascinated--the
+wind--and the trees--had led me thither.
+
+"'So am I,' he whispered; 'I am fascinated. It is a long word, but it
+describes my sentiments. What did the wind sound like?'
+
+"I told him. He was a poor, common man, and had no poetical ideas.
+The wildly romantic had never interested him--he was but an ignorant
+labouring man.
+
+"'Sounded like sighing, groaning, and so on?' he said, repeating my
+words, and shifting uneasily from one foot to another. He was cold,
+horribly cold. 'Was that all?'
+
+"'Yes, of course. Why ask?' I replied. Then I laughed. This stupid,
+sturdy son of toil had been scared; to him the sounds had been those of
+his moorland bogies--things he had dreaded in his infancy. I told him
+so. He didn't like to hear me make fun of him. He didn't like my laugh,
+and he persisted: 'Was that all you heard?'
+
+"Then I grew impatient, and asked him to explain what he meant.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'I thought I heard a scream,--a cry. Just as if some
+one had jumped out on some one else and taken them unawares. Maybe it
+was the wind--only the wind. But it had an eerie sound.'
+
+"The man was nervous. The storm had frightened away whatever little wit
+he may have possessed.
+
+"'Come, let us be going,' I said, moving off in the direction of the
+wall. I wanted to find a new exit; I was tired of paths.
+
+"The man kept close to me. I could hear his teeth chatter. Accidentally
+his hand brushed against mine. His flesh was icy cold. He gave a cry
+as if a snake had bitten him. Then the truth flashed through me. The
+man was mad. His terror, his strange manner of showing it, and now
+this sudden shrinking from me revealed it all--he was mad--the moon and
+trees had done their work.
+
+"'I'm not going that way,' he said, 'come along with me. I want to see
+which of the trees it was that cried.'
+
+"His voice was changed; he seemed suddenly to have grown stranger.
+There was no insanity in his tone now. But I knew the cunning of the
+insane, and I feared to anger him, so I acquiesced. What an idea! One
+of the trees had cried! Did he mean the wind?
+
+"He grew sullen when I jeered at him. He led me to a little hollow in
+the ground, and I noticed the prints of several feet in the wet mud.
+Then I saw something which sent the cold blood to my heart. A woman
+bathed in blood lay before me. Somehow she was familiar to me. I looked
+again--then again. Yes, there was the dark shawl, the basket--broken,
+it was true, with the contents scattered; but it was the same basket.
+It was the woman I had seen coming down the road.
+
+"'My God, whatever is this!' The man by my side spoke. He swayed
+backwards and forwards on his feet, his face white and awful in the
+moonlight. He was sick with terror. 'Oh God, it is horrible--horrible!'
+Then, with a sudden earnestness and a crafty look in his eyes, he bent
+over her.
+
+"'Who is it?' he cried. 'Who is the poor wretch?'
+
+"I saw him peer into her face, but he didn't touch her--he dreaded the
+blood. Then he started back, his eyes filled with such savageness as I
+had never seen in any man's before. He looked a devil--he was a devil.
+'It's my wife!' he shrieked. 'My wife!' His voice fell and turned into
+what sounded like a sob. 'It's Mary. She was coming back to Helvore. It
+was her cry. There--see it--confound you! You have it on your arm--your
+coat--all over you.'
+
+"He raised his hand to strike me. The moonlight fell on it--a great
+coarse hand--and I noticed, with a thrill of horror, a red splash on
+it. It was blood. The man was a murderer. He had killed his wife, and,
+with all the cunning of the madman, was trying to throw the guilt on me.
+
+"I sprang at him with a cry of despair. He kicked and bit, and tried to
+tear my arms from his neck; but somehow I seemed to have ten times my
+usual strength.
+
+"And all the time we struggled a sea of faces waved to and fro, peering
+down at us from the gaunt trees above.
+
+"He gave in at length. I was no longer obliged to hold him with an iron
+grip, and help came eventually in the shape of a policeman, who seemed
+to grasp the situation quite easily. There had been a murder; the man
+I had secured was known to him. He was a labouring man of unsteady
+habits; he had been drinking, had met and quarrelled with his wife. The
+rest was to be seen in the ghastly heap before us.
+
+"The wretch had no defence. He seemed dazed, and eyed the bloodstains
+on his face and clothes in a stupid kind of way.
+
+"I slipped five shillings into the policeman's hand when we parted. He
+thanked me and pocketed the money; he knew his position and mine too;
+I was a gentleman, and a very plucky one at that. So I thought as I
+walked back to my rooms; yet I lay awake and shuddered as visions of
+the nodding heads of pines passed before me; and from without, across
+the silent lanes and fields, there rose and fell again the wailing of a
+woman--a woman in distress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The murder in the wood was an event in Helvore. The people were unused
+to such tragedies, and it afforded them something to talk about for
+many weeks. The evidence against the husband was conclusive. He had
+been caught red-handed, he was an habitual drunkard, and he paid the
+penalty for his crime in the usual manner.
+
+"I left Helvore. I had seen enough of Cumberland and thirsted for life
+in London once again. Yet, often at night, the sighing of the wind in
+the trees sounded in my ears, bidding me visit them once more.
+
+"One day as I was sitting by my fire with a pile of books at my side,
+taking life easily, for I had nothing to do but to kill time, my old
+friend, Frank Leethwaite, looked me up. He had been at Sedbergh with me
+in the far-off eighties, and he was the only friend of the old set with
+whom I had been out of touch.
+
+"He had not altered much, in spite of a moustache and a fair sprinkling
+of white hairs. I should have known him had I met him anywhere. He was
+wearing an Albert coat, and his face was red with healthy exercise.
+
+"'How are you, old chap?' he exclaimed, shaking hands in the hearty
+fashion of true friendship.
+
+"I winced, for he had strong hands.
+
+"'Fit enough,' I said, 'only a bit bored. But you--well, you look just
+the same, and fresh as a daisy.' I gave him the easy-chair.
+
+"'Oh, I'm first rate--plenty of work. I'm a journalist, you know. It's
+a bit of a grind, but I'm taking a holiday. You look pale. Your eyes
+are bad?'
+
+"I told him they got strained if I read much.
+
+"'I daresay you will think me mad,' he went on, 'but I'm going to ask
+you rather a curious question. I remember you used to be fond of ghosts
+and all sorts of queer things.'
+
+"I nodded. We had had many discussions on such subjects, in my study at
+school.
+
+"'Well, I'm a member of the New Supernatural Investigation Society.'
+
+"I smiled doubtfully. 'Well, you can't say it has discovered much. The
+name is high-sounding, but that is all.'
+
+"'Never mind. Some day, perhaps, we shall show the public what we can
+do.'
+
+"Leethwaite lit a cigarette, puffed away in silence for a few seconds,
+and then went on:
+
+"'I am undertaking a little work for the Society now!'
+
+"'Where?'
+
+"'In Cumberland. Ever been there?'
+
+"I nodded. Leethwaite was very much at his ease.
+
+"'Been to Helvore?'
+
+"I knew by instinct he would mention the place.
+
+"He thought I looked ill, and told me I had been overdoing it.
+
+"'It is merely a case of "flu,"' I assured him. 'I had it six weeks
+ago, and still feel the effects.'
+
+("The woman in the hollow was before me. I saw again her shabby shawl
+and the blood round her throat.)
+
+"'There was a murder down there a short time ago.'
+
+"'I heard of it,' I remarked casually. 'It was a wife murder, I
+believe.'
+
+"'Yes, just a common wife murder, and the fellow was caught and hanged.'
+
+"'Then why the ghost?'
+
+"'Well, that is the odd part of it,' Leethwaite said slowly, leaning
+back in his chair, his long legs stretched out.
+
+"'I have heard from two Helvore residents that screams have been heard
+in the wood about twelve o'clock at night. Not the time for practical
+jokers, and the Cumberland peasantry are too superstitious to try their
+pranks in unsavoury spots. Besides, from what I have heard, the spot
+is not only unsavoury, it is singularly uncanny.'
+
+"'They haven't seen anything?' I asked.
+
+"'No, only heard the cries, and they are so terribly realistic that no
+one cares to pass the place at night; indeed, it is utterly banned. I
+mentioned the case to old Potters--you must have heard of him, he used
+to write a lot for the _Gentleman's Magazine_--and he pressed me to go
+down and investigate. I agreed; then I thought I would look you up. Do
+you remember your pet aversion in the way of ghosts?'
+
+"I nodded. 'Yes, and I still have the aversion. I think locality
+exercises strange influence over some minds. The peaceful meadow
+scenery holds no lurking horrors in its bosom; but in the lonely
+moorlands, full of curiously moulded boulders, one sees, or fancies one
+sees, grotesque creatures, odd and ill-defined as their surroundings.
+As a child I had a peculiar horror of those tall, odd-shaped boulders,
+with sneering faces--featureless, it is true, but sometimes strangely
+resembling the faces of humans and animals. I believe the wood may be
+haunted by something of this nature--terrible as the trees.'
+
+"'You know the wood?'
+
+"'I do. And I know the trees.'
+
+"Again in my ears the wind rushed, as it had on that memorable night.
+
+"'Will you come with me?'
+
+"Leethwaite eyed me eagerly. The same old affection he had once
+entertained for me was, ripening in his eyes; indeed it had always
+remained there. Should I go? An irresistible impulse seized me, a
+morbid craving to look once more at the blood-stained hollow, to hear
+again the wind. I looked out of the window; the sky was cold and grey.
+There were rows and rows of chimneys--chimneys everywhere--and an ocean
+of dull, uninviting smoke. I began to hate London and to long for the
+countless miles of blue sea, and the fresh air of the woods. I assented
+though my better judgment would have had me refuse.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied, 'I will go. As to the ghost, it may be there, but it
+is not what you think; it is not the apparition of a man. It may be,
+in part, like a man, but it is one of those cursed nightmares I have
+always had. I shall see it, hear it shriek--and if I drop dead from
+fright, you, old man, will be to blame.'
+
+"Leethwaite was an enthusiast, and psychical adventure always allured
+him. He would run the risk of my weak heart, he said, and have me with
+him.
+
+"A thousand times I prepared to go back on my word; a thousand
+tumultuous emotions of some impending disaster rushed through me. I
+felt on the border of an abyss, dark and hopeless; I was pushed on by
+invisible and unfriendly hands. I knew I must fall; I knew that those
+black depths would engulf me eternally. I took the plunge. We talked
+over Sedbergh days, and arranged our train to the North. Leethwaite
+looked very boyish, I thought, as he rose to go, and stood smiling in
+the doorway.
+
+"He was all kindness; I liked him more than ever. And yet, somehow, as
+we stood looking at one another, a grey shadow swept around him, and an
+icy pang shot through my heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It was night once more, and the moonlight poured in floods from over
+the summit of the knoll where the uncanny boulders lay. Every object
+stood silhouetted against the dark background. A house, with its white
+walls, stood grim and silent; the paths running in various directions
+up and alongside the hill were made doubly clear by the whiteness of
+the beams that fell on them. There were no swift clouds, no mists to
+hide the brilliance of the stars, and it was nearly midnight. The air
+was cold, colder than is usual at Helvore, and I shivered. Leethwaite
+stood by my side. I glanced apprehensively at him. Why did he stand in
+the moonlight? What business had he there? I laughed, but I fear there
+was but little mirth in the sound.
+
+"'I wish you would stop that infernal noise,' he said; 'I am pretty
+nervous as it is.'
+
+"'All right,' I whispered; 'I won't do it again.'
+
+"But I did, and he edged sharply away from me. I looked over his head.
+There was the gaunt tree with the great hands. I fancied once again the
+branches were fingers. I told him so.
+
+"'For God's sake, man, keep quiet,' he replied. 'You are enough to
+upset any one's nerves.' He looked at his watch for the hundredth time.
+'It's close on the hour.'
+
+"I again looked at the trees and listened. Suddenly, although there had
+been absolute silence before, I heard a faint breathing sound, a very
+gentle murmur. It came from over the distant knoll. At first very soft
+and low, but gradually getting louder and louder, it rushed past us
+into the wood beyond. I saw once more the great trees rock beneath it;
+and again I heard those voices--those of the woman and the man.
+
+"Leethwaite looked ill, very ill, I thought. I touched him on the
+arm. 'You are not frightened,' I said; 'you--a member of the New
+Supernatural Investigation Society?'
+
+"'Something is going to happen,' he gasped. 'I feel it--I know it. We
+shall see the murder--we shall know the secret of death. What is that?'
+
+"Away in the distance the tap-tapping of shoes came through the still
+night air. Tap--tap--tap, down the path from the knoll.
+
+"I clutched Leethwaite by the arm. 'You think you will see the murder,
+do you? And the murderer!'
+
+"Leethwaite didn't answer. His breath came in gasps; he looked about
+him like a man at bay.
+
+"'And the murderer! Ha! It comes from there. See, it is looking at us
+from those trees. It is all arms and legs; it has no human face. It
+will drop to the earth, and then we shall see what happens.'
+
+"Tap, tap, tap--the steps grew louder--nearer and nearer they came.
+The great shadows stole down, one by one, to meet them. I looked at
+Leethwaite. He was fearfully expectant; so was I.
+
+"A woman came tripping along the path. I knew her in an instant--there
+was the shabby shawl, the basket on her arm--it was the same. She
+approached the wicket.
+
+"I looked at Leethwaite. He was spellbound with fear. I touched his
+arm. I dragged him with me. 'Come,' I whispered, 'we shall see which
+of us is right. You think the ghostly murderer will resemble us--will
+resemble men. It will not. Come.'
+
+"I dragged him forward. He would have fled, but I was firm. We passed
+through the gate--we followed the figure as it silently glided on. We
+turned to the left. The place grew very dark as the trees met overhead.
+I heard the trickling of water and knew we were close to the ditch.
+
+"I gazed intently at the pines. When would the horror drop from them? A
+sickly terror laid hold of me. I turned to fly.
+
+"To my surprise Leethwaite stopped me. He was all excitement. 'Wait,'
+he hissed. 'Wait. It is you who are afraid. Hark! It is twelve
+o'clock.' And as he spoke, the clock of the parish church slowly tolled
+midnight. Then the end came. An awful scream rang out; so piercing
+and so full of terror that I felt the blood in my heart stand still.
+But no figure dropped from the pines. Not from the pines, but from
+behind the woman a form darted forward and seized her by the neck. It
+tore at her throat with its hands, it dragged and hurried her into the
+moonlight; and then, oh damning horror, I saw its face!--it was my own."
+
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+THE FALSTAFF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  The Tempest.
+  The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
+  The Merry Wives of Windsor.
+  Measure for Measure.
+  The Comedy of Errors.
+  Much Ado about Nothing.
+  Love's Labour Lost.
+  A Midsummer Night's Dream.
+  The Merchant of Venice.
+  As You Like It.
+  The Taming of the Shrew.
+  All's Well that Ends Well.
+  Twelfth Night; or, What You Will.
+  The Winter's Tale.
+  The Life and Death of King John.
+  The Life and Death of King Richard II.
+  The First Part of King Henry IV.
+  The Second Part of King Henry IV.
+  The Life of King Henry V.
+  The First Part of King Henry VI.
+  The Second Part of King Henry VI.
+  The Third Part of King Henry VI.
+  The Tragedy of King Richard III.
+  The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII.
+  Troilus and Cressida.
+  Coriolanus.
+  Titus Andronicus.
+  Romeo and Juliet.
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+  Julius Cæsar.
+  Macbeth.
+  Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
+  King Lear.
+  Othello, the Moor of Venice.
+  Antony and Cleopatra.
+  Cymbeline.
+  Pericles.
+
+POEMS.
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+  The Rape of Lucrece.
+  Sonnets.
+  A Lover's Complaint.
+  The Passionate Pilgrim.
+  The Phoenix and the Turtle.
+  Glossary and Notes.
+
+In this, the "Falstaff" Edition of Shakespeare's Works, the order in
+which the plays are presented is that of the first folio edition of
+1623--"Pericles," which was not included in that edition, and the
+poems being added at the end of the volume. No new reading of the
+text is attempted; and only those variations from the text of the
+early editions are included which have been accepted by the best
+Shakespearean critics. The task of the present Editor has consisted
+solely in the choice between the readings of these critics, where they
+disagree. For the most part the text of Delius has been followed.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVEL, HISTORY, AND BIOGRAPHY.
+
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+THE MEMOIRS OF BARON HYDE DE NEUVILLE.
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+
+
+A PAPAL ENVOY DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR.
+
+  Being the Memoirs of Mgr. de Salamon, Internuncio in Paris during
+  the French Revolution (1790-1801). Edited by the ABBÉ BRIDIER;
+  translated by FRANCES JACKSON. With Portraits, and many interesting
+  Views of Old Paris and its Surroundings. Demy 8vo. Price =6s.= net.
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+  "A remarkable addition to the historical materials concerning the
+  revolution. Presented with the vivid simplicity of an eye-witness
+  and of one who again and again stood near to death."--_Daily
+  Telegraph._
+
+
+A HISTORY OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OF ENGLAND.
+
+  An account of the private, as opposed to the public, history of
+  the several Kings and Queens, of their children, and of such of
+  their immediate descendants or relatives as have played any part in
+  English History, or have lived in England. By FREDERIC G. BAGSHAWE.
+  704 pages. With 26 Genealogical Tables. Demy 8vo. Price =7s. 6d.=
+  net.
+
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+
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+    EDINBURGH; AND 76 CAMBRIDGE STREET, GLASGOW.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Text in italics has been surrounded with _underscores_, bold with
+=signs=, and small capitals changed to all capitals.
+
+The following corrections have been made, on page
+
+   36 "frienzied" changed to "frenzied" (eyes fixed in a frenzied
+      stare)
+  148 : added (obvious to all (namely): That various inexplicable
+      noises)
+  171 . added (phenomena the most common. Were the victims)
+  216 " changed to ' (tell me.' He was frightened)
+  218 " changed to ' (horrible--horrible!' Then)
+  221 ' removed (a bit bored. But you)
+  221 " changed to ' (doubtfully. 'Well, you can't say)
+  221 ' added (show the public what we can do.')
+  224 2 x ' added (Yes,' I replied, 'I will go.)
+  225 " changed to ' (keep quiet,' he replied.)
+  230 . added (8vo.).
+
+Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent
+spelling and hyphenation.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Haunted Places in England, by Elliot O'Donnell
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44397 ***