A Book of Ghosts: 26
Author: Various authors
Date: 1860-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Supernatural Fiction; Weird Fiction; Horror
Description: A collection of thirteen stories of the uncanny and the macabre by various authors, compiled by ECM.
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

A BOOK OF GHOSTS
– 26 –

THINGS THAT GO BUMP
IN THE NIGHT

MobileRead Edition
2021

A collection of thirteen stories of the uncanny and the macabre by various authors, compiled by ECM.

Contents were originally published 1861 ~ 1934. This book is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

CONTENTS:

- “Bring Me a Light!”  –1861
by Jane Margaret Hooper
(1818–1907)

- Midnight at Marshland Grange  –1863
by Arthur Locker
(1828–1893)

- Over The Edge of the World  –1893
by Flora Annie Steel
(1847–1929)

- The Crimean Shirt  –1898
by E. W. Hornung
(1866–1921)

- The Inexperienced Ghost  –1902
by H. G. Wells
(1866–1946)

- The Dormer Window  –1902
by Fred M. White
(1859–1935)

- The Bus-Conductor  –1906
by Edward Frederic Benson
(1867–1940)

- The Voice   –1907
by Bernard Capes
(1854–1918)

- The Unfinished Game  –1909
by Barry Pain
(1864–1928)

- The Gateway of the Monster  –1910
by William Hope Hodgson
(1877–1918)

- The Dark Interval  –1925
by J. B. Powell
(?–?)

- The Magic of Fear  –1925
by Edgar Wallace
(1876–1932)

- The Haunter of the Ring  –1934
by Robert E. Howard
(1906–1936)

“BRING ME A LIGHT!”

Jane Margaret Hooper

1861

My name is Thomas Whinmore, and when I was a young man I went to spend a college vacation with a gentleman in Westmoreland. He had known my father’s family, and had been appointed the trustee of a small estate left me by my great-aunt, Lady Jane Whinmore. At the time I speak of I was one-and-twenty, and he was anxious to give up the property into my hands. I accepted his invitation to “come down to the old place and look about me.” When I arrived at the nearest point to the said “old place,” to which the Carlisle coach would carry me, I and my portmanteau were put into a little cart, which was the only wheeled thing I could get at the little wayside inn.

“How far is it to Whinmore?” I asked of a tall grave-looking lad, who had already informed me I could have “t’horse and cairt” for a shilling a mile.

“Twal mile to t’ould Hall gaet — a mile ayont that to Squire Erle’s farm.”

As I looked at the shaggy wild horse, just caught from the moor for the purpose of drawing “t’cairt,” I felt doubtful as to which of us would be the master on the road. I had ascertained that the said road lay over moor and mountain — just the sort of ground on which such a steed would gambol away at his own sweet will. I had no desire to be run away with.

“Is there anyone here who can drive me to Mr. Erle’s?” I asked of the tall grave lad.

“Nobbut fayther.”

I was puzzled; and was about to ask for an explanation, when a tall, strong old man, as like the young one as might be, came out from the door of the house with his hat on, and a whip in his hand. He got up into the cart, and looking at me, said,

“Ye munna stan’ here, sir. We shan’t pass Whinmore Hall afore t’deevil brings a light.”

“But I want something to eat before we start,” I remonstrated. “I’ve had no dinner.”

“Then ye maun keep your appetite till supper time,” replied the old man. “I canna gae past Whinmore lights for na man — nor t’horse neither. Get up wi’ ye! Joe, lend t’gentleman a hand.”

Joe did as he was desired, and then said—

“Will ye be home the night, fayther?”

“May be yees, may be na, lad; take care of t’place.”

In a moment the horse started, and we were rattling over the moor at the rate of eight miles an hour. Surprise, indignation, and hunger possessed me. Was it possible I had been whirled off dinnerless into this wilderness against my own desire?

“I say, my good man,” I began.

“My name is Ralph Thirlston.”

“Well! Mr. Thirlston, I want something to eat. Is there any inn between this desert and Mr. Erle’s house!”

“Nobbut Whinmore Hall,” said the old man, with a grin.

“I suppose I can get something to eat there, without being obliged to anybody. It is my own property.”

Mr. Thirlston glanced at me sharply.

“Be ye t’maister, lad?”

“I am, Mr. Thirlston,” said I. “My name is Whinmore.”

“Maister Tom!”

“The same. Do you know anything about me and my old house?”

“’Deed do I. You’re the heir of t’ould leddy. Mr. Erle is your guardian, and farms your lands.”

“I know so much, myself,” I replied. “I want you to tell me who lives in Whinmore Hall now, and whether I can get a dinner there, for I’m clem, as you say here.”

“Weel, weel. It is a sore trial to a young stomach! You must e’en bear it till we get to Mr. Erle’s.”

“But surely there is somebody, some old woman or other, who lives in the old house and airs the rooms!”

“’Deed is there. But it’s nobbut ghosts and deevil’s spawn of that sort.”

“I am surprised, Mr. Thirlston, to hear a man like you talk such nonsense.”

“What like man do ye happen know that I am, Maister Whinmore? Tho’ if I talk nonsense (and I’m no gainsaying what a learned colleger like you can tell about nonsense), yet it’s just the things I have heard and seen mysell I am speaking of.”

“What have you heard and seen at Whinmore Hall?”

“What a’ body hears and sees to Whinmore, ’twixt sunset and moonlight; — and what I used to see times and oft, when I lived there farming-man to t’ould Leddy Jane, — what I’m not curious to see again, now. So get on, Timothy,” he added to the horse, “or we may chance to come in for a fright.”

I did not trouble myself about the delay, as he did, but watched him.

This man is no fool, I thought. I wonder what strange delusion has got possession of the people about this old house of mine. I remembered that Mr. Erle had told me in one of the very few letters I ever received from him, that it was difficult to find a tenant for Whinmore Hall. Curiosity took precedence of hunger, and I began to think how I could best soothe my irritated companion, and get him to tell me what he believed.

We were back on the road again, and going across the shoulder of a great fell; — the sun had just disappeared behind a distant range of similar fells; it left no rosy clouds, no orange streaks in the sky — black rain-clouds spread all over the great concave, and in a very few minutes they burst upon us. There was a cold, piercing wind in our teeth. I felt my spirits rise. The vast monotonous moor, the threatening sky, and the fierce rushing blast had something for me sublime and invigorating. I looked round at the new range of moorland which we were gradually commanding, as we rounded the hill.

“I like this wild place, Mr. Thirlston,” I said.

“Wild enough!” he grumbled in reply. “’Tis college learning is a deal better than such house and land. Beggars won’t live in th’ house, and th’ land is the poorest in all England.”

“Is that the house, yonder, on the right?”

“There’s na ither house, good or bad, to be seen from this,” he replied: but I observed that he did not turn his head in the direction I had indicated. He kept a look-out straight between the horse’s ears; I, on the contrary, never took my eyes off the grey building which we were approaching. Nearer and nearer we came, and I saw that there was a sort of large garden or pleasure-ground enclosed round the house, and that the road ran past a part of this enclosure, and also past a large open-worked iron gate, which was the chief entrance. Very desolate, cold, and inhospitable looked this old house of mine; wild and tangled looked the garden. The tall, smokeless chimneys were numerous, and stood up white against the blackness of the sky; the windows, more numerous still, looked black, in contrast with the whitish-grey stone of the walls. Just as we entered the shadow cast by the trees of the shrubbery, our horse snorted, and sprang several yards from the enclosure.

“Now for it! It is your own fault for running away, and bringing us late,” muttered Ralph Thirlston, grasping the reins and standing up to get a better hold of the horse. Timothy now stood still; and to my surprise he was trembling in every limb, and shaking with terror.

“Something has frightened the beast,” said I. “I shall just go and see what it was,” and was about to jump down, when I felt Ralph Thirlston’s great hand on my arm: it was a powerful grip.

“For the love of God, lad, stay where ye are!” he said, in a frightened whisper. “It’s just here that my brother met his death, for doing what you want to do now.”

“What! For walking up to that fence and seeing what trifle frightened a skittish horse?” And I looked at the fence intently. There was nothing to be seen but a straggling bough of an elder bush which had forced its way through a chink in the rotten wood and was waving in the wind.

Finding that the man was really frightened as well as the horse, I humoured him. He still held my arm.

“There is no need for anyone to go closer to see the cause of poor Timothy’s fear,” I said, laughing. “If you will look, Mr. Thirlston, you will see what it was.”

“Na! lad, na! I’m not going to turn my face towards the deevil and his works. ‘Lord have mercy upon us! Christ have mercy upon us! Our Father which art in heaven—’” and he repeated the whole prayer with emphasis, slowness, and with his eyes closed. I sat still, an amazed witness of his state of mind. When he had said “Amen,” he opened his eyes, and looking down at the horse, who seemed to have recovered, as I judged by his putting his head down to graze, he gave a low whistle, and tightening the reins once more, Timothy allowed himself to be driven forward. Thirlston kept his face away from the enclosure on his right hand, and looked steadily at Timothy. I gave another glance towards the innocent elder bough, — but what was my astonishment to see where it had been, or seemed to be, the figure of a man with a drawn sword in his hand.

“Stop, Thirlston! stop!” I cried. “There is somebody there. I see a man with a sword. Look! Turn back, and I’ll soon see what he is doing there.”

“Na! na! Never turn back to meet the deevil, when ye have once got past him!” And Thirlston drove on rapidly.

“But he may overtake you,” I cried, laughing. But as I looked back I saw that a pursuit was not intended, for the figure I had seen was gone. “I’ll pay a visit to that devil tomorrow,” I added. “I shall not harbour such game in my preserves.”

“Lord’s sake, don’t talk like that, Maister Whinmore!” whispered Thirlston. “We’re just coming to the gaet! May be they may strike Timothy dead!”

“They? — who? Not the ghosts, surely?” I looked through the great gate as we passed, and saw the whole front of the house. “Why, Mr. Thirlston, you said no one lived in the old Hall! Look! There are lights in the windows.”

“Ay! ay! I thought you would see them,” he said, in a terrified whisper, without turning his head.

“Why, look at them yourself,” cried I, pointing to the house.

“God forbid!” he exclaimed; and he gave Timothy a stroke with the whip, that sent him flying past the rest of the garden of the Hall. Our ground rose again, and in a few minutes a good view of the place was obtained. I looked back at it with vivid interest. No lights were to be seen now; no moving thing; the black windows contrasted with the grey walls, and the grey chimneys with the black clouds, as when the place first appeared to me. The moon now rose above a dark hill on our left. Thirlston allowed Timothy to slacken his speed, and, turning round his head, he also looked back at Whinmore Hall.

“We are safe enough now,” he said. “The only dangerous time is betwixt sunset and moonrise, when people are passing close to the accursed ould place.”

About a mile further, the barking of a housedog indicated that we were approaching Mr. Erle’s. The driver stopped at a small wicket-gate leading into a shrubbery, got down, and invited me to do the same. He then fastened Timothy to the gatepost. The garden and the house have nothing to do with my present tale, and are far too dear to me to be flung in as an episodical adornment. They form the scenery of the romantic part of my own life; for Miss Erle became my wife a few years after this first visit to Whinmore. I saw her that evening, and forgot Ralph Thirlston, the old Hall, its ghosts and mysterious lights. However, the next morning I was forced back to this workaday world in her father’s study. There I heard Mr. Erle’s account of my property. All the land was farmed by himself, except the few acres round the Hall, which no one would take because it was not worth tillage, and because of the evil name of the house itself.

“I suppose you know why no tenant can be found for the Hall, since Ralph Thirlston drove you over?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “But I could get no rational account from him. What is this nonsense about ghosts and lights? Who lives in the Hall?”

“No one, my good fellow. Why, you would not get the stoutest man in the parish, and that’s Thirlston, to go into the house after sunset, much less live in it.”

“But I have seen lights in some of the windows myself.”

“So have I,” he replied.

“Do you mean to say that no human beings make use of the house, in virtue of the superstition about it? Tricks of this kind are not uncommon.”

“At the risk of seeming foolish in your eyes, I must reply, that I believe no human beings now living have any hand in the operations which go on in Whinmore Hall.” Mr. Erle looked perfectly grave as he said this.

“I saw a man with a sword in his hand start from a part of the fence. I think he frightened our horse.”

“I, too, have seen the figure you speak of. But I do not think it is a living man.”

“What do you suppose it to be?” I asked, in amazement; for Mr. Erle was no ignorant or weak-minded person. He had already impressed me with real respect for his character and intellect.

He smiled at my impetuous tone.

“I live apart from what is called the world,” said he. “Grace and I are not polite enough to think everything which we cannot account for either impossible or ridiculous. Ten years ago, I myself was a new resident in this county, and wishing to improve your property, I determined to occupy the old Hall myself. I had it prepared for my family. No mechanic would work about the place after sunset. However, I brought all my servants from a distance; and took care that they should have no intercourse with any neighbour for the first three days. On the third evening they all came to me and said that they must leave the next morning — all but Grace’s nurse, who had been her mother’s attendant, and was attached to the family. She told me that she did not think it safe for the child to remain another night, and that I must give her permission to take her away.”

“What did you do?” said I.

“I asked for some account of the things that had frightened them. Of course, I heard some wild and exaggerated tales; but the main phenomena related were what I myself had seen and heard, and which I was as fully determined as they were not to see and hear again, or to let my child have a chance of encountering. I told them so, candidly; and at the same time declared that it was my belief God’s Providence or punishment was at work in that old house, as everywhere else in creation, and not the devil’s mischievous hand. Once more I made a rigorous search for secret devices and means for producing the sights and sounds which so many had heard and seen; but without any discovery: and before sunset that afternoon the Hall was cleared of all human occupants. And so it has remained until this day.”

“Will you tell me the things you saw and heard?”

“Nay, you had better see and hear them for yourself. We have plenty of time before sunset. I can show you over the whole house, and if your courage holds good, I will leave you there to pass an hour or so between sunset and moonrise. You can come back here when you like; and if you are in a condition to hear, and care to hear, the story which peoples your old Hall with horrors, I will tell it you.”

“Thank you,” said I. “Will you lend me a gun and pistols to assist me in my investigations?”

“Surely.” And taking down the weapons I had pointed out, he began to examine them.

“You want them loaded?”

“Certainly, and with bullets. I am not going to play.”

Mr. Erle loaded both gun and pistols. I put the latter into my pocket, and we left the room by the window. Grace Erle met us on the moor, riding a shaggy pony.

“Where are you going, so near dinner time?” she asked.

“Mr. Whinmore is going to look at the old Hall.”

“And his gun?” she asked, smiling.

“I want to shoot vermin there.”

She looked as if she were about to say something eagerly, but checked herself, and rode slowly away. I looked after her, and wondered what she was going to say. Perhaps she wished to prevent me from going.

Presently we stood before the great iron gate of Whinmore. Mr. Erle took two keys from his pocket. With one he unlocked the gate, with the other the chief door. There were no other fastenings. These were very rusty, and were moved with difficulty.

“People don’t get in this way,” said I. “That is clear.”

The garden was a sad wilderness, and grass grew on the broad steps which led up to the door.

As soon as we had crossed the threshold, I felt the influence of that desolate dwelling creep over my spirits. There was a cold stagnation in the air — a deathly stillness — a murky light in the old rooms that was indescribably depressing. All the lower windows had their pierced shutters fastened, and cobwebs and dust adorned them plentifully.

Yet I could have sworn I saw lights in two, at least, of these lower windows. I said so to my companion. He replied—

“Yes. It was in this very room you saw a light, I dare say. This is one in which I have seen lights myself. But I do not wish to spoil my dinner by seeing anything supernatural now. We will leave it, and I will hasten to the lady’s bedchamber and dressing-room, where the apparitions and noises are most numerous.”

I followed him, but cast a glance round the room before I shut the door carefully. It was partly furnished like a library, but on one side was a bed, and beside it an easy-chair. “What name is given to this room? It looks ominous of some evil deed,” I said.

“It is called ‘t’ould Squire’s Murder Room,’ by the people who know the story connected with it.”

“Ah!” I said; “then I may look for a ghost there?”

“You will perhaps see one, or more, if you stay long enough,” said Mr. Erle, with the utmost composure. “This way.”

I followed him along a gallery on the first floor to the door of a room. He opened it, and we entered what had been apparently one of the principal bedrooms. It was a regular lady’s chamber, of the seventeenth century, with dark plumes waving on the top of the bed-pillars of black oak. The massy toilette, with its oval looking-glass, set in silver and shrouded in old lace — the carved chairs and lofty mantelpiece — gave an air of quaint elegance to the dignity of the apartment. I had but little time to examine the objects here, for Mr. Erle had passed on to an inner room, which was reached by ascending a short flight of steps.

“Come up here,” cried a voice which did not sound like Mr. Erle’s. I ran up the stairs and found him alone in a small room which contained little else than an escritoire, a cabinet, and two great chairs. On one side, a large Parisian looking-glass, à la Régence, was fixed on the wall. The branches for lights still held some yellow bits of wax-candle covered with dust. I joined Mr. Erle, who was looking through the window over a vast expanse of mountainous moorland. “What a grand prospect!” I exclaimed. “I like these two rooms very much. I shall certainly come and live here.”

“You shall tell me your opinion about that tomorrow,” said Mr. Erle. “I must go now.”

Concealing as much as possible the contempt I felt for his absurd superstition, I accompanied him downstairs again. “Are these the only rooms worth looking at?” I asked.

“No; most of the rooms are good enough for a gentleman’s household. The rooms I have shown you, and the passages and staircase which lead from one to the other, are the only portions of the house in which you are subjected to annoyance. I have slept in both the rooms, and advise no one else to do so.”

“You had bad dreams?” I asked, with an involuntary smile, as I took my gun from the hall-table, where I had left it.

“As you please,” said Mr. Erle, smiling also.

I stretched out my hand to him when we stood at the gate together.

“Good night!” said I. “I think I shall sleep in one of those rooms, and return to you in the morning.”

Mr. Erle shook his head. “You will be back at my house within three hours, Tom Whinmore; so, au revoir!”

He strode away over the moor. His fine figure appeared almost gigantic as it moved between me and the setting sun.

“That does not look like a man who should be a prey to weak superstition, any more than good Ralph Thirlston, who drove home alone willingly enough past this same gate and fence at nine o’clock last night! The witching hour, it seems, is just after sunset. Well, it wants a quarter of an hour of that now,” I continued, thinking silently. “There will be time enough for me to explore the garden a little, before I return to the house and wait for my evening’s entertainment.”

As I walked through the shrubbery, I recollected the figure I had seen outside the fence on the previous evening. I must find out how that trick is managed, thought I, and if I get a chance I will certainly wing that ghost, pour encourager les autres.

Ascertaining, as well as I was able, the part of the shrubbery near which I saw the man, I began to search for footsteps or marks of human ingenuity. I soon discovered the elder bush that had sent some of its branches through a hole in the fence. I crept round it, and examined the fence. No plank was loose, though some boughs had grown through the hole. I could see no footstep except my own on the moist, dank leafy mould. I got over the fence and saw no marks outside. Baffled, and yet suspicious, I went back and continued my walk, in the course of which I came upon sundry broken and decayed summer-houses and seats. In the tangled flower-garden, on the south-west side, were a few rich blossoms, growing amicably with the vilest weeds. I tore up a great root of hemlock to get at a branch of Provence rose, and then seeing that the sun had disappeared below the opposite fell, I pursued my course and arrived again at the broad gravel path leading from the gate to the hall-door.

Both stood open, as I had left them. I lingered on the grass-grown steps to look at the last rays of the sun, reddening the heather on the distant fell. As I leaned on my gun enjoying the profound stillness of this place, far from all sounds of village, or wood, or sea — a stillness that seemed to deepen and deepen into unearthly intensity — the charm was broken by a human voice speaking near me — the tone was hollow and full of agony — “Bring me a light! Bring me a light!” it cried. It was like a sick or dying man. The voice came, I thought, from the room next to me on the right hand of the Hall. I rushed into the house and to the door of that room; it was the first which Mr. Erle had shown me. I remembered shutting the door — it now stood wide open; and there was a sound of hurrying footsteps within.

“Who is there?” I shouted. No answer came. But there passed by me, as it were, in the very doorway, the figure of a young and, as I could see at a glance, very beautiful woman.

When she moved onwards I could not choose but follow, trembling with an indefinable fear, yet borne on by a mystic attraction. At the foot of the stairs she turned on me again, and smiled, and beckoned me with an upraised arm, whereon great jewels flashed in the gloom. I followed her quickly, but could not overtake her. My limbs — I am not ashamed to say it — shook with strange fear; yet I could not turn back from following that fair form. Onward she led me — up the stairs and through the gallery to the door of the lady’s chamber. There she paused a moment, and again turned her bewitching face, radiant with smiles, upon me before she disappeared within the dark doorway. I followed into the room, and saw her stand before the antique toilette and arrange in her bosom a spray of roses — the very spray that I had so lately pulled in the garden, it seemed — then she kissed her hand to me and glided to the narrow stairs that led to the little room above. Then came a loud haughty voice — the voice of a woman accustomed to command. It sounded from the little room above, and it could not be the voice of that fair girl, I felt sure. It said:

“Bring me a light! Bring me a light!”

I shuddered at the sound; I knew not why, but I stood there still. I then saw the figure of an old female servant, rise from a chair by one of the windows. She approached the toilette, and there I saw her light two tapers, with her breath, it seemed.

“Bring me a light!” was repeated in an angry tone from the upper room.

The old woman passed rapidly to the stairs. Thither I followed in obedience to a sign from her; and, mounting to the top, saw into the room.

That beautiful girl stood in the centre, with her costly lace gown sweeping the floor, and her bright curls drooping to the waist. Her back was towards me, but I could see her innocent, sweet face in the great glass. What a lovely, happy face it was!

Behind her stood another lady, taller, and more majestic. She pretended to caress her, but her proud eyes, unseen by the young lady, brightened with triumphant malice. They danced gladly in the light of the taper which she took from the maid. “God of heaven! can a woman look so wicked?” I thought.

“Watch her!” whispered a voice in my ear — a voice that stirred my hair.

I did watch her. Would to God I could forget that vision! She — the woman, the fiend — bent carefully to the floor, as though to set right something amiss in the border of the fair bride’s robe. I saw her lower the flame of the candle, and set fire to the dress of the smiling, trusting girl. Ere I could move she was enveloped in flames, and I heard her wild shrieks mingling with the low demoniac laughter of her murderess.

I remember suddenly raising the gun in my hand and firing at the horrid apparition. But still she laughed and pointed with mocking gestures to the flames and the writhing figure they enveloped. I ran forward to extinguish them; — my arms struck against the wall, and I fell down insensible.

•   •   •

When I recovered my senses I found myself lying on the floor of that little room, with the bright cold moon looking in on me. I waited without moving, listening for some more of those demon sounds. All was still. I rose — went to the window — the moon was high in heaven, and all the great moor seemed light as day. The air of that room was stifling. I turned and fled. Hastily I ran down those few steps — quicker yet through the great chamber and out into the gallery. As I began to go down the stairs, I saw a figure coming up.

I was now a very coward. Grasping the banister with one hand, and feeling for the unused pistol with the other, I called out—

“Who are you?” and with stupid terror I fired at the thing, without pausing.

There was a slight cry; a very human one. Then a little laugh.

“Don’t fire any more pistols at me, Mr. Whinmore. I’m not a ghost.”

Something in the voice sent the blood once more coursing through my veins.

“Is it — ?” I could not utter another word.

“It is I, Grace Erle.”

“What brought you here?” I said, at length, after I had descended the stairs, and had seized her hand that I might feel sure it was of flesh and blood.

“My pony. We began to get uneasy about you. It is nearly midnight. So papa and I set off to see what you were doing.”

“What the devil are you firing at, Whinmore?” asked Mr. Erle, coming hurriedly from a search in the lower rooms.

“Only at me, papa!” answered his daughter, archly, glancing up at my face. “But he is a bad shot, for he didn’t hit me.”

“Thank God!” I ejaculated — “Miss Erle, I was mad.”

“No, only very frightened. Look at him, papa!”

Mr. Erle looked at me. He took my arm.

“Why! Whinmore, you don’t look the better for seeing the spirits of your ancestors. However, I see it is no longer a joking matter with you. You do not wish to take up your abode here immediately.”

I rallied under their kindly badinage.

“Let me get out of this horrible place,” said I.

Mr. Erle led me beyond the gate. I leaned against it, in a state of exhaustion.

“Here. Try your hand at my other pocket-pistol!” said Mr. Erle, as he put a precious flask of that kind to my lips. After a second application of the remedy I was decidedly better.

Miss Erle mounted her pony, and we set off across the moor. I was very silent, and my companions talked a little with each other. My mind was too confused to recollect just then all that I had experienced during my stay in the house, and I wished to arrange my thoughts and compose my nerves before I conversed with Mr. Erle on the strange visions of that night.

I excused myself to my host and his daughter, in the best way I could, and after taking a slice of bread and a glass of water, I went to bed.

The next day I rose late; but in my right mind. I was much shocked to think of the cowardly fear which had led me to fire a pistol at Miss Erle. I began my interview with my host, by uttering some expressions of this feeling. But it was an awkward thing to declare myself a fool and a coward.

“The less we say about that the better,” said her father, gravely. “Fear is the strongest human passion, my boy; and will lead us to commit the vilest acts, if we let it get the mastery.”

“I acknowledge that I was beside myself with terror at the sights and sounds of that accursed house. I was not sane, at the moment, I saw your daughter! I shall never—”

“Whinmore, she hopes you will never mention it again! We certainly shall not. Now, if you are disposed to hear the story of your ancestor’s evil deeds, I am ready to fulfil the promise I made you last night. I see you know too much, now, to think me a fool for believing my own senses, and keeping clear of disagreeable creatures that will not trouble themselves about me. I don’t raise the question of what they are, or how they exist — nor even whether they exist at all. It is sufficient that they appear; and that by their appearance they put a stop to normal human life. You may be a philosopher; and may find some means of banishing these supernatural horrors. I shall like you none the less, if you can do what I cannot.”

“I will try. Will you tell the story?”

“Yes, if you will take a cigar with me first.”

After we had composed ourselves comfortably before the fire in his study, Mr. Erle began.

•   •   •   •   •   •

How long ago, I can’t exactly find out, but some time between the Reformation and the Great Rebellion, the Whinmores settled in this part of the county, and owned a large tract of land. They were of gentle blood, and most ungentle manners; for they quarrelled with everyone, and carried themselves in an insolent fashion, to the simple below them, and to the noble above. The Whinmores were iron-handed and iron-hearted, staunch Catholics and staunch Jacobites, during the religious and political dissensions of the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. After the establishment of Protestantism in the reigns of William III. and Anne, the position of the proud house of Whinmore was materially altered. The cadets went early into foreign service as soldiers and priests, and the first-born remained at home to keep up a blighted dignity. After the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty, the Whinmores of Whinmore Hall ceased to take any part in public affairs. They were too proud to farm their own land; and putting trust in a nefarious steward, the Whinmore who reigned at the Hall when King George the Second reigned over England was compelled to keep up appearances by selling half the family estate.

The Whinmore in question, “t’ould squire,” as the people call him, was a melancholy man, not much blest in the matrimonial lottery. His wife, Lady Henrietta Whinmore, was the daughter of a poor Catholic Earl. Tradition says she was equally beautiful and proud; and I believe it.

To return. This couple had only one child, a son. When Lady Henrietta found that her husband was a gentleman of a moping and unenterprising turn of mind, that she could not persuade him to compromise his principles, and so find favour with the new government, she devoted herself to the education of her son, Graham. As he was a clever boy, with strong health and good looks, she determined that he should retrieve the fortunes of the family. She kept him under her own superintendence till he was ten years of age. She then sent him to Eton, with his cousin the little Earl of ———. He was brought up a Protestant, and thus the civil disabilities of the family would be removed. He was early accustomed to the society of all ranks, to be found in a first-class English public school; and his personal gifts as well as his mental excellence helped to win him the good opinion of others. Graham came home from Oxford in his twenty-third year, a first-class man.

“Indeed!” I exclaimed. “I hope I am descended from him, and that his good luck will be a part of my inheritance. Is there any portrait of this fine young English gentleman of the olden time?”

“A very good one. It is in my daughter’s sitting-room. We are both struck by your likeness to your grandfather, Graham Whinmore.”

“I shall never take a first-class,” I sighed; “but go on.”

When Graham returned home after his success at college, he found his father a hopeless valetudinarian, who had had his bed brought down to his library, because he thought himself too feeble to go up and down stairs. He showed little emotion at sight of his son, and seemed to be fast sinking to idiotcy. His mother, on the contrary, was radiant with joy; and had made the old ruined house look its best to welcome the heir. For, at that time, the place was much dilapidated, and only a small portion was habitable, that is the part you saw yesterday, the south front.

And Graham stayed at home for a month or two in repose, after the fatigues of study. One afternoon as he rode home from a distant town, he paused on the top of Whinmore Hill, which commands a good view of the Hall. The simple bareness of the great hills around, the antique beauty and retirement of the Hall — above all, the sweet impressive stillness of the place, had often charmed Graham, as a boy. Now he gazed with far stronger feeling at it all.

“It shall not be lost to me and my children,” he vowed, inwardly. “I will redeem the mortgage on the house, I will win back every acre of the old Whinmore land. Yes, I will work for wealth; but I must lose no time, or my opportunity will be gone.”

He looked at the ruined part of the house, and began to calculate the cost of rebuilding as he hastened forward. As soon as he entered the house he went to see his father, whom he had not seen that day. He found him in his bed, with the nurse asleep in the easy chair beside it. His father did not recognise him, and to Graham’s mind, looked very much changed since the previous day. He left the room in search of his mother; thinking, in spite of his love for her, that she neglected her duty as a wife. “She should be beside him now,” he thought. Still, he framed the best excuse he could for her then, for he loved and reverenced her. She was so strong-minded, so beautiful. Above all, she loved him with such passionate devotion. He dreaded to tell her the resolution he had formed. She was an aristocrat and a woman. She did not understand the mutation of things in that day; she would not believe that the best way to wealth and power was not through the Court influence, but by commercial enterprise. He went to her bedroom, the Lady’s Chamber, in which you were last night. She was not there, and he was about to retreat, when he heard her voice in anger speaking to someone, in the dressing-room or oratory above. Graham went towards the stairs, and was met by an old female servant who was in his mother’s confidence, and acted as her maid and head-nurse to his father. She came down in tears, murmuring, “I cannot bear it. It was you gave me the draught for him. I will send for a doctor.”

“A doctor, indeed! He wants no doctor,” cried the angry mistress. “And don’t talk any more nonsense, my good woman, if you value your place.”

In her agitation the woman did not see her young master, and hastily left the room.

Astonished at the woman’s words, he slowly ascended the steps to the dressing-room. He found his mother standing before the long looking-glass arrayed in a rich dress of old point lace, over a brocaded petticoat, with necklace, bracelets, and tiara of diamonds. She looked very handsome as her great eyes still flashed and her cheek was yet crimson with anger. She turned hastily as her son’s foot was heard on the topmost stair. When she saw who it was her face softened with a smile.

“You here, Graham! I have been wanting you. Read that.”

He could scarcely take his admiring eyes from the brilliant figure before him as he received the letter.

It was addressed to his mother, and came from his cousin, the Earl, informing her that he had obtained a certain post under government for Graham.

She kissed him as he sat down after reading the letter.

“There is your first step on fortune’s ladder, my son. You are sure to rise.”

“I hope so, mother. But where are you going decked out in the family diamonds and lace?”

“Have you forgotten? — To the ball at the Lord-Lieutenant’s. You must dress quickly, or we shall be late. Your cousin will be there, and we must thank him for that letter.”

“Yes, mother,” he replied, “but we must refuse the place — I have other views.”

Lady Henrietta’s brow darkened.

“Mother! I have vowed to recover the estate of my ancestors. It will require a large fortune to do this. I cannot get a large fortune by dangling about the Court — I am going to turn merchant.”

Lady Henrietta stared at him in amazement.

“You? — My son become a merchant?”

“Why not, mother? Sons of nobler houses have done so; and I have advantages that few have ever had. Listen, dear mother. I saved the life of a college friend, who was drowning. His father is one of the wealthiest merchants in London — in all England. He wrote to tell me that if it suited my views and those of my family, he was ready to receive me, at once, as a junior partner in his firm. He had learned from his son that I wished to become rich that I might buy back my ancestral estate. His offer puts it in my power to become rich in a comparatively short space of time. — I intend to accept his munificent offer.”

Lady Henrietta’s proud bosom swelled; but there was something in her son’s tone which made her feel that anger and persuasion were alike vain. After some minutes’ silence, she said bitterly:

“The world is changed indeed, Graham, if men of gentle blood can become traders and not lose their gentility.”

“They can, mother. And I do not think the world can be much changed in that particular. A man of gentle blood, who is, in very truth, a gentleman, cannot lose that distinction in any occupation. Come, good mother, give me a smile! I am about to go forth to win an inheritance. I shall fight with modern weapons — the pen and the ledger — instead of sword and shield.”

At that moment hasty steps were heard in the chamber below, and a voice called:

“My lady! my lady! come quick! The Squire is dying!”

Mother and son went fast to Mr. Whinmore’s room. They arrived in time to see the old man die. He pointed to her, and cried with his last breath,

“She did it! She did it!”

Lady Henrietta sat beside his bed and listened to these incoherent words without any outward emotion. She watched the breath leave the body, and then closed the eyes herself. But though she kept up so bravely then, she was dangerously ill for several months after her husband’s death, and was lovingly tended by her son and the old servant.

•   •   •

I must now pass over ten years. Before the end of that time Graham Whinmore had become rich enough to buy back every acre of the land and to build a bran new house, twenty times finer than the old one, if he were so minded. But he was by no means so minded. He restored the old house — made it what it now is. He would not have accepted Chatsworth or Stowe in exchange.

The Lady Henrietta lived there still; and superintended all the improvements. She had become reconciled to her son’s occupation for the sake of the result in wealth. She entered eagerly into all his plans for the improvement of his property, and she had some of her own to propose.

It was the autumn of the tenth year since her husband’s death, and she was expecting Graham shortly for his yearly visit to the Hall. She sat looking over papers of importance in her dressing-room; the old servant (who seems to have grown no older) sat sewing in the bedroom below, when a housemaid brought in a letter which the old servant took immediately to her mistress.

Lady Henrietta opened the letter quickly, for she saw that the handwriting was her son’s. “Perhaps he is coming this week,” she thought with a thrill of delight. “Yes, he will come to take me to the Lord-Lieutenant’s ball. He is proud of his mother yet, and I must look my best.” But she had not read a dozen words before the expression of her face changed. Surprise darkened into contempt and anger — anger deepened into rage and hatred. She uttered a sharp cry of pain. The old servant ran to her in alarm; but her mistress had composed herself, though her cheek was livid.

“Did your ladyship call me?”

“Yes. Bring me a light!”

In this letter Graham announced his return home the following week — with a wife; — a beautiful girl — penniless and without connections of gentility. No words can describe the bitter rage and disappointment of this proud woman. He had a second time thwarted her plans for his welfare, and each time he had outraged her strongest feelings. He had turned merchant, and by his plebeian peddling had bought the land which his ancestors had won at the point of the sword. She had borne that, and had submitted to help him in his schemes. But receive a beggarly, low-born wench for her daughter-in-law? — No! She would never do that. She paced the room with soft, firm steps, like a panther. After a time thought became clearer, and she saw that there was no question of her willingness to receive her daughter-in-law, but of that daughter-in-law’s willingness to allow her to remain in the house. Ah! but it was an awful thing to see the proud woman when she looked that fact fully in the face. She hated her unseen daughter with a keen cold hate — a remorseless hate born of that terrible sin, Pride. But she was not a woman to hate passively. She paced to and fro, turning and returning with savage, stealthy quickness. The day waned, and night began. Her servant came to see if she were wanted, and was sent away with a haughty negative. “She is busy with some wicked thought,” murmured the old woman.

•   •   •

Graham Whinmore’s bride was, as he had said, “so good and so lovely, that no one ever thought of asking who were her parents.” She was also accomplished and elegant in manner. She was in all respects but birth superior to the Duke’s daughter whom Lady Henrietta had selected for her son’s wife. The beautiful Lilian’s father was a music master, and she had given lessons in singing herself. Lady Henrietta learned this and everything else concerning her young daughter-in-law that could be considered disgraceful in her present station. But she put restraint on her contempt, and received her with an outward show of courtesy and stately kindness. Graham believed that for his sake his mother was determined to forget his wife’s low origin, and he became easy about the result of their connection after he had seen his mother caress his wife once or twice. He felt sure that no one could know Lilian and not love her. He was proud and happy to think that two such beautiful women belonged to him.

The Lord-Lieutenant’s ball was expected to be unusually brilliant that year, and Graham was anxious that his wife should be the queen of the assembly.

“I should like her to wear the old lace and the jewels, mother,” said Graham.

The Lady Henrietta’s eyebrows were contracted for a moment, and she shot forth a furtive glance at Lilian, who sat near, playing with a greyhound.

If Graham had seen that glance! But her words he believed.

“Certainly, my son. It is quite proper that your wife should wear such magnificent heirlooms. There is no woman of quality in this county that can match them. I am proud to abdicate my right in her favour.”

“There, Lilian! Do you hear, you are to eclipse the Duchess herself!”

“I will do so, if you wish it,” said Lilian. “But I do not think that will amuse me so much as dancing.”

•   •   •

Balls, in those times, began at a reasonable hour. Ladies who went to a ball early in November, began to dress by daylight.

Lilian had been dressed by her maid. Owing to a certain sentimental secret between her and her husband, she wore her wedding-dress of white Indian muslin, instead of a rich brocaded silk petticoat, underneath the grand lace robe. The diamonds glittered gaily round her head and her softly-rounded throat and arms. She went to the old library, where Graham sat awaiting the ladies. She wanted his opinion concerning her appearance. The legend does not tell how he behaved on this occasion, but leaves it to young husbands to imagine.

“You must go to my mother, and let her see how lovely you look. Walk first, that I may see how you look behind.” So she took from his hand a spray of roses he had gathered, and preceded him from the room, and up the staircase to his mother’s chamber. She was in the dressing-room above.

“Go up by yourself,” said Graham; “I will remain on the stairs, and watch you both. I should like to hear what she says, when she does not think I hear; for she never praises you much to me, for fear of increasing my blind adoration, I suppose.”

Lilian smiled at him, and disappeared up the stairs. It was now becoming dark, and as he approached the stairs, a few minutes afterwards, to hear what was said, his mother’s voice, in a strange, eager tone, called from above,

“Bring me a light! Bring me a light!”

Then Graham saw his mother’s old servant run quickly from her seat by the window, and light a tall taper on the toilette. She carried this up to her mistress, and found Graham on the stair on her return. She grasped his arm, and whispered fearfully,

“Watch her! Watch her!”

He did watch, and saw—

“For God’s sake, Mr. Erle,” I interrupted, “don’t tell me what he saw — for I saw the same dreadful sight!”

“I have no doubt you did, since you say so; and because I have seen it myself.”

We were silent for some moments, and then I asked if he knew anything more of these people.

“Yes — the rest is well known to everyone who lives within twenty miles. Graham Whinmore vowed not to remain under the same roof with his mother, after he had seen his wife’s blackened corpse. His grief and resentment were quiet and enduring. He would not leave the corpse in the house; but before midnight had it carried to a summer-house in the shrubbery, where he watched beside it, and allowed no one to approach, except the old servant who figures in this story. She brought him food, and carried his commands to the household. From the day of Lilian’s death till the day of her burial in the family vault at Whinmore Church, Graham guarded the summer-house where his wife lay, with his drawn sword as he walked by night round about. It was known that he would not allow the family jewels to be taken from the body, and that they were to be buried with it. Some say that he finally took them from the body himself, and buried them in the shrubbery, lest the undertakers, tempted by the sight of the jewels on the corpse, might desecrate her tomb afterwards for the sake of stealing them. This opinion is supported by the fact that a portion of the shrubbery is haunted by the apparition of Graham Whinmore, in mourning garments, and with a drawn sword in his hand.”

“Would you advise me to institute a search for those old jewels?” I asked smiling.

“I would,” said he. “But take no one into your confidence, Tom Whinmore. You may raise a laugh against you, if you are unsuccessful. And if you find them, and take them away—”

“Which I certainly should do,” I interrupted.

“You will raise a popular outcry against you. The superstitious people will believe that you have outraged the ghost of your great-grandfather, who will become mischievous, in consequence.”

I saw the prudence of this remark; and it was agreed between us, that we should do all the digging ourselves, unknown to anyone. I then asked how it was that I was descended from this unfortunate gentleman.

Mr. Erle’s story continued thus:

After his wife’s funeral, Graham Whinmore did not return to the Hall, but went away to the south, and never came here again, not even to visit his mother on her deathbed, a year after. In a few years he married again, and had sons and daughters. To an unmarried daughter, Jane Whinmore, — always called “Leddy Jane” by our neighbours, — he left the house and lands. He did not care to keep it in the family, and she might leave it to a stranger, or sell it, if she pleased. It was but a small portion of Graham Whinmore’s property, as you must know. She, however — this “Leddy Jane” — took a great fancy to the old place. She is said to have lived on terms of familiarity with the ghost of her grandmother, and still more affectionately with her father’s first wife. She heard nothing of the buried jewels, and saw nothing of her own father’s ghost during his lifetime. That part of the story did not come to light until after the death of Graham Whinmore; when the “Leddy Jane” herself was startled one evening in the shrubbery, by meeting the apparition of her father. It is said that she left her property to her youngest nephew’s youngest son, in obedience to his injunctions during that interview.

“So that though unborn at the time, I may consider myself lord of Whinmore Hall, by the will of my great-grandfather!” I said.

“Precisely so. I think it an indication that the ghostly power is to die out in your time. The last year of the wicked Lady Henrietta’s life was very wretched, as you may suppose. Her besetting and cherished sins brought their own reward — and her crowning crime was avenged without the terror of the law. For it is said that every evening at sunset the apparition of her murdered daughter-in-law came before her, wearing the rich dress which was so dear to the proud woman; and that she was compelled to repeat the cruel act, and to hear her screams and the farewell curses of her adored son. The servants all left the Hall in affright; and no one lived with the wicked Lady except the faithful old servant, Margaret Thirlston, who stayed with her to the last, followed her to the grave, and died soon after.

“Her son and his wife were sought for by Jane Whinmore on her arrival here. She gave them a home and everything they wanted as housekeeper and farm-manager at the Hall. And at the death of Giles Thirlston, his son Ralph became farm-manager in his place. He continued there till t’ Leddy’s death, when he settled at the little wayside inn which you have seen, and which he calls ‘Leddy Jane’s Gift.’”

•   •   •   •   •   •

I have but little more to say. Mr. Erle and I sought long for the hidden treasure. We found it, after reading a letter secreted in the escritoire, addressed to ‘My youngest nephew’s youngest son.’ In that letter directions were given for recovering the hidden jewels of the family. They were buried outside the garden fence, on the open moor, on the very spot where I can swear I saw the figure of a man with a sword — my great-grandfather, Graham Whinmore.

After I married, we came to live in the south; and I took every means to let my little estate of Whinmore. To my regret the Hall has never found a tenant, and it is still without a tenant after these twenty-five years.

Will any reader make me an offer? They shall have it cheap.

J. M. H.

“Once a Week” (magazine), 19 January 1861

MIDNIGHT
AT MARSHLAND GRANGE

Arthur Locker

1863

The Supernatural Investigation Society — that was what we styled ourselves — was limited to six members: namely, Messieurs Toombs, Graves, Knight, Gashleigh, Scully, and Bone. For a twelvemonth or more we had been addling our brains by culling ghost-stories out of books, or collecting them from our friends. But this was, at best, second-hand evidence.

“What we want,” said Jack Toombs, our president, bringing his fist upon the table with a crash, and startling us all (for twelve months of continuous spectral literature tends to unstring the nerves) — “what we want is to see a ghost!”

“That,” observed Mr. Gashleigh, “is easier said than done. Gentlemen,” he continued, solemnly, “although there is not a rood of ground in this mighty city upon which some deed of blood and darkness has not been perpetrated, I don’t believe there’s a ghost to be heard of in all London. Either the noise of the night-cabs, or the carbonised atmosphere, or the policemen’s bulls-eyes, or the cats on the roofs — whatever it is, something keeps ’em away. For aught we know, a frightful and mysterious murder may have been committed under this very roof — nay, on that exact spot where you, Scully, are now sitting.”

(Mr. Scully looked uncomfortable, and shifted the position of his chair.)

“Why don’t we hear of that murder?” pursued Mr. Gashleigh. “Because, sir,” said the honourable member, fixing his eye on the president, “in this bustling, excitable metropolis, it was probably only a nine-days’ wonder. In a secluded country place it would have afforded gossip for a century. Now this is the gist of my argument. Ghosts don’t care to walk except where there’s a public who know all about their affairs. Here in London, if you met a ghost on the stairs you would take him for a housebreaker, and insist on giving him in charge; whereas in the country, your blood would curdle with horror at a similar visitation, because you would recognise the spectre of old Job Tatterly, the miser, who was found in the horsepond one November morning, but whose hoarded wealth was never discovered.”

“Why not advertise,” said Bone, “for a Haunted House?”

The proposal was received with acclamation, an advertisement was composed and inserted in the public prints; all answers to be addressed to me, A. Wynter Knight, Esq., secretary to the Society.

We received several written replies, which I may dismiss very briefly. Two or three of them were palpable hoaxes, while one was from the landlord of a boarding-house who alleged that he had lost all his lodgers owing to supernatural noises. This gentleman wanted us to take the lease of his house off his hands, and we had nearly concluded the bargain, when Graves, our vice-president, met one of the late boarders in society, who informed him that he and the other inmates had quitted the house not because of ghosts, but because a frightful and mysterious stench pervaded the lower part of the premises, which not even Burnett’s Disinfecting Fluid could cure. In short, the landlord was a humbug, as I periphrastically told him during our last interview.

Then there was an old lady, widow of a master-mariner, resident in Three Colt Lane, Victoria Park, N.E., who wrote thus:

Sir, — I have a drawing-room floor to let, furnished, with use of kitchen if not cooking too late dinners. The house is haunted, not that I have ever seen anything myself; but my son, who is mate of a collier-brig, coming home late from the Commercial Docks, stumbled over a Newfoundland dog on the first-floor landing, which ran down stairs, and though he followed it was no longer visible. Now, sir, a party lived in the drawing-room sett who threw himself into Sir George Duckett’s Canal, through sporting and betting. I never heard he kept a dog, but why not, on the sly? His employers being aware that paunches are expensive, and naturally suspicious, as his salary was only eighty pounds a year. I can give you reasonable attendance; and remain, sir, your humble servant,

Mary Clack

We could not accept this worthy dame’s proposal. There was a vein of honesty running through her somewhat confused letter which pleased us; but a haunted first-floor, with an obsequious landlady cooking chops for us on the basement storey, in the intervals of spectral visitation, was too absurd.

More than a week passed away, and we despaired of getting anything to suit us, when one day, as I was seated in my office (I may mention that, when not supernaturally engaged, I am in the hemp, jute, and gunnybag business) — one day, as I was seated in my office alone, a gentleman entered and introduced himself by laying a card on my desk. It was a large, old-fashioned, thick card, and bore the name Mr. Edgar Batesford, beneath which was written, in yellow-rusted ink, Marshland Grange, Essex.

“You advertised for a haunted house?” he said, smiling.

I started; for at that moment my thoughts were immersed in fibrous commodities.

“Yes, sir, I did. Have you anything eligible to offer us?”

“Possibly I have, on certain conditions.”

“Will you name them?”

“That you visit the house in question alone in my company, without informing your brother-clubmen of your intention until the following day.”

I regarded my visitor earnestly, to see if he looked like a rogue. His appearance was in his favour. He was a tall, thin young man, with good features and (what is noticeable in these bearded days) a clean-shaven face. His clothes were new and fashionably cut; but I observed that he wore an old-fashioned stand-up collar and stock.

“Where is the haunted house?” I asked.

“This is the place,” he answered, pointing to the card — “Marshland Grange, my own property. Owing to all sorts of absurd sinister rumours I haven’t been able to let it for years. I shall therefore be delighted to have the mystery cleared up by your Society.”

“What are your terms?”

“My terms! My dear sir, I shall be only too happy to pay you, if you can prove the house unhaunted. Should it, on the contrary, appear to be supernaturally infested, a few guineas to repay my expenses will amply suffice — say ten guineas; you can put the amount in your pocket.”

My features must have betrayed some hesitation, for Mr. Batesford continued:

“You demur to my suggestion, and very naturally too. You say to yourself: ‘I know nothing of this man. What is to prevent his inveigling me into some lonely ruinous place, and then extorting the ten guineas by violence?’ Now, I know your respectability. Your firm, A. W. Knight & Co., was established in 1803, if I mistake not, just before Boney became Emperor.”

“It was; and it strikes me I have seen the name of Batesford in our old ledgers.”

“Very possibly: but never mind that at present. Now, I am going to give you a guarantee of my respectability. Here is a twenty-pound Bank of England note. Lock that up in your safe until tomorrow, and meet me this evening at the Shoreditch Station for the 6.40 train. We will go together, and sit up till twelve o’clock at Marshland Grange. Do you agree?”

“I do,” I replied, as I turned my Chubb-key on his deposit. “There’s my hand upon it!”

Mr. Batesford did not appear to notice my proffered palm, but bowing slightly quitted the office.

“This is a queer customer,” I thought. “As I have an hour to spare, I will follow the fellow, and see what becomes of him.” I put on my hat, and went out into Thames Street; but though I traced his tall figure for some time, out-topping the ordinary run of wayfarers, I lost sight of him under the arch of London Bridge.

“Never mind,” said I. “I shall see if he is true to his appointment this evening.”

I must confess I felt rather nervous as my cab rattled up Bishopsgate Street towards the station. But the possible honour and glory in store for me buoyed me up. Perhaps while my brother-inquirers have only been talking about ghosts, I may be privileged to see one. Still I experienced some secret qualms, and I should have breathed more freely if Mr. Batesford had not been awaiting me in front of the booking-office.

He nodded slightly, and said:

“Netherwood is our station. I presume, Mr. Knight, you will pay the fares? I am not above travelling second-class.”

I took the tickets accordingly, and entered a carriage that was pretty full of people; for I felt rather shy of my companion.

To beguile the tedium of the journey, I tried to engage him in conversation, but with little success. He appeared to be totally uninterested in politics, and in reply to my remarks on our financial prosperity, said:

“I believe in Billy Pitt, sir. Look at his Sinking Fund. There’s a masterpiece!”

Now, if the man who uttered these words had been eighty years old, I should have regarded him with interest as a harmless old fossil of the past; but here was a young man of five-and-twenty, who invariably spoke of guineas instead of pounds, called the French Emperor Bonaparte, and mentioned Pitt, as if that financier were still living. I could make nothing of him; so I drew out the “Evening Standard,” and plunged into Manhattan’s last letter.

Presently I heard the rustling of paper opposite, and peeping over my own broadsheet, observed that Mr. Batesford was also engaged with a newspaper. I felt anxious to know what journal he patronised, and was surprised to see the name of a well-known daily paper which has recently become extinct. The diminutive size of the sheet also astonished me; it appeared to have shrunk to half its normal bulk. I peeped again; and being an adept at the old schoolboy accomplishment of reading upside down, managed to spell out the date — 19th October, 1863.

“Today’s paper!” thought I; “and yet, certainly, that journal has ceased to exist for months past.” My curiosity was on tiptoe. I determined to have an explanation.

“Mr. Batesford, would you oblige me by exchanging papers?”

“Thank you,” he replied, blandly; “I shall take no interest in yours, and I do not care to part with my own. However, you may just look at it.”

He reversed the sheet, so as to hold the title before my eyes. I had made a slight mistake in my topsy-turvy decipherings. I had added a flourish to a figure where no such flourish existed; for Mr. Batesford’s paper was the “Morning Chronicle” of the 19th October, 1803!

“Sixty years ago, this very day! I should like to read that paper. It must be quite a curiosity.”

“Wait till we get home,” said Mr. Batesford, smiling, and folding up the newspaper. “Come, here we are at Netherwood. There is your carpet-bag. We will walk across to the Grange, as it is dry under foot.”

Mr. Batesford was probably an Essex man, and connected by Darwinian affiliation with the frogs of his native swamps; for in my opinion it was as damp, greasy, oozy, and slushy a walk as I ever took on a murky, lowering October night. We traversed lanes where the water dripped down our backs from the overhanging hedgerows; we got over stiles which led into clayey footpaths by the side of slow-moving streams; we entered, at last, upon a region of bulrushes, where the chilly water actually gurgled up about my ankles. I endeavoured to keep up a stout heart. I said:

“A. W. Knight, remember that you are a Searcher after Truth; remember, also, that there are a pair of dry shoes and socks in your carpet-bag.”

At length, after three miles of this glutinous journeying, we came out upon a firm high-road. I blessed the memory of Macadam, and strode merrily onwards. Presently we halted in front of a house separated from the road by a small garden.

“Marshland Grange,” observed my companion, breaking a long-continued silence.

I looked up at the house with a sigh of disappointment: it was such an utterly commonplace dwelling. I had pictured Marshland Grange as a rambling old edifice, exhibiting in its wings, gables, and additions, specimens of half-a-dozen architectural eras, and situated far from other human abode in a desolate swamp. In place of this, I beheld a common ten-roomed brown brick box, built evidently about the end of the last century, when picturesqueness was deemed a barbarism, and within hail of half-a-dozen labourers’ cottages.

“This a haunted house?” I asked, half-contemptuously, as Mr. Batesford led the way into the parlour.

“So the neighbours say,” replied my companion.

For some seconds I was unable to tell why he was such a long time striking a light. I then saw that he used a flint, steel, and tinder-box.

“You are singularly old-fashioned,” I remarked. “To be consistent, you should have travelled down from London in the old Essex Highflyer, Mr. Batesford.”

“The railway was more convenient, this evening,” he answered quietly: as much as to say, “On other evenings I should prefer the Highflyer.”

As soon as he had lighted the candle (which, by the way, was a common, guttering, snuff-accumulating dip) I looked round the room. It was desolate enough: several windows were broken, while the furniture consisted of a couple of rickety chairs and a dilapidated deal table.

“Change your boots, Mr. Knight, and then I will show you over the house.”

He took up the candle and preceded me. We went upstairs and downstairs, examining both kitchens and attics. The remainder of the rooms were entirely bare of furniture; and the house was a regular formal up-and-down affair, which might have been situated on the Duke of Bedford’s Bloomsbury estate. There were no gloomy corridors — no deep-sunk unexpected cupboards — no possibility of secret doors or passages. It was damp, mouldy, and depressing, but perfectly commonplace.

“No room for a ghost to hide here,” said I, jocularly.

“It don’t look like it,” observed Mr. Batesford; “still the neighbours say otherwise. Let us return to the parlour, close the shutters, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can till twelve o’clock strikes. That is, I believe, the legitimate hour for ghostly visitants.”

We took our seats in the comfortless apartment, which felt chilly and miserable enough to depress any professional ghost-hunter. The wind whistled through the chinks of the decaying shutters, threatening every moment to extinguish our feeble candle.

“Let us fortify our spirits with a little supper, Mr. Batesford,” I said, diving into my carpet-bag, and producing a cottage-loaf, a chicken-and-ham sausage, and three bottles of Bass’s ale. My companion fell to work with alacrity, eating and drinking in a singularly rapid yet noiseless manner. He consumed the lion’s share of two bottles of ale, and watched me with wistful eyes as I opened a third. I began to despise him. “He drinks,” I said to myself, “to obtain a stock of Dutch courage. So much the better. Had he not swallowed more than his share, I might have been tempted to tipple, whereas now my head is cool. I am prepared for anything.”

For one thing I was not prepared; — for Mr. Batesford suddenly falling asleep, and snoring hideously. I called to him once or twice, when he ceased for a few moments without waking up, but presently began again as bad as ever. I looked at my watch; it was only eleven o’clock. What should I do till twelve? I did not like to smoke. I fancied it would look disrespectful, when you expected a ghost, to be puffing out the vapour of tobacco. I had forgotten to bring a pack of cards, or I might have had a game at Patience. What should I do? Just then my companion emitted a more energetic snore than usual, which caused me to turn towards him. His legs were stretched out, his chair was tilted back, and his head was supported by the edge of the table. For a sparely-built man he was a most uncomfortable sleeper. His breathing was perfectly convulsive. But his breast-pocket rather than himself engaged my attention, for from it protruded that newspaper which I had been so eager to see in the railway-carriage. I could no longer restrain my curiosity, but drew it softly forth, and settled myself down to read it by the flickering candlelight. I soon became interested in the tiny old newspaper. The England of 1803, just as we were recommencing that tremendous struggle which terminated in Waterloo and St. Helena, rose before my eyes. But a paragraph of half-a-dozen lines in the third page put politics completely out of my head.

I felt my blood congeal, and my skin roughen with horror as I read those words. I rose slowly to my feet. “Gracious Powers!” I murmured; “I sneered at the notion of this house being haunted, and here, within a yard of me, in yonder chair, sits—”

I bent cautiously over him. His head was thrown back. I shuddered with affright. I could guess now why he wore a high collar and stock. I could see the fatal—

Just then a distant clock struck twelve. My companion suddenly woke, and said, with a yawn, “What! twelve o’clock, and no ghost yet! Come, Mr. Knight, I think you will be able to certify that, barring a few repairs, the house is fit for anybody to live in; and I shall be happy to give you a liberal commission if you can find me a respectable tenant.”

While he spoke thus, I was staring at him with a fixed gaze of horror. He did not seem to notice my expression of countenance, but presently, observing the newspaper in my hand, exclaimed, in an angry voice, “How dare you, sir!” and snatched it from me.

Just then an unusually strong gust of wind penetrated the crazy shutters, and blew the candle out. The snuff was still redhot, and I contrived to relight it; as I did so, I heard a distant door bang. I looked round for my companion, but he was gone!

With trembling knees, and a swiftly-palpitating heart, I hastily packed my carpet-bag and quitted that house of desolation. After trudging a hundred yards or more along the road, I reached the village inn, and was surprised to observe a stream of light pouring from the chinks of the door at that late hour. I knocked, and was immediately admitted.

“Why, you look ’most as scared as we do, master,” observed the landlord; “and we’ve been a watching the corpse-light over in the Haunted House yonder. Just as twelve o’clock struck, out went the light, ’zackly as I said it would; didn’t I, missus?”

“Aye, that ye did, Joe,” replied the wife.

“My friends, I can explain something of this,” said I. “I belong to a Society up in London, instituted with the view of inquiring into ghost-stories; and I came down to visit Marshland Grange for that purpose, in company with the landlord. That accounts for the light you saw.”

“Why, there bain’t ne’er a landlord,” piped out a village patriarch. “The house has been in Chancery ever since Batesford the forger cut his throat, in the front-parlour, sixty year ago.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

I returned to London next day in such an excitable state, that I was scarcely able to attend to business; but I made a circumstantial report of my adventures to the Supernatural Investigation Society. I added the singular fact, that on examining our old ledgers I found the name of Edgar Batesford among our customers during the year 1803, and that his account had been ruled off suddenly with a considerable debit, which was passed to Profit and Loss.

This certainly sounds like a genuine ghostly visitation. But, on the other hand, I am bound to confess that, on unlocking my safe, I found the twenty-pound note to be an unmistakable sham — in fact, it was drawn on the Bank of Elegance. Now, I am positive I locked up a genuine Bank of England note. Supernaturalists will say that this strengthens their belief in the story: for the substitution of a counterfeit for a genuine note, by some shadowy sleight-of-hand, was the very trick to be expected from the spirit of a forger; but Jack Toombs, our President, who is a hard-headed sceptical fellow, holds another view. He reasons thus:

“It is well known that our respected secretary has a younger brother in his office, who is perpetually gibing and jeering at our Society. This gentleman possesses a duplicate key of the safe. Supposing that he has learnt the fact of Edgar Batesford’s connection with the house of A. W. Knight and Co. in 1803, and his subsequent suicide, what is to prevent him suborning some clever fellow to impersonate the forger? At the right moment this pretended ghost blows the light out, and slips away by the back-door. That banging of the back-door is fatal to the supernatural theory: a real spectre would have disappeared silently.”

To this I will rejoin but little. Whichever view you adopt, the matter is surrounded with difficulties: but this I will say, that if Jack Toombs had seen that Being as I saw him, with his head thrown back, he would not have been in a condition to theorise so dispassionately. At any rate, I have had enough of it. My nerves are completely shattered; so I purpose resigning my secretaryship, and joining the German Turnverein. Gymnastics will, I trust, make me myself again.

“Once a Week” (magazine), 21 November 1863

OVER THE EDGE
OF THE WORLD

Flora Annie Steel

1893

“Some of you must remember Graham.”

“Stout man with a pretty daughter?”

“Possibly. But when I last saw him he was slim, and the daughter a bald baby. That was just after he died of cholera.”

We in the smoking room sat up with glances wavering between the speaker’s face and the whisky bottle, but there was nothing unusual in the appearance of either one or the other. There was a pause.

“I dare say it seems strange to talk of meeting a man after his death,” began the speaker again. Someone murmured a polite hope that it had not been an unpleasantly warm expedition, whereat the gray man with the brown face got up quietly and lit another cigar.

“It was a bad year,” he went on, between the puff’s. “They were dying like sheep in the Salpur district.”

Windows set wide open to the summer air, let in the noisy vitality of London streets, yet memory grasped many of us with her resistless hand, leading us back to silent, solitary days when the punkah throbbed intermittently in darkened rooms, and we sat wondering — more with a vague curiosity than fear — what havoc the cholera fiend was wreaking outside in the blaze of yellow sunlight. Now, when a man has once so waited and wondered, the interest abides in him always, so that the very name of cholera awakens a desire to hear and know more. We sat up and listened, but nothing came.

“A case of suspended animation, I suppose,” remarked a young doctor. “It is not uncommon. I remember one—”

“So do I,” interrupted the gray man imperturbably, “but this was different; Graham really died. I am sure of it.”

Again we waited, expecting more, but the gray man was silent. Then we turned and looked to the Major. In cases of this kind he was our referee. He lifted his coat-tails and stood judicially in front of the fire.

“I think,” he said, “that when a man offers a statement of that sort for the acceptance of this smoking room, he is bound to explain it.”

“I can’t,” replied the gray man; “but as we don’t dine for half an hour, I will tell you the story, such as it is. Perhaps some of you may understand it, I don’t. I never shall till we see things face to face.”

The tone of his voice gave me personally quite an unpleasant shiver down my back, and I felt impelled towards a sherry and bitters, though I had read all the month’s magazines, and in consequence was well posted up in the latest ghost developments.

•   •   •   •   •   •

“When I first knew Graham,” began the gray man, “he was a griff [newcomer] at Allahabad, as good-looking, cheeky, high-spirited a young competition wallah as ever passed an examination only fit for bookworms. How the Government of India can expect—”

“Point, sir, point,” murmured the Major.

“I beg your pardon; well, how he managed to have kept up such an absorbing interest in the formation of his white ties, or such a keen appetite for all things digestible or indigestible in the whole solar system was even then a mystery to me. For, although I was but a few years older, I already wore spectacles and felt myself circumscribed by the Penal Code. Graham, on the other hand, was absolutely untrammelled, except, perhaps, by good nature, and he was coming near the inevitable smash when typhoid fever stepped in between him and the dog’s. To be brief, he fell out of the hands of a bad woman into the hands of a good one, who nursed him as she had nursed many another homeless boy through the valley of the shadow.

I am not going to say anything about this particular woman, because many of us have met her like when we were sick and sorry, and can supply her portrait from memory. Let us call her the mem sahib. Some of us, at any rate, have known her under that name. After he recovered he used to spend his leave with them, and more than once she came to look after him when he was ill; for there never was a more reckless chap as far as he himself was concerned. He was forever coming to grief at polo, or half killing himself with malaria. One sees a lot of sham sentiment of the motherly sort in India, but now and again one comes across a real case of adoption. This was Graham’s luck, and as the years went by the tie of confidence between him and the mem sahib grew closer than that of most mothers and sons. I was stationed with him several times in outlying districts, and have often watched his face brighten when a letter from her came to cheer the long monotonous days. Then he married; — a charming wife to whom he was absolutely devoted, and we drifted apart, as men do after marriage even when it brings the most charming and tolerant of wives. Shortly after the mem sahib’s husband left India for good, and she, if I may say so, left it for bad. At any rate she left many people in a sorry plight, for she was one of those women who have the knack of helping others.

I remember attempting to express my own sense of forlornness to her one day when Graham was by. She gave a half-jesting reply that old-fashioned Gamps were no longer necessary, since a sick man could go to the station hospital and get nursed by the most scientific of sisters. Whereupon Graham, in the same half-jesting way, declared he would never part with his Gamp, and that she was welcome to every “piller” he possessed if she would only continue to come and nurse him. “Over the edge of the world?” she asked, still with a half smile. Adding, in a lower tone, “I would if I could, you know that well.”

“Then I’ll chance it,” he replied. The look between them was good to see. After that the conversation drifted away into the borderland of the unknown — it had a trick of doing that when the mem sahib was among friends; and I remember her saying that life limited us more than death might do. She was full of fanciful theories and dreams. That was the last time I saw her; she died before I went home on furlough. I think the wrench was too hard for her soft heart.

To return to my story. Graham’s wife had a baby, so it happened that we chummed together again during one hot weather when our respective wives were in the hills. Cholera raged in the district, and as it was Graham’s first independent charge, he felt the responsibility a good deal. Nothing would serve him but to inspect the worst villages, and as my work lay that way, I went with him into camp, in the vain hope of making him take reasonable care of himself. But when the idea of duty seized him there never was any sparing of himself, and I was scarcely surprised on returning to my resthouse one evening, to find him down with the disease in its worst form. Of course I sent to headquarters for medical assistance at once; but we were twenty miles off, and the chance of its coming in time was very small.

Graham’s bearer was in too great a funk to be useful, but a new khansâman, who had been put on when Graham’s wife went to the hills taking the regular cook with her, did very well. It’s a digression, but I’ve always thought that filching away of the best servants by our wives is simply brutal; perhaps they think it is the only way of impressing the horrors of absence on our minds. Well, Elahi Baksh showed such a knowledge of what ought to be done that I complemented him on his unusual skill. The man’s impassive face never relaxed.

“I am of a family of hakims, sahib,” he replied gravely. “My grandfather could have saved my master; now he is in the hands of God, who kept me from the wisdom of my fathers.”

I looked at him inquiringly.

“The old man died,” he replied; “my father was away and I was a child. How could I learn the elixir — but I have seen and tasted it.”

He said no more, but obeyed my orders with a sort of mechanical, hopeless alacrity. The first hours passed quickly in restless busyness. I remember the room in which Graham lay jutted out into the little oasis of green garden, and as it had windows all round I could see, through the chicks, right away on all sides to the dusty, level, whitey-brown plain, which looked so much lighter and more distant than the sky; that was purple-black with heavy rain clouds, save in the west where the horizon showed a sudden dull red. Graham recognised his danger calmly, as I knew he would, and gave me clear instructions how, if need be, the worst was to be broken to his wife. He laid great stress on her unfitness for travel, and even if he rallied she was not to be allowed to come and nurse him, or run any risk of any kind; adding, with one of his kindly looks, that he needed no better nursing than he had. Yet, though he never mentioned her name, I felt certain from his expression he was thinking of the mem sahib far away on the other side of the world. He made a good fight for life, waking up, as it were, every now and again from the dream of pain and death, to something of his imperious ways. Then he would wander again, and so drift into unconsciousness. It was in one of these throbs of life that a smile came suddenly to his face.

“I forgot,” he murmured; “give me the forms, dear old boy.”

“What forms?” I asked.

He signed feebly to the writing-case on a table hard by. In opening it my hands fell on a bundle of telegraph forms such as every Indian official carries about with him. His eager, wistful eyes gave assent, and I brought the papers to him.

“Pencil,” he whispered, “quick, or it will be too late!”

Ere I could return with the latter, the cruel pain had seized him once more; but his mind was set and fixed. His cramped blue fingers forced themselves to write. The effort was pitiable to see, and I was glad when the resolve in his face melted away into the blank of unconsciousness. A glance at the paper as I hurriedly put it aside showed me that the effort had been in vain. Beyond one illegible scrawl nothing was to be seen. After that he never rallied, and before the doctor came, his holsters crammed with remedies, poor Graham was gone. It is curious how trifles strike one more strongly than the important factors in these tragedies of life. I remember thinking the scatter-brained Irish doctor was more sorry at losing the chance of trying some new nostrum than at the actual death of my poor friend. He waxed eloquent in regret at the delay; asserting that one little half hour might have saved a life; producing as proof a small bottle containing some infallible remedy which, he said, he had lately received from a native hakim. As the man was an inveterate gobemouche, forever thinking geese were swans, I paid little attention to him, and left him to Elahi Baksh while I went to make necessary arrangements. If Graham’s last wishes were to be obeyed I had to make sure that the bad news, travelling proverbially fast, should not reach his wife through some side channel. The only way to prevent this was to wire precautions to her immediate neighbours. I therefore wrote out a few telegrams, and after bidding a sowar prepare his horse to ride with them across country to the nearest railway station, I told the bearer to hand over the papers and needful rupees as soon as the man was ready to start. I am particular in these details, for on this point much of the mystery of my story depends. What I want you to understand is that I left the telegrams on the table whilst I busied myself in other things. There was much to be done. I had to ride twenty miles to headquarters that night, and be back by dawn if poor Graham was to find decent Christian burial.

The doctor, too, was anxious to be off, knowing that he might be required else where at any moment. Just as we were starting a thought struck me, and I went once more into the room where the dead man lay. The chicks had been tied up, and the four faintly glimmering squares of the windows only served to show the dark beyond. Night had fallen, and the heavy clouds seemed to smother all breath of life in the world. The only thing really visible was the hard, rigid square of the sheeted bed. A curious feeling that I was deserting a comrade came over me as I turned to seek for the telegraph form on which poor Graham had scrawled his last wish. It might, I thought, have a melancholy interest for his wife, and I wished to secure it from chance of loss. To my surprise it was nowhere to be seen, and after diligent search I was forced to accept Elahi Baksh’s explanation, that in all probability it had gone with the other forms for despatch.

“The bearer is a fool,” he said, “fear hath made his brain dissolve. Nevertheless the sahib need not be alarmed, I will watch, and no harm shall come to my master in your honour’s absence.”

Somehow I felt inclined to trust the man, and it was a relief as I rode away to see his still, impassible figure crouched beside the oil chiragh in the verandah. The night was dark as death itself, and I remember wondering how the feeble flicker of the oil lamp which scarcely showed the darkness around it could shine so far into the night. I must have been a good half mile away when I turned to look for it the last time, and there it was like a star. The rain came down in torrents; altogether a night to be remembered, with its ghastly rousing of carpenters and grave-diggers, and dreary, dreary preparations. Through it all the flicker of that oil lamp seemed to light up one corner in my tired brain — that which held the memory of the dead man lying all alone.

It cleared towards dawn, and half an hour after I had, in the darkness, charged and temporarily scattered a dismal little procession carrying the roughly made coffin on a string bed, I drew bridle in front of the resthouse once more, and dismissed the wearied beast to find its own stable. The glimmering dawn whitened the bare outlines of the bungalow, and showed me Elahi Baksh still crouched beside the oil lamp.

I thought he was asleep, but at the first touch on his shoulder he stood up alert.

“Hâzar! mem sahib!” Then with a swift glance salaamed low, adding in apologetic tones: — “I did not know it was your honour. I thought it was the mem sahib once more.”

A strangely dazed look in his eyes made me think he had been eating opium, and I reproached him angrily with having neglected his promise.

“Before heaven, my great lord!” he answered gently, “I have not slept all night, I have watched. If your honour doubts his slave’s word let him ask the mem sahib.”

Involuntarily I asked, “What mem sahib?”

The dazed look came stronger. “How should a poor man know? I mean the mem who came after your honour left.”

“Came! after I left! Why! — where is she now?”

“With the sahib,” he replied; “or stay! she is coming out.”

He pointed to the door, and as I live something — the wind of dawn perhaps — swayed the chick, turning it to one side as if an invisible presence were passing through it. For a moment I hesitated; then reason rose in wrath against my fear, and I entered the room. All seemed the same as when I had left it, and the low bed with its white covering still gleamed the only distinct object amid the pale shadows of dawn. Suddenly I felt a rush of blood to my heart, and heard a cry. I must have uttered it, but I was unconscious of every sense and function save sight, as I strained my eyes with an awful eagerness to the outline of the sheet. Surely — surely — something moved! Rising and falling — rising and falling. A great horror seized me, and I could have fled from the fear of life as I had never fled from the dread of death. Slowly I forced myself to approach the bed, and turn back the sheet from the still face. My friend was dead I told myself; what could disturb his rest? It was a trick of fancy? a wavering shadow? Yet my hand shook, my feet failed me. A moment after, the knowledge that what I feared was true removed my terror. I found myself looking down on Graham’s sleeping face with perfect calm; for it needed but a glance to show me that this was sleep, not death. Life, with all its possibilities, lay in the even, regular breathing, the quiet, painless face.

Then came the thought urgently persistent. Whose hand had guided him back? Whose care had come to his aid when friends forsook him? In my heart I knew, but I set the knowledge aside impatiently. Elahi Baksh still stood outside with folded arms. Him I would confront and question; there could be no mystery — nothing beyond explanation. So I went to him, and asked him when this thing happened.

“What thing, my lord?” he answered.

“Don’t look like a boiled owl,” I cried; “you know quite well the sahib is alive — the danger is past — he will recover.”

“God be praised!” was the reply. “Shall I make tea for the mem, she must be tired.”

“There is no mem sahib!” I cried angrily; “you have been asleep and dreaming.”

“Before heaven I have not slept! How could I? The mem came so often crying, ‘Elahi Baksh! Elahi Baksh!’”

Then I spoke quietly to him, for I saw he believed what he was saying, and told him he was mistaken; but he shook his head.

“She came just after you left, sahib,” he insisted. “I was sitting by the light, and when I looked up she stood there where you stand, and her voice was so kind and soft as she said, ‘Elahi Baksh, your master is not dead: his soul is dreaming by the gate of life. I have come to let him in, for the gate of death is ajar for me. Bring fire to warm the empty house.’ So I brought fire. Sometimes when I looked up she was there, and sometimes she was not there. She came and went calling, ‘Elahi Baksh! Elahi Baksh!’ And everything she bid me do, or bring, I did. She must have come a long way to nurse the sahib, she looked so pale and tired. God grant her and her children long lives.”

“And when did you see her last?” I asked.

He put his hand to his head in confused thought.

“The night was so long, sahib, and she came so often calling ‘Elahi Baksh! Elahi Baksh!’ At the false dawn, sahib, she touched me on the shoulder. I must have been drowsy. She was so white, and her hand cold as ice. The jackals were slinking away. I saw two by the pillar yonder. ‘The door is open,’ she said, ‘bring food to welcome the master home.’ So I brought it.”

“And when you went into the room, was the sahib alive?” Again he passed his hand over his forehead and hesitated.

“I was not in the room, my lord. There was no light — nothing but the mem sahib standing where you stand, and calling to me ‘Elahi Baksh! Elahi Baksh.’ Her voice was so soft, like the voice of someone far off — very far off.”

I walked up and down the verandah several times before I asked him if he had ever seen this mem sahib or anyone like her.

He shook his head. “I have seen few mem sahibs. I do not know the face of my mistress, doubtless it was she.”

Well, Graham recovered, but returning health brought him no memory of anything between the time of his trying to write the telegram and his awakening next morning; nor did I think it wise to tell him Elahi Baksh’s strange story. I hinted at it to the doctor, but he was in a furious rage at the loss of his bottle of elixir, which he had left behind in Graham’s room by mistake, and which was not to be found next day. He declared that Elahi Baksh had tried its efficacy on his master, and finding it succeed had stolen the remainder, enough to have made him — the doctor — famous for life. “’Twas an old beast of a fakir gave it to me, what the divvle was in it I don’t know; but Graham was as dead as a doornail, and now he’s as fit as a fiddle. And the elixir’s gone. What do ye say to that? except that I was a fool not to try it myself.” It seemed reasonable; more reasonable than Elahi Baksh’s story, till time brought a curious confirmation of the latter.

Coming home three weeks after I found Graham at his writing table. He lifted a pained set face as I entered, and pushing the letter, over which he had been leaning, towards me said,

“There is bad news. The mem sahib is dead.” I glanced at the letter scarce seeing the words.

“It would not have been so hard,” he said, after a while, “if there had been any message, any thought, but there was none — none.”

“Perhaps there was a message;” I began.

“No; read it. There was no time. It was so sudden at the last.”

She had been found late one morning dead at her writing table, her head resting on her clasped hands, beneath which lay a telegraph form on which was traced an illegible scrawl. Whether, feeling ill in the night she had risen, intending to telegraph for her husband who was away at the time, or whether she had fallen asleep for ever as she sat writing late into the night, as was her wont, no one could say. Nor could anyone decipher the secret of the telegram. It was an Indian form, but as others of the same sort were found in her desk even this clue was lost.

I put my hand on Graham’s shoulder, feeling as it lay there the long-drawn breath of a strong man’s grief. “Graham,” I said, “there was more than a thought — more than a message. She kept her promise and came to you when you sent for her.”

Then I told him Elahi Baksh’s story. And he was comforted.

There was a pause. Then the young doctor spoke. “A clear case, as I said, of suspended animation. It is not in the least uncommon.”

“But how about the telegram,” asked the gray man; and the various replies lasted till the dinner-bell rang.

“The English Illustrated Magazine”, V 11, 1893-94,

THE CRIMEAN SHIRT

E. W. Hornung

1898

It is now rather mere than twelve years since the disappearance and the finding of Henry Powell on Mooroolooloo station, New South Wales, and rather less since the subsequent case in which I myself was perhaps the principal witness. And I think that the time has arrived for confessing that the evidence which I gave on that occasion, though indeed “nothing but the truth,” was nevertheless not “the whole truth” at all.

I did not and I do not believe there was a single being in that Colonial court who would have credited the whole truth had I told it there and then upon my oath. Nor was it essential to the case. Nor did I care to return to the station, new chum as I still was, with yet another handle for native-born buffoonery. But I am no longer the storekeeper of Mooroolooloo; and I believe the public mind to be broader than it was in the matter of so-called ghosts. At all events I am going to tell you for the first time what my own eyes saw, on a day and night in January, in the year 1884.

I had been some six weeks in the Riverina, and I was alone at our home-station for the night. The owner was paying us a visit. He and the manager were camping at an out-station nineteen miles away. The overseer was absent on his holiday. I had the homestead entirely to myself, for there was neither woman nor child upon the place. Suddenly, between nine and ten o’clock, as I sat smoking and thinking on the back veranda, a spur jingled, and I made out the crinkled mole-skins and the felt wide-awake of one of the men.

“Powell the rabbiter is lost in the bush, mister,” said he.

I sprang to my feet, for the news was like that of a man overboard at sea.

“How long has he been out?”

“Since yesterday morning.”

“But I thought he camped with old Wylie at the Five-mile whim?”

“So he does.”

“Then why didn’t Wylie come in sooner?”

“Ah! there you hit it,” said my man. “That’s what we’ve all been asking him, but Wylie says his mate was given to stopping odd nights at other chaps’ camps, and he never thought anything of it till he didn’t turn up this evening. Even if he had he couldn’t have left the whim, Wylie couldn’t, with no other water anywhere near, and the sheep drawing to the troughs from four paddocks. But he’s come in now, and he’s up at the hut if you like to see him.”

And at the men’s hut I found the whim-driver, the center still of an attentive group, but no longer, I thought, the target of questions and cross-questions implying criticism and blame. On the contrary, there was now every token of sympathy with the anxiety and distress of mind from which Wylie was obviously suffering, and at the sight of which I also could spare him some of the pity which I felt for the missing rabbiter.

The whim-driver was an elderly man, with brown wrinkles all over his face, and gray whiskers parting at a baggy throat; but he was still powerfully built, and a typical bushman with his eagle eye and his strong bare arms. His eye, however, was hot with horror and remorse as it met mine, and the whole man was twitching as he told me his tale.

“If only I had guessed anything was wrong, sir,” he cried, “I would have left the sheep in a minute, though my billet depended upon it. But he’s so often stopped away one night that it never bothered me till the day wore on and he didn’t come back. God forgive me, I never even thought of telling the bosses when they passed this morning on their way to the out-station. Yet I might ha’ known — I might ha’ known! He was a sailor, poor Powell was, and sailors are always the worst bushmen. I’ve known him get bushed before, but only for an hour or two. And to think of him being out all this time — in this heat, with not a drop of water in the crab-holes! He may — he may be dead already — my poor mate, my poor mate!”

With that he turned his back upon us, in the most evident agitation, so that we thought it kindest not to refer to him in the brief council of war which the men and I now held together. It was promptly decided that all hands should form a search party to start at daybreak, with the exception of Wylie and myself. Wylie must return to his whim.

My knowledge of the country was as yet very limited, and therefore I was the one who could best be spared to ride at once to the out-station and inform the “bosses” of what had occurred. The night-horse was the only animal in the yard, but I took it to save time, and shortly after ten o’clock rode oft with Wylie, our way coinciding as far as the Five-mile whim,

There was no moon, and the night was anything but clear for that land of bright stars and cloudless skies. A hot north wind of several days’ duration had flown suddenly into the south, whence it was now blowing hard and chill, so that I buttoned my coat up as we cantered side by side, and took off my eyeglasses, lest the rushing wind should lift them from my nose. We spoke very little as we rode, but once, when we drew rein and ambled for a little, my companion reproached himself for not having given an earlier alarm.

It was impossible not to feel sorry for him, but equally impossible to acquit him of blame, so I said very little in reply. When we came to the hut a dull red glow burnt steadily within, and Wylie sighed bitterly as he explained that he had built up the fire before leaving, that his poor mate might find all comfortable if some happy chance should bring him back. He added that he supposed I would push straight on without dismounting; but I was cold and the glow looked grateful, and I had slipped from the saddle before the words were out of his mouth. Next moment I uttered a loud cry.

The door of the hut was at one end, to the left of the dying fire, and at the opposite end were two low, rude bunks, one in each corner. On the foot of the right-hand bunk sat a figure I could have sworn to even without my glasses. It was the missing rabbiter, in a red-checked shirt which I had often seen him wear, and his face was buried in his hands.

“Wylie,” cried I, wheeling around on the threshold, “he has come back, and here he is — sitting on his bunk!”

It was too dark for me to see Wylie’s face, but he tumbled rather than dismounted from his horse, and I felt him trembling as he brushed past me into the hut. I followed him, but during the single instant my back had been turned the rabbiter had moved. He was not on the bunk. Wylie kicked the logs into a blaze and then turned upon me fiercely. For the rabbiter was not in the hut at all.

“What d’ye mean,” he roared, “by playing tricks on a chap who’s lost his mate? Out of my hut, you young devil — out of my hut!”

Never have I seen man more completely beside himself; he was shaking from head to foot in a perfect palsy, and his clenched fists were shaking in my face. I assured him I had played no conscious trick — it was my defective eyesight that must have played one on me. Now that I put on my glasses I could see that the hut was empty but for our two selves; that it must have been absolutely empty till we entered. And yet I could have sworn that I had seen the lost rabbiter nursing his face at the foot of the right-hand bunk.

My companion cooled down, however, on becoming convinced of my good faith, and instead of turning me out, seemed to set his heart upon explaining my fancied vision before he would let me go. Pictures from the illustrated papers had been tacked up over the rabbiter’s bunk. One was the old colored print of Red Riding Hood, with the four trees like an elephant’s leg; and Wylie would have it that the firelight glowing on the child’s hood had made the splotch of red which my nerves had exaggerated into a Crimean shirt.

To me this explanation seemed much more ridiculous than the thing it sought to explain, but I had to admit that I could see but poorly without my glasses, and indeed I was very ready to confess to some inexplicable delusion on my part. So at that we left it, and I was glad enough to turn my back on the Five-mile hut, and to push on to the out-station at a hand-gallop.

Mr. Armit, the owner, and Mr. Mackeson, his manager, were still sitting up, discussing ways and means of coping with the long-continued drought; and the owner was good enough to praise my promptitude in coming to them at once. It was now midnight, and after a little consideration it was decided that we should all lie down for a bit preparatory to starting back a couple of hours before daybreak in order to take part in the search. For my part, I made myself very comfortable before the fire, with my saddle for a pillow, and fell asleep in a moment. And in another, as it seemed to me, there was Mackeson laying hold of my shoulder and shouting in my ear that we were an hour late in starting as it was.

Our owner, however, had long been accustomed to the hardships of the bush, and when the time came he could not face the keen edge of the day without his pannikin of tea and his bite of “browny.” So the sun was on us before we were half way to the Five-mile — not the red ball of nineteen out of twenty Riverina dawnings, but a copper disc like a new penny. Clouds of sand were whirling in the wind, which had risen greatly in the night, and was rising still; puffs of sand kept breaking from the plain to join the clouds; and we coughed, all three of us, as we cantered neck and neck.

“Do you think you could drive a whim?” said Mr. Armit, drawing rein as we sighted the Five-mile, and suddenly turning to me.

“I believe I could, sir. I have seen one working, and it looks simple enough,”

“It’s as easy as it looks if you keep your tank nice and full, and feed your troughs regularly. Wylie will show you all that’s necessary in five minutes; the fact is, I think of leaving you in charge of this whim here, since you can hardly know the paddocks well enough to be of much use in the search, whereas Wylie knows every inch of the run. What do you say, Mr. Mackeson? It is for you to decide.”

“I agree with you, sir. But — but where’s the whim got to?”

“Bless my soul!” gasped the other. “I was afraid we were in for a dust-storm, but I didn’t think it would come so quick.”

Indeed, we were in the thick of the storm already. It was but a moment since hut and whim had disappeared in a whirl of deep yellow sand, and now we could see nothing at all beyond our horses’ ears. Luckily we were not many hundred yards from the hut.

“Give them their heads!” shrieked Mackeson, and, following his advice, we gained the hut before the sea of dust had choked us utterly. It literally tinkled on the corrugated roof, and we led in the horses after us, so terrible was the storm. The whim-driver lighted a slush-lamp and put the billy on the fire to give us some tea. Everything in the hut wore a glistening yellow coat; there were layers of sand on our very eyelids, and what the owner squeezed from his beard alone made a little sand-hill on the floor.

“Poor Powell!” he suddenly exclaimed. “This is the hardest luck of all upon him. It will blot out his tracks. It will double the agonies of thirst he must already have endured. I am very much afraid that it will destroy our last chance of finding him alive.”

And Mr. Armit looked reproachfully at the whim-driver, who was making the tea with his back turned to us, crouching over the fire in an attitude so humble and so disconsolate that it would have been inhuman as well as useless to find open fault with him now. For a few seconds there was silence in the hut, silence broken only by the continual tinkle on the roof, which, however, was harder than it had been. Then of a sudden the man at whom we were all looking, wheeled around, sprang up and pointed dramatically to the rattling roof.

“You are wrong — wrong — wrong!” cried he hoarsely. “Listen to that! That’s not sand — that’s rain! All the worst dust-storms end so; it’ll rain the best part of an inch before it stops; instead of doing for him this’ll — save — his — life!”

He looked from one to the other of us — half in triumph, half in terror still, I thought — then down on his knees, and back to the boiling billy, and the sugar and the tea. I saw him throw a handful of each among the bubbles — saw his fingers twitching as they spread — and I knew then that the whim-driver’s confidence was only lip-deep.

But a part of his prophecy came true enough. It rained until the crab-holes were full of water — until there was drink enough abroad upon the plains to give the whim a good week’s holiday. Long before it stopped, however, I had the Five-mile hut to myself, with that dismal rattle on the roof, and a dull fire of damp logs spitting distressfully beneath the great square chimney. The troughs were not needed, and that was well; they were buried and hidden beneath a ridge of drifted sand, and I was to clear them with the long-handled shovel, instead of driving the whim.

I can still see those three horsemen bobbing into infinity behind the lances of the rain, and I see myself, a lonesome, spindle-shanked figure, in leggings and breeches, and the gray felt wideawake which still hangs on my wall; and I do not look very happy as I stand at the door of that hut, beneath the dripping corrugated eaves, but I do look a little elated and proud. I am going to spend days and nights in a hut five miles from any mortal soul, and I am young enough to appreciate playing Robinson Crusoe in earnest. It will be a good experience to put in the next letter home. A good experience!

The rain ceased before noon, when I had some lunch (for there was plenty to eat in Wylie’s ration-bags), and then turned out with the long-handled shovel. My spirits rose in the open air. My own actions were less noisy and nerve-disturbing than I had found them in the lonely hut, and I could look all around me as I worked, without constantly foreseeing the hut door darkened by some apparition that might be welcome enough, but which must certainly startle men when it came. The events which I have already chronicled lay heavy on my nerves. I was only nineteen years of age, and I was cursed with an imagination.

Nothing, therefore, could have been better for me than the play I made during the next few hours with the long-handled shovel. Now and then I knocked off to rest my back and smoke a pipe; but, once started, I stuck to my work pretty closely up to five o’clock by the old Waltham watch in the leather pouch on my belt. And it punished every muscle in my body: the shoulders felt it as I plunged the shovel into the heavy wet sand, the arms and shoulders as I swung it out loaded, while the strain upon back and legs was continuous. My task was the harder owing to the shovel having been bent and blunted by some misuse; yet, so far from loathing it, I was never prouder of anything than of the five-and-twenty yards of submerged trough which I uncovered and cleared that January afternoon.

To tire the body out is the surest way of cleansing and purifying the mind, and I can honestly say that I returned to the hut without any morbid fancy in my head, indeed with no anxiety about anything but the fire, which I had foolishly forgotten. Judge, then, of the sensations with which I stood still on the threshold. The hut had no windows, but the afternoon had turned out very fine, the sun shone merrily through a hundred crevices, and there, on the foot of the same bunk, sat the lost rabbiter, precisely as I had seen him sitting the night before.

How long I stood, how long he remained, I do not know. I remember a hollow voice calling his name. I remember the pattering of my own tottering feet, my nerveless fingers clutching the empty air, my trembling body flung headlong on the other bunk, and the sobs that shook it as it lay. For then I knew that Henry Powell was already dead, and for the second time I had seen his ghost.

Not a particle of doubt remained in my mind. I could not be mistaken twice — I was perfectly certain that I had never been mistaken at all. This time, however, there was no dull red glow to play conceivable tricks in the darkness, for the fire was out, and it was almost as light in the hut as it was outside. Yet there I had seen him, in the selfsame attitude, on the self-same spot, his hands covering his face, his beard showing between his wrists, his elbows planted on his thighs. I could have counted the checks in his Crimean shirt, and this time the glasses were still upon my nose.

Yes, I was absolutely certain of what I had seen, and that very certainty was now my consolation. The worst is worst of all before it happens; and the knowledge that I had seen a ghost was much more supportable than the doubt as to whether I had seen one or not. The ghost could not harm me, after all; and instead of sympathizing with myself I should grieve for the poor fellow who was already beyond the reach of succor.

Had they found him yet? Had they found the body? And, if so, would the whim-driver return to his post at once and set me free? My heart beat fast with the hope, in defiance of my head. I might reason with myself that a poor ghost was no fit companion, but how I longed to get away! Even then, however, my courage failed me in another place. Who would believe my yarn? So I stayed where I was, and have held my tongue till now.

Sundown roused me, for I must have my tea, ghost or no ghost, and to make tea I must relight the fire. Here an obstacle confronted and ultimately vanquished me. There was a wood-heap outside, but, of course, the wood was damp, and though I looked for the axe, to chop to the dry heart of the wet logs, I had not found it when night fell hastily, forcing me to abandon the search.

So I went without my tea, but ate with what appetite I had, and washed down the mutton and damper with pannikins of water from the nine-hundred-gallon tank outside. I had lighted the slush-lamp (mole-skin wick in tin of mutton fat), and I sat watching the foot of the dead man’s bunk as I ate, but no further vision interrupted my meal. And afterwards, when I was smoking my pipe in the open air, I would look in every few minutes, and past where the light was burning, for I had an odd idea that I must see the apparition thrice. And I wish I had. Yet of what I saw twice I am as positive now as I was then.

It was a magnificent night; the rain had drawn the fever from the sun-baked plains, and left even that clear air clearer than I had known it yet. Every star was a diamond in the dark blue vault, and my little pipe made the only clouds between earth and heaven. Often as I filled it, I had to light it still oftener at the flame which I had left burning in the hut, for I was rapt in thought. You are nowhere nearer to God than when alone in the bush beneath the undimmed tropic stars. I cannot say what brought it home to me, or by what chain of thought I chanced on the conclusion, but all at once I stood still and knew that the hand of God was in the apparition which I had seen. It meant something.

What did it mean? There must be some reason why I alone, and not Wylie for example, had been made to see the lost man, Powell, sitting on his bunk. Then what could that reason be?

I thought, and thought, and thought, sauntering around and around the hut the while. At last, I entered, but not to light my pipe. I do not know what I meant to do; I only know what I did. I walked to the foot of Powell’s bunk, and sat down where I had seen Powell sitting, with a vague feeling, I believe, that in that spot and in his own attitude my spirit might receive some subtle communication from that of the rabbiter. What I did receive was quite a nasty tumble; for the foot of the bunk gave way beneath me, and I found myself deposited on the ground instead. Yet he, whom I had seen sitting there, had been in life a much heavier man than myself!

These bunks, or bush bedsteads rather, are constructed upon universal and very simple lines. Four uprights are driven into the earth floor of the hut or tent, and then connected by horizontal poles with sackcloth slung across. The result combines the merits of both bed and hammock; but the uprights must be firmly rooted in the ground, and I soon saw the explanation of the present downfall; the ground was all loose at the foot of the lost man’s bed, and the outer upright had gone down like a ninepin beneath my weight.

For a moment I was merely puzzled. The ground had worn so hard elsewhere in the hut, that I could not imagine why it should begin to crumble in this particular corner. I reached the slush-lamp and peered under the middle of the bed. There it was the same — as soft as a sand-hill — but recently flattened with a shovel. I saw the concave mark. And suddenly I leant back, and got up quietly, but with the perspiration running cold from every pore, for now I knew why the visible form of Henry Powell had appeared to me twice upon the foot of his bed. It was to tell me that his murdered remains lay buried beneath.

Now I knew why Wylie had pretended to be behindhand in bringing in his news; it was that we might think his mate really lost, and be ourselves so full of blame for an error of judgment that there should be no room in our minds for deadlier suspicions, Now I understood his rage and horror when I cried out that there was Powell come back — his subsequent anxiety to explain away my vision. And the missing axe — what had it done that he should hide it? And the long-handled shovel — I knew what had blunted and bent it now.

I remember mechanically looking at my watch, and yet not seeing the time. I remember looking again, and it was not quite half-past nine. The time goes so slowly when one is alone, and midnight begins so soon; but I was thankful it was earlier than I had thought. Now I could make sure — it would all be less ghastly than in the veritable dead of night — and then to the station with my news before anybody was in bed.

The miscreant Wylie! How well he had acted his diabolical part — in there at the men’s hut, out here before the owner and the manager! Indignation at his bloody villainy was now my first emotion, and it nerved me mightily. I tore away the poles and the sacking, and the soft earth rose in a mound — it had all been put back! I ran for the long-handled shovel, and, urged on by my boiling blood, I began to dig.

God knows how I went on! A boot stuck out first, and when I felt it there was a foot inside. It was scarce eighteen inches below the ground. Next I uncovered the Crimean shirt. That was enough for me. As I bent over it with the light, and blew away the sand, I saw here and there the red checks (no plainer than in my vision, however), but the most of them were blotted out by a dark, stiff stain. I delved no deeper; this was indeed enough. I turned away, deadly sick, without rising from my knees — and there was Wylie, the whim-driver, watching me from the door.

I set the light down on the table — that, at any rate, was between us — and I looked up at him from my knees. He was glaring down on me with the most ferocious expression, every wrinkle writhing, and that loose pouch at his throat swelling as if with venom for spitting in my face. But, so far as I could see, he was unarmed; his bony right hand rested on what I took to be the handle of a stick, and, luckily, the long-handled shovel lay within reach of mine. I was the first to speak.

“I have found him,” said I.

“More fool you.”

“Why so? I am not frightened of you.”

“Not frightened to die?”

“Not particularly; you’ll follow me soon enough. One murder you could only conceal one day, and how long are you going to conceal two? Besides, you’ve got to kill me first!”

And I was on my legs with the long shovel in both hands.

“That’s soon done,” he answered with a laugh, and then I saw my mistake. What I had taken for a mere stick was the missing axe; he must have hidden it somewhere outside and, after first catching me at work, stolen away and come back with it on tiptoe. Now he took two strides into the hut, and, as the axe came up over his shoulder and hung there, I saw blood upon the blade. The sight of it delayed me at the critical instant; yet I lunged as he struck, then started back, and the axe-head split through the table as though it had been a cigar-box. With a curse he wrenched it free, but I was on him first, and round and round we went, and over and over, until I had the wretch at my mercy in the very grave which his own hands had dug.

At my mercy, because he lay as one paralyzed when he found his body stretched out on that of his victim; but how long that would have lasted I do not care to conjecture. He was stronger than I, though less active, and I think that his strength must soon have come back tenfold. But it had not done so when I caught the beat of the sweetest music I have ever heard — a duet between eight cantering hoofs drawing nearer and nearer to the hut.

The slush-lamp had fallen and gone out when the axe fell, but my eyes were searching for that villain’s eyes in the darkness, and I would have given something to see them as the music fell on his ears too — as the horsemen’s spurs jingled on the ground outside and then in the hut.

“Is Wylie here?” cried the manager’s voice.

“He is.”

“We suspect him of having murdered Powell himself!”

“He has done so. Strike a light and you shall see them both.”

But at the trial I said nothing of my two visions, for, as I have stated, I had not then the moral courage, and the case was complete without that. My story began when the bed collapsed beneath me — that was all — so terrified was I of making myself a discredited laughing-stock. Now I do not care; nor do I think there will be so many disbelievers. At all events I have relieved my mind by telling the whole truth at last — so help me God.

This I think irrelevant, but those who are interested and who do not know it, may be glad to learn that Wylie, the whim-driver, lived to die as he deserved.

“Toronto Saturday Night”, 14 May 1898

THE STORY OF
THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST

H. G. Wells

1902

The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the most part of the time, in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight — which indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying — of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.

“I say!” he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, “you know I was alone here last night?”

“Except for the domestics,” said Wish.

“Who sleep in the other wing,” said Clayton. “Yes. Well—” He pulled at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, “I caught a ghost!”

“Caught a ghost, did you?” said Sanderson. “Where is it?”

And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in America, shouted, “Caught a ghost, did you, Clayton? I’m glad of it! Tell us all about it right now.”

Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.

He looked apologetically at me. “There’s no eavesdropping of course, but we don’t want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of ghosts in the place. There’s too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn’t a regular ghost. I don’t think it will come again — ever.”

“You mean to say you didn’t keep it?” said Sanderson.

“I hadn’t the heart to,” said Clayton.

And Sanderson said he was surprised.

We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. “I know,” he said, with the flicker of a smile, “but the fact is it really was a ghost, and I’m as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I’m not joking. I mean what I say.”

Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.

Clayton ignored the comment. “It is the strangest thing that has ever happened in my life. You know I never believed in ghosts or anything of the sort before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands.”

He meditated still more profoundly and produced and began to pierce a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.

“You talked to it?” asked Wish.

“For the space, probably, of an hour.”

“Chatty?” I said, joining the party of the sceptics.

“The poor devil was in trouble,” said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end and with the very faintest note of reproof.

“Sobbing?” someone asked.

Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. “Good Lord!” he said; “yes.” And then, “Poor fellow! yes.”

“Where did you strike it?” asked Evans, in his best American accent.

“I never realized,” said Clayton, ignoring him, “the poor sort of thing a ghost might be,” and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.

“I took an advantage,” he reflected at last.

We were none of us in a hurry. “A character,” he said, “remains just the same character for all that it’s been disembodied. That’s a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose — most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea’d as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn’t.” He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. “I say it,” he said, “in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance he struck me as weak.”

He punctuated with the help of his cigar.

“I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was to me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he didn’t know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like — so!”

“What sort of physique?” said Sanderson.

“Lean. You know that sort of young man’s neck that has two great flutings down the back, here and here — so! And a little, meanish head with scrubby hair and rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the hips; turndown collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That’s how he took me. I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know — the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp — and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that — taking him in. I wasn’t a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested. I thought, ‘Good Lord! Here’s a ghost at last! And I haven’t believed for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.’”

“Um,” said Wish.

“I suppose I wasn’t there a moment before he found out I was there. He turned on me sharply and I saw the face of an immature young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an instant we stood — he looking over his shoulder at me — and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands in approved ghost fashion — came towards me. As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out ‘Boo.’ No, it wasn’t — not a bit dreadful. I’d dined. I’d had a bottle of champagne and, being all alone, perhaps two or three — perhaps even four or five — whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I’d been assailed by a frog. ‘Boo!’ I said. ‘Nonsense. You don’t belong to this place. What are you doing here?’

“I could see him wince. ‘Boo-oo,’ he said.

“Boo — be hanged! Are you a member?’ I said; and just to show I didn’t care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to light my candle. ‘Are you a member?’ I repeated, looking at him sideways.

“He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became crestfallen. ‘No,’ he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of my eye; ‘I’m not a member — I’m a ghost.’

“‘Well, that doesn’t give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there anyone you want to see, or anything of that sort?’ And doing it as steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, holding it. ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

“He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. I’m haunting,’ he said.

“‘You haven’t any business to,’ I said, in a quiet voice.

“‘I’m a ghost,’ he said, as if in defence.

“‘That may be, but you haven’t any business to haunt here. This is a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little mite might easily come upon you and be scared out out of her wits. I suppose you didn’t think of that?’

“‘No, sir,’ he said, I didn’t.’

“‘You should have done. You haven’t any claim on the place, have you? Weren’t murdered here, or anything of that sort?’

“‘None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled—’

“‘That’s no excuse.’ I regarded him firmly. Your coming here is a mistake,’ I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see if I had my matches and then looked up at him frankly. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t wait for cock-crow — I’d vanish right away.’

“He looked embarrassed. ‘The fact is, sir—’ he began.

“‘I’d vanish,’ I said, driving it home.

“‘The fact is, sir, that — somehow — I can’t.’

“‘You can’t? ‘

“‘No, sir. There’s something I’ve forgotten. I’ve been hanging about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I’m flurried. I’ve never come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.’

“‘Put you out?’

“‘Yes, sir. I’ve tried to do it several times, and it doesn’t come off. There’s some little thing has slipped me, and I can’t get back.

“That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such an abject way that for the life of me I couldn’t keep up quite the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. “That’s queer,’ I said, and as I spoke I fancied I heard someone moving about down below. ‘Come into my room and tell me more about it,’ I said. ‘I didn’t, of course, understand this,’ and I tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms — it was lucky I was the only soul in that wing — until I saw my traps. ‘Here we are,’ I said, and sat down in the armchair; ‘sit down and tell me all about it. It seems to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.’

“Well, he said he wouldn’t sit down; he’d prefer to flit up and down the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, and I began to realize just a little what a thundering rum and weird business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent — the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice-flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners of the framed engravings on the wall, and there he was telling me all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended on earth. He hadn’t a particularly honest face, you know, but being transparent, of course, he couldn’t avoid telling the truth.”

“Eh?” said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.

“What?” said Clayton.

“Being transparent — couldn’t avoid telling the truth — I don’t see it,” said Wish.

“I don’t see it,” said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. “But it is so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don’t believe he got once a nail’s breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed — he went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage of gas — and described himself as a senior English master in a London private school when that release occurred.”

“Poor wretch!” said I.

“That’s what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never had a success. He bad shirked games and failed examinations. ‘It’s like that with some people,’ he said; ‘whenever I get into the examination-room or anywhere everything seems to go.’ Engaged to be married of course — to another over-sensitive person, I suppose — when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. ‘And where are you now?’ I asked. Not in—?’

“He wasn’t clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. I don’t know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men, who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk about ‘going haunting’ and things like that. Yes — going haunting! They seemed to think ’haunting’ a tremendous adventure, and most of them funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come.”

“But really!” said Wish to the fire.

“These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow,” said Clayton, modestly. “I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, with his thin voice going — talking, talking about his wretched self, and never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last. He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here — if he had been alive. I should have kicked him out.”

“Of course,” said Evans, “there are poor mortals like that.”

“And there’s just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest of us,” I admitted.

“What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be a “lark’; he had come expecting it to be a ‘lark,’ and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record! He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all his life that he hadn’t made a perfect mess of — and through all the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy, perhaps — He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not anyone, ever, had given him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. ’Don’t you brood on these things too much,’ I said. ‘The thing you’ve got to do is to get out of this — get out of this sharp. You pull yourself together and try.’ ‘I can’t,’ he said. You try,’ I said, and try he did.”

“Try!” said Sanderson. “How?”

“Passes,” said Clayton.

“Passes?”

“Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That’s how he had come in and that’s how he had to get out again. Lord! what a business I had!”

“But how could any series of passes—” I began.

“My dear man,” said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis on certain words, “you want everything clear. I don’t know how. All I know is that you do — that he did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared.”

“Did you,” said Sanderson, slowly, “observe the passes?”

“Yes,” said Clayton, and seemed to think.

“It was tremendously queer,” he said.

“There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-table alight, that was all — sometimes one or other would flare up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened. ‘I can’t,’ he said; ‘I shall never — !’ And suddenly he sat down on a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!

“‘You pull yourself together,’ I said, and tried to pat him on the back, and, you know, my confounded hand went through him. By that time, you know, I wasn’t nearly so — massive as I had been on the landing. I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. ‘You pull yourself together,’ I said to him, ‘and try.’ And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well.”

“What!” said Sanderson, “the passes?”

“Yes, the passes.”

“But—” I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.

“This is interesting,” said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. “You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away—”

“Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? Yes.”

“He didn’t,” said Wish; “he couldn’t. Or you’d have gone there too.”

“That’s precisely it,” I said, finding my elusive idea put into words for me.

“That is precisely it,” said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the fire.

For just a little while there was silence.

“And at last he did it?” said Sanderson.

“At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at last — rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up suddenly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so that he might see. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘if I could see I should spot what was wrong at once.’ And he did. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What do you know?’ said I. ‘I know,’ he repeated. Then he said, suddenly, ‘I can’t do it if you look at me — I really can’t, it’s been that, partly, all along. I’m such a nervous fellow that you put me out.’ Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog — he tired me out. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I won’t look at you,’ and turned towards the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed.

“He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last gesture of all — you stand erect and open out your arms — and so, don’t you know, he stood. And then he didn’t! He didn’t! He wasn’t! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing! I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? … And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking one. So! — Ping! And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know — confoundedly queer! Queer! Good Lord!”

He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. “That’s all that happened,” he said.

“And then you went to bed?” asked Evans.

“What else was there to do?”

I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, something perhaps in Clayton’s voice and manner, that hampered our desire.

“And about these passes?” said Sanderson.

“I believe I could do them now.”

“Oh!” said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.

“Why don’t you do them now?” said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife with a click.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” said Clayton.

“They won’t work,” said Evans.

“If they do—” I suggested.

“You know, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Wish, stretching out his legs.

“Why?” asked Evans.

“I’d rather he didn’t,” said Wish.

“But he hasn’t got ‘em right,” said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco into his pipe.

“All the same, I’d rather he didn’t,” said Wish.

We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those gestures was like mocking a serious matter. “But you don’t believe — ?” I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing something in his mind. “I do — more than half, anyhow, I do,” said Wish.

“Clayton,” said I, “you’re too good a liar for us. Most of it was all right. But that disappearance … happened to be convincing. Tell us, it’s a tale of cock and bull.”

He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his eyes and so began.…

Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton’s motions with a singular interest in his reddish eye. “That’s not bad,” he said, when it was done. “You really do, you know, put things together, Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there’s one little detail out.”

“I know,” said Clayton. “I believe I could tell you which.”

“Well?”

“This,” said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and thrust of the hands.

“Yes.”

“That, you know, was what he couldn’t get right,” said Clayton. “But how do you — ?”

“Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don’t understand at all,” said Sanderson, “but just that phase — I do.” He reflected. “These happen to be a series of gestures — connected with a certain branch of esoteric Masonry — Probably you know. Or else — How?” He reflected still further. “I do not see I can do any harm in telling you just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don’t.”

“I know nothing,” said Clayton, “except what the poor devil let out last night.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he gesticulated with his hands.

“So?” said Clayton, repeating.

“So,” said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again.

“Ah, now,” said Clayton, “I can do the whole thing — right.”

He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think there was just a little hesitation in his smile. “If I begin—” he said.

“I wouldn’t begin,” said Wish.

“It’s all right!” said Evans. “Matter is indestructible. You don’t think any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as I’m concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on Clayton’s shoulder. “You’ve made me half believe in that story somehow, and I don’t want to see the thing done.”

“Goodness!” said I, “here’s Wish frightened!”

“I am,” said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. “I believe that if he goes through these motions right he’ll go.”

“He’ll not do anything of the sort,” I cried. “There’s only one way out of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. Besides … And such a ghost! Do you think—?”

Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and stopped beside the table and stood there. “Clayton,” he said, “you’re a fool.”

Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. “Wish,” he said, “is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the air, Presto! — this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of seventeen stone will plump into the world of shades. I’m certain. So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing be tried.”

“No,” said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his hands once more to repeat the spirit’s passing.

By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension — largely because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on Clayton — I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us. As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one’s teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. Would he, after all — ?

There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a reassuring “No!” For visibly — he wasn’t going. It was all nonsense. He had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was all! … And then in that moment the face of Clayton changed.

It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that are fixed, his smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there, very gently swaying.

That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms….

It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it…. I came out of a muddled stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson’s hand lay on his heart….

Well — the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; it lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. Clayton had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from our own, and he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost’s incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale — as the coroner’s jury would have us believe — is no matter for my judging; is just one of those inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very instant, of concluding these passes he changed, and staggered and fell down before us — dead!

“The Strand Magazine”, March 1902

THE DORMER WINDOW

Fred M. White

1902

“Do you wish to speak to me, General Sherlock?”

“My dear boy, I desire to do more than that,” the veteran replied. The white head was bent, the tired eyes were heavy with trouble. “I wish to save you from a ghastly tragedy.”

There was a nervous thrill and intensity in the words enough to carry force under any circumstances, but, coming from one absolute stranger to another, they seemed to bite into Ralph Cheriton’s consciousness like a saw.

Yet, under other circumstances, he would have laughed. But a gentleman does not usually deride the beard of the veteran who has seen sixty distinguished years in the service of his country.

“These are strange words, General,” he replied.

The war-worn soldier sighed. His hair was white as the Afghan snows, his face was covered with deep lines; what the man had once been was mirrored only in his eyes. And those eyes were unutterably sad.

“You are absolutely a stranger to me,” he said. “Beyond my own household, I have seen no fresh face for years. My excuse for calling upon you is that this house once belonged to my family. An aunt of mine died here, my grandfather died here — he committed suicide.”

“Indeed!” Cheriton murmured politely.

“Yes, he threw himself out of the dormer window, at the top of the house. Within a year, two uncles of mine and an old family servant also committed suicide in a precisely similar manner. I make no attempt to explain the strange matter — I merely state the fact.”

“A most extraordinary thing,” Cheriton replied.

“More than extraordinary. Do you know that I often dream of that dormer window in the night, and wake up with a strange longing to come here and throw myself out, as my relatives did before me? One night, in the Afghan passes near Kandahar, the impulse almost deprived me of reason for a time. Now you know why that window was bricked up.”

Cheriton was profoundly impressed. He would have repudiated any suggestion of superstition, the hard enamel of a hard-ended century had long been forged over that kind of folly. Still, the fact remained. Only recently Cheriton had sold out of the Army and purchased Bernemore House, the scene of the tragedies mentioned by Sherlock. Of the evil reputation of the dormer window he had heard nothing. The fret of seventy years had rubbed the story from the village tablets.

It was a little disturbing, because for some time Cheriton had had his eye on that built-up dormer window. It was a double one and a fine bit of architecture.

Accommodation downstairs for the irresponsible bachelor was limited, and it seemed good to Cheriton to unseal the windows and make a luxurious smoking-lounge of the room originally lighted by them. This thing had been done, and only the previous evening the room had been greatly admired by such men as were even now staying in the house.

“Only yesterday I heard what you were doing,” the General remarked, after a long pause. “Believe me, it is painful to drag myself thus from my solitude. But my duty lies plainly before me. To sit down quietly and allow things to take their course would be murder.”

Sherlock’s words thrilled with an absolute conviction. There was none of the conscious shame of a man who whispers of Fear in the cold ear of Courage.

“But, surely, General,” Cheriton stammered, “you don’t suppose that this family curse, or whatever it is, holds good with strangers?”

“Indeed I do, Captain Cheriton. Did I not tell you that a valued old servant of our family met his death in the same horrible way?”

“But his mind might have become unhinged. You are, of course, aware that suicide sometimes takes the nature of an epidemic. No sooner does a man destroy himself in some novel way, than a score of people follow his example.”

A little pool of light glittered in the General’s eyes.

“You are an obstinate man, I see,” he said.

“Well, I like to get to the bottom of things. To be perfectly candid, if I do what you suggest, I shall be laughed at. It is only a very brave man, or a very great fool, who is impervious to ridicule. And I’m bound to confess to a strong desire to investigate this business further.”

“Then you won’t close that window again?”

“General, this is the beginning of the twentieth century!”

General Sherlock drew himself up as if shaking the burden of the years from his shoulders. He seemed to expand, his voice grew firm, the tiny pools in his eyes filled them with a liquid flame of anger.

“I see I must tell you the whole shameful story,” he said. “My duty lies plainly before me, and I must follow it at any cost. My grandfather was an unmitigated scoundrel; he broke his wife’s heart, he drove his daughter and his sons from him. There was also a story of a betrayed gipsy girl, and a curse — the same curse that was to fall on this house and those who dwelt there for all time — but I need not go into that. For years my grandfather lived here alone, with an old drunken scoundrel of a servant to do his bidding; indeed, it was rarely that either of them was sober.”

The General paused, but Cheriton made no response.

“Well, the time was near at hand when the tragedy was to come. It so happened, one winter evening, when the snow was on the ground and the air was cold, that a coaching accident happened hard by. It so happened also that one of the injured was the daughter of my grandfather, to whom I have already alluded. She was badly hurt, but she managed to crawl here for a night’s lodging. It was quite dark when she arrived, dark and terribly cold. Ill and suffering as she was, my poor aunt was refused admission by that scoundrel; they thrust her out in their drunken fury, to perish if she pleased. She staggered a few yards into the courtyard, she lay down with her face to the stars and died. No words of mine could convey more than that.

“The room with the dormer window was my grandfather’s den. It was late the following afternoon before he came from his debauched sleep; the setting sun was shining in the courtyard as he looked out. And there, with a smile upon her face, lay Mary Sherlock — dead.

“A cry rang through the house, the cry of a soul calling for mercy. Then, in a dull, mechanical way, the wretched man drew to the window, he flung back the leaded casement, and cast himself headlong to the ground. Then—”

The General paused, as if unable to proceed, and held out his hand.

“I can say no more,” he remarked presently. “If I have not convinced you now, then indeed my efforts have been wasted. Good-bye. Whether or not I shall ever see you again rests entirely with yourself.”

“I am not unmoved,” Cheriton replied. “Good-bye, and thank you sincerely.”

II.

Under ordinary circumstances they were a cheerful lot at Bernemore. Cheriton was a capital host, he chose his company carefully, and Ida Cheriton, a wife of six months’ standing, had charms both of wit and beauty.

She looked a little more dainty and fragile than usual, as she sat at the foot of the dinner-table; her grey eyes were introspective, for there was another joy coming to her out of the future, and it filled her with a soft alarm. In her own absent fit she did not notice the absence of mind of her husband.

It was summer time, and no lights gleamed across the table, save the falling lances of sunshine playing on flowers and bloomy grapes. The air was heavy with the fragrance of peaches and new-mown clover.

There were perhaps a dozen people dining there altogether. Dixon and his wife, of Cheriton’s old regiment; Michelmore the author and his bride, with a naval lieutenant named Acton, and Ida Cheriton’s brother Charlie, a nervous, highly strung youth, with a marvellous record still making at Oxford.

“What’s the matter with Cheriton?” Acton demanded, when the last swish of silk and muslin had died away. “Pass the cigarettes, Dixon. Out with it, Ralph.”

“I dare say you fellows will laugh at me,” Cheriton remarked sententiously.

“I dare say,” Acton replied. “I laugh at most things. You don’t mean that you have found a tame ghost or something of that kind.”

“It isn’t a ghost, it’s a story that I heard today. I’m going to tell you the story, and then you can judge for yourselves.”

Cheriton commenced in silence, and finished with the same complimentary stillness. On the whole, Acton was the least impressed.

“I am bound to confess that it sounds creepy enough,” he remarked. “But a machine-made man can hardly be expected to swallow this kind of thing without a protest. I’ll bet you on one thing — no unseen hand could ever lure me to chuck myself out of that window.”

“I wouldn’t be sure of that, Acton,” Michelmore said gravely.

“Ah! you’re a novelist, you have a profound imagination. A pony I sleep in that room tonight, and beat you a hundred up at billiards before breakfast tomorrow.”

No response was made to this liberal offer, for latter-day convention in not usually shaken off, influenced by neat claret imbibed under circumstances calculated to cheer. Only Cheriton looked troubled. “Well, somebody’s got to knock the bottom out of this nonsense,” Acton protested. “General Sherlock has done some big things in his days, but he’s eighty years of age. Let us go up to the smoking-room and investigate. There’s a good hour or more of daylight yet, and we may find something.”

With a certain contempt for his own weakness, Cheriton complied. Once in the room, he could see nothing to foster or encourage fear. The apartment was furnished as a Moorish divan; it was bright and cheerful. From the dormer window a charming view of the country was obtained. Acton threw the casements back and looked out. His keen, sunburnt face was lighted by a dry smile.

“Well, how do you feel?” asked Dixon.

“Pretty well, thank you,” Acton laughed. “I have no impulses, nor do I yearn to throw myself down, not a cent’s worth. Come and try, Charlie.”

Charlie Scott drew back and shivered. Cheriton’s story had appealed vividly to his sensitive, highly strung nature.

“Call me a coward if you like,” he said, “but I couldn’t lean out of that window as you are doing, for all Golconda. I could kick myself for my weakness, but it is there all the same.”

Acton dropped into a comfortable lounge with a smile of contempt. Scott flushed as he saw this, and timidly suggested that the windows should be closed. With a foot high in the air, Acton protested vigorously.

“No, no,” he cried. “Believe what you please, but do not pander to this nonsense. If you should feel like doing the Curtius business, give us a call, and we’ll sit on your head, Charlie. But in the name of common sense leave the windows open.”

A murmur of approval followed. The line had to be drawn somewhere. As yet no note of tragedy dominated the conversation. Acton and Dixon were deep in the discussion of forthcoming Ascot, and Cheriton joined fitfully in their conversation. Only Michelmore and Scott were silent. The novelist was studying the sensitive face of his young companion, a face white and uneasy, lighted by eyes that gleamed like liquid lire. His glance was drawn to the open window, he sat gazing in that direction with a gaze that never moved.

Then, in a dazed kind of way, he rose and took a step forward. His eyes were glazed and fixed in horror and repugnance. He looked like a man going to the commission of some vile crime against which his whole soul rebelled. Michelmore watched him with the subtle analysis of his tribe.

For the moment Cheriton seemed to have thrown off the weight from his shoulders. He was lying back in a big armchair and discussing the prospects of certain horses. And he was just faintly ashamed of himself.

But Michelmore’s quiet, ruminative eyes were everywhere. He was watching Scott with the zest of an expert in the dissecting of emotions, but ready in a moment to restrain the other should he go too far.

It was a thrilling moment for the novelist, at any rate. He saw Scott creeping gently like a cat to the window, groping with his hands as he went, like one who is blind or in the dark. The horror of a great loathing was in his eyes, yet he went on, and on, steadily.

Michelmore stretched out a hand and detained Scott as he passed. At the touch of live, palpitating human fingers he pulled up suddenly, as if he had just received an electric shock.

“Where are you going to?” Michelmore asked in a thin, grating voice.

“I was going to throw myself out of that window,” he said.

“Oh! So Cheriton’s story had all that effect upon you. Take my advice, and chuck your books for the present. You are in a bad way.”

“I’m nothing of the kind, Michelmore. I’m as sound in mind and body as you are. Even if I had never heard that story, the same impulse would have come over me on entering this room. You’ll feel it sooner or later, and so will the rest of them. The impulse has passed now, but after tonight you do not catch me in here again.”

Michelmore did not laugh, for the simple reason that he knew Scott to be speaking from sheer conviction. His was no mind diseased. It was impossible to note that clear skin and clear eye, and doubt that. Michelmore stepped across the room to answer some question of Acton’s, and for the moment Scott was forgotten. When the novelist turned again, a cry of horror broke from him.

He saw Scott rise to his feet as if some unseen force had jerked him; he saw the victim of this nameless horror cross like a flash to the window. Then he darted forward and made a wild clutch for Scott’s arm. At the same instant Scott had dived for it clean through the window. There was a vision like an empty sack fluttering from a warehouse shoot, and then a dull, hideous, sickening smash below.

Though the whole room took in the incident like a flash, nobody moved for a moment. Who does not know the jar and the snap of a broken limb, the sense of all that is to follow, and the void of pain for the merciful fraction of a merciful second? And then—

And then every man was on his feet. They clattered, heedless of necks, down the stairs, all save Acton, who crossed to the window. He saw a heap of black and white grotesquely twisted on the stones, he saw a slim white figure in satin staring down at a bruised face no whiter than her own.

“God help her!” Acton sobbed. “It’s Mrs. Cheriton.”

It was. She stood motionless like a statue until the men reached the courtyard. Scott had fallen at her very feet as she was passing into the garden; a single spot of blood glistened on her white gown. She made no sound, though her face twitched and the muscles about her mouth vibrated like harp-strings. Cheriton laid a shaking hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“You must come out of this at once,” he said hoarsely.

Bat the fascinating horror of the thing still held Ida Cheriton to the spot. If she could only scream, or faint, or cry — anything but that grey torpor and the horrible twitching of the muscles!

Not until the limp form of Scott was raised from the flags did sound come from Ida’s lips. Then she laughed, a laugh low down in her throat, and gradually rising, till the air rang with the screaming inhuman mirth. Cheriton caught Ida in his arms and carried her into the house. The curse of Cain seemed to have fallen upon him. It was he and he alone who had brought about this nameless thing. With a sense of agony and shame, he averted his eyes from those of his wife. But he need not have done so, for Ida had fainted dead away upon his shoulder.

Meanwhile, they had laid Scott out upon a bed brought hurriedly down into the hall. He still breathed; a moan and a shudder came from him ever and again. The horror of his face was caused by something more than pain. Then Cheriton came headlong in.

“Can I do anything!” Acton whispered.

“Yes, yes!” Cheriton cried. “For the love of Heaven go for the doctor! Ride in to Castleford, and bring the first man you can find. Go quickly, for my wife is dying!”

III.

Scott was not dead. The fall had been severe and the injury great, but the unfortunate man still lingered. It was nearly midnight before an anxious, haggard doctor came downstairs.

Cheriton was waiting there. For the last two hours he had been pacing up and down the polished oak floor chewing the cud of a restless, blistering agony.

“My wife!” he gasped, “she is — ?”

“Asleep,” Dr. Morrison replied. “She is likely to remain asleep for some hours. To be candid, Mrs. Cheriton is under the influence of a strong narcotic. There was no other way of preserving her reason.”

“She has not suffered in — otherwise? You know what I mean. Morrison, if anything like that has happened, I shall destroy myself!”

The man of medicine laid a soothing hand upon the speaker’s arm. He noted the white, haggard face and the restless eyes.

“You would be none the worse for a tonic yourself,” he said. “Mrs. Cheriton is suffering from a great shock. Apart from brain mischief, I apprehend no serious results. What we want to do for the present is to keep that brain dormant. In any case, it will be some weeks before Mrs. Cheriton is herself again. You must be prepared go find her mind temporarily unhinged.”

Cheriton swallowed a groan. Then he asked after Scott.

“No hope there, I suppose?” he said.

“Well, yes, strange as it may seem. There is concussion of the brain and a fractured thigh, but I can detect no internal injuries. I can do no more tonight.”

Ida Cheriton was sleeping peacefully. There was no sign on her face of the terrible shock she had so lately sustained. She breathed lightly as a little child. As Cheriton entered, Mrs. Michelmore rose out of the shadow beyond the pool of light cast from a shaded candle.

“I am going to stay here till morning,” she said.

Cheriton protested feebly. But he was too worn and spent to contend the point. The last two hours seemed to have aged him terribly. The crushing weight of terror held him down and throttled him. General Sherlock’s face rose up before him like an avenging shadow. A wild longing to fly from the house and its nameless horror came over him.

Quivering and fluttering in every limb, Cheriton crept downstairs again. A solitary lamp burned in the hall, the house had grown still and quiet. Acton sat in the shadow, smoking a cigarette.

“I have been waiting for you,” he said. “The others have gone to bed. It seemed to them that they would be best out of the way, only, of course, they earnestly desire to be called if their services are required.”

“Hadn’t you better follow their example?” Cheriton asked.

“What are you going to do, then?” Acton suggested. “My dear fellow, I simply couldn’t go to bed tonight. Not that I am impressed by this horrible business quite in the same way as yourself — I mean as to its occult side. It’s a ghastly coincidence, all the same.”

“It may be,” Cheriton said wearily. “Heaven only knows!”

With a heavy sigh he rose from his place and crossed the hall. A deadly faintness came upon him, he staggered almost to his fall. His eyes closed, his head fell upon his breast — a strange desire to sleep came over him.

“I’ll lie here and close my eyes for a bit,” he said.

In a long deckchair Acton made his friend comfortable. Exhausted Nature asserted herself at length, and Cheriton slept. A minute or two later and the sound of his laboured breathing filled the hall.

“He’ll not move for hours,” Acton muttered. “Now’s my chance.”

He moved away quietly, but with resolution. The level-headed sailor, with his logical, mathematical mind, a mind that must have a formula for everything, was by no means satisfied. He would get to the bottom of this thing. If he could do nothing else, he would rob the situation of its unseen terrors. Without the slightest feeling of excitement, and with nerves that beat as steadily as his own ship’s engines, he proceeded to his room, From thence he took a fine hempen rope, and, with this in his hand, proceeded to creep along till he came to the chamber of the dormer window.

Quite coolly he passed in and closed the door behind him. He switched on the electric light and opened the windows wide. Then, with a smile of contempt for his concession to popular prejudices, he proceeded to scientifically arrange the rope he had brought with him. An hour passed, two hours passed, and then Acton rose laggardly to his feet. His face had grown set and pale, his eyes were fixed upon the open window.

•   •   •   •   •   •

Meanwhile, Cheriton had been sleeping like a man overcome with wine. An hour or more passed away before the nature of his slumber changed. Then he began to dream horribly — awful dreams of falling through space and being drawn down steep places by evil eyes and mocking spirits.

Then somebody cried out, and Cheriton came to his consciousness. His heart was beating like a steam hammer, a profuse sweat ran down his face. All the dread weight of trouble fell upon him again.

“I could have sworn I heard somebody call,” he said.

He listened intently, quivering from head to foot like a dog scenting danger. It was no fancy, for again the cry was repeated. In the stillness of the night Cheriton could locate the direction easily. It came from outside the house. From one painted window a long lance of moonlight glistened on the polished floor. Outside it was light as day.

With trembling hands Cheriton drew the bolts and plunged into the garden.

“Who called?” he asked. “Where are you?”

“Round here, opposite the courtyard,” came a faint voice, which Cheriton had no difficulty in recognising as that of Acton. “Bring a ladder quickly, for I am pretty well done for. Thank goodness somebody heard me!”

Cheriton found a short ladder after some little search, and with it on his shoulders made his way round to the courtyard upon which the dormer window gave. At this very spot the tragedy had taken place.

“Get the ladder up quickly!” Acton gasped.

Cheriton complied as swiftly as his astonishment permitted. Acton was suspended some fifteen feet from the ground by a rope firmly tied about his body. He was hanging head downwards, and making feeble efforts to right himself and get a good hand-purchase on the rope. As the ladder was reared he contrived to get a grip and a foothold. He panted and gasped like a man who has been forced under water till his strength is exhausted.

“In the name of Fortune,” asked Cheriton, “what does it mean?”

“Get me free first,” Acton gurgled. “This rope is sawing me in two. You shall know all about it presently. Just for the moment I would pledge my soul for a glass of brandy and soda-water.”

Cheriton sawed through the cords with a pocket-knife, and then helped the limp figure of Acton to the ground. A minute or two later, and the latter was reclining on a chair, with a full tumbler clinking against his teeth. The colour filtered into his cheeks presently, his hand grew steady.

“I wouldn’t go through the last half-hour again for a flagship,” he explained. “After you had gone to sleep, I made up my mind to test the dormer window business for myself. So as to be absolutely on the safe side, I fastened the end of a coil of rope to the stone pillar inside the window frame, and the other end I made fast round my own waist. Then I lighted a cigarette and waited.

“It was perhaps an hour before I experienced any sensation. Then I found that I could not keep my eyes from that window. I abandoned the struggle to do so, and then I had a mind-picture of myself lying dead on the stones below. I could see every hurt and wound distinctly. A violent fit of trembling came over me, and I was conscious of a deep feeling of depression. My mind was permeated with the idea that I had committed some awful crime. I was shunned by everybody about me. The only way out of the thing was to take my own life. Then I rose and made my way to the window.

“I give you my word of honour, Cheriton, I struggled against that impulse until I was as weak and feeble as a little child. I had entirely forgotten that I was protected from damage by the rope. If I had remembered, I should have most certainly been compelled to remove it, and by this time I should be lying dead and mangled in the courtyard. I would not go through it all again for the Bank of England. The horror is indescribable.”

“Well, I fought till I could fight no longer. With a wild cry I closed my eyes and made a headlong dash for the window. I flung myself out. I fell until the cord about my waist checked me and nearly dislocated every limb. Then came the strangest part of this strange affair. Once I was clear of that infernal room, the brooding depression passed from me, and my desire was to save my life, to struggle for it to the end. I was myself again, with nerves as strong and steady as ever, and nothing troubling me beyond the weakness engendered by my efforts to get free. I was forced to cry for help at last, and fortunately you heard my call. And I’m not going to doubt any more. For Heaven’s sake have that window blocked up without delay!”

Cheriton turned his grey face to the light.

“I will,” he said. “It shall be done as soon as possible. How faithfully General Sherlock’s prophecy has been verified I know to my sorrow.”

IV.

Scott would recover. There was an infinite consolation in the doctor’s fiat, which he gave two days later. His recovery would of necessity be painfully slow, for the injuries were many and deep-rooted. But youth and a good constitution, in the absence of internal injuries, would do much.

As yet Scott was unconscious. Nor was the condition of Ida Cheriton very much better. It had been deemed prudent to tell her the good news so far as Scott was concerned, but it seemed to convey very little impression.

For, sooth to say, the patient was not progressing as well as she might. She did not seem to be able to shake off the strange mistiness that clouded her intellect, she could only remember the horror she had seen. Charlie was dead, and she had watched him come headlong to his destruction. During her waking hours she lay still and numb, the horror still in her eyes.

“It isn’t madness?” Cheriton asked hoarsely.

“No,” Morrison replied. “I should say not. The shock has caused the brain to cease working for a time. Personally, I should prefer delirium. I can only pursue my present course of treatment. When the trembling fits come on, the drug will have to be administered as ordered. I will take care that you have plenty of it in the house.”

There was no more to be said, no more to be done, only to wait and hope. One or two drear, miserable days dragged their weary length along. The house was devoid of guests by this time; it was better thus, with two patients there fighting for health and reason, and the whole place was under the sway of two clear-eyed nurses’ whose word was law.

As yet no steps had been taken to have an end put to the cause of all the mischief. Under the circumstances that was impossible. Anything in the way of noise would have been sternly interdicted, and it was out of the question to dispense with din and clamour with masons and bricklayers about. Not that there was any danger, for everybody shunned the haunted room like the plague. Not a servant would have entered it for untold gold.

A great stillness lay over the house, for it was night again. Downstairs, in the dining-room, Cheriton dined alone, and smoked gloomily afterwards. The soothing influence of tobacco was one of the few consolations he possessed. He rose for another cigarette, but his cupboard was empty.

In the trouble and turmoil of the last few days the all-important tobacco question had been forgotten. It seemed to Cheriton that he had never thirsted for a cigarette as he did at this moment. He positively ached for it.

Then he recollected. On the night of the tragedy they had all been smoking in the room with the dormer window. There were a couple of boxes up there, both of them practically intact. To get them would be an easy matter.

Cheriton hesitated but a moment, then he passed up the stairs. As he opened the door of the haunted chamber and turned up the light, he saw the window was open, for nobody had entered since the adventure of Acton there. Cheriton grabbed the boxes of cigarettes and turned to leave the room. As he did so he glanced involuntarily at the open window. He shuddered and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he found, to his surprise and horror, that he was some feet closer to the window than before. A cold perspiration chilled him to the bone, he tried to move and tried in vain.

When he did move, it was to advance still nearer to the window. Suddenly there came over him a wave of depression, the same feeling of dull despair so graphically described by Acton. It drew him on and on.

“Great Heaven!” he groaned, “I am lost! My poor wife!”

Then a strange thing happened. A light foot was heard coming up the stairs. A moment later and Ida stood in the corridor in full view of her husband. She made a sweet and thrilling picture, in her white, clinging gown covered with foamy lace; her shining hair hung over a pair of ivory shoulders.

“Ralph,” she said, and her voice was low and sweet, “I want you.”

She had risen from her bed in the temporary absence of her nurse. Something in her clouded brain bade her seek for her husband. In a dim fashion she saw him, knew that he stood before her.

She advanced with a tender half-smile. A sudden ray of hope jostled and almost released Cheriton’s frozen limbs. Then he saw that the danger was likely to be doubled, the peril hers as well as his.

“Do not come any further,” he cried. “Do not, I implore you!”

Ida paused, half irresolute. What was Ralph doing there, and why did he look at her with that face of terror? Then the cloud rolled back from her brain for a moment. It was from that fatal room that Charlie had gone to his death. A quivering little cry escaped her.

“Come to me! ” she implored. “Come to me, Ralph. Why are you in that awful place? If you do not come, I must come to you.”

She advanced with hands outstretched and eyes full of entreaty. And Cheriton made an effort that turned him faint and dazy. Once Ida entered that room, he knew only too well that nothing could save the pair of them. But he could not move, he could only wave Ida back and speak with dumb lips.

She came on, and on, until her hands lay on his. With a force that surprised Cheriton she pulled at his arms. There was no longer the light of madness in her eyes, but a desire to save him fighting the terror that overcame her. The slim, white figure had a strength almost divine.

“For my sake!” she cried. “Come, come, come!”

As her voice rose higher and higher, some of her strength seemed to pass into Cheriton. He no longer looked to the window. He raised one foot and put it down a good yard nearer the door. With a last mighty effort, and an effort that turned him sick and dizzy, and strained his heart to bursting point, he gathered Ida in his arms and cleared the space to the door with a spring. The lock was snapped, then the key went whizzing through a window into a thicket of shrubs, where it was found many days after.

Cheriton dropped in the corridor, and there he lay unconscious for a time. When he came to himself again, Ida was bending over him. Her sweet eyes were filled with tears, but in those eyes swam the light of reason. “Don’t speak, dear,” Ida said tenderly. “I know everything now. I heard them talking as behind a veil when I lay there, but now I understand. Ralph, did you not tell me that Charlie would live?”

“The doctor said so, darling. Ida, you have saved my life.”

“Yes, and I fancy I have saved my reason at the same time. Take me back to my room, please; I am so tired, so tired.”

Ida closed her eyes and slept again. But it was the dreamless sleep of the child, the nurse said with a smile, and there would be no more anxiety now. All the same, Mr. Cheriton must go away at once. As to his wife, it was a mere matter of time; Nature would do the rest.

•   •   •   •   •   •

People who know the story of the dormer window are many, but of all those who speak with authority not one can explain what lies beyond the veil.

“Windsor Magazine”, August 1902

THE BUS-CONDUCTOR

E. F. Benson

1906

My friend, Hugh Grainger, and I had just returned from a two days’ visit in the country, where we had been staying in a house of sinister repute which was supposed to be haunted by ghosts of a peculiarly fearsome and truculent sort. The house itself was all that such a house should be, Jacobean and oak-panelled, with long dark passages and high vaulted rooms. It stood, also, very remote, and was encompassed by a wood of sombre pines that muttered and whispered in the dark, and all the time that we were there a south-westerly gale with torrents of scolding rain had prevailed, so that by day and night weird voices moaned and fluted in the chimneys, a company of uneasy spirits held colloquy among the trees, and sudden tattoos and tappings beckoned from the window-panes. But in spite of these surroundings, which were sufficient in themselves, one would almost say, to spontaneously generate occult phenomena, nothing of any description had occurred. I am bound to add, also, that my own state of mind was peculiarly well adapted to receive or even to invent the sights and sounds we had gone to seek, for I was, I confess, during the whole time that we were there, in a state of abject apprehension, and lay awake both nights through hours of terrified unrest, afraid of the dark, yet more afraid of what a lighted candle might show me.

Hugh Grainger, on the evening after our return to town, had dined with me, and after dinner our conversation, as was natural, soon came back to these entrancing topics.

“But why you go ghost-seeking I cannot imagine,” he said, “because your teeth were chattering and your eyes starting out of your head all the time you were there, from sheer fright. Or do you like being frightened?”

Hugh, though generally intelligent, is dense in certain ways; this is one of them.

“Why, of course, I like being frightened,” I said. “I want to be made to creep and creep and creep. Fear is the most absorbing and luxurious of emotions. One forgets all else if one is afraid.”

“Well, the fact that neither of us saw anything,” he said, “confirms what I have always believed.”

“And what have you always believed?”

“That these phenomena are purely objective, not subjective, and that one’s state of mind has nothing to do with the perception that perceives them, nor have circumstances or surroundings anything to do with them either. Look at Osburton. It has had the reputation of being a haunted house for years, and it certainly has all the accessories of one. Look at yourself, too, with all your nerves on edge, afraid to look round or light a candle for fear of seeing something! Surely there was the right man in the right place then, if ghosts are subjective.”

He got up and lit a cigarette, and looking at him — Hugh is about six feet high, and as broad as he is long — I felt a retort on my lips, for I could not help my mind going back to a certain period in his life, when, from some cause which, as far as I knew, he had never told anybody, he had become a mere quivering mass of disordered nerves. Oddly enough, at the same moment and for the first time, he began to speak of it himself.

“You may reply that it was not worth my while to go either,” he said, “because I was so clearly the wrong man in the wrong place. But I wasn’t. You for all your apprehensions and expectancy have never seen a ghost. But I have, though I am the last person in the world you would have thought likely to do so, and, though my nerves are steady enough again now, it knocked me all to bits.”

He sat down again in his chair.

“No doubt you remember my going to bits,” he said, “and since I believe that I am sound again now, I should rather like to tell you about it. But before I couldn’t; I couldn’t speak of it at all to anybody. Yet there ought to have been nothing frightening about it; what I saw was certainly a most useful and friendly ghost. But it came from the shaded side of things; it looked suddenly out of the night and the mystery with which life is surrounded.”

“I want first to tell you quite shortly my theory about ghost-seeing,” he continued, “and I can explain it best by a simile, an image. Imagine then that you and I and everybody in the world are like people whose eye is directly opposite a little tiny hole in a sheet of cardboard which is continually shifting and revolving and moving about. Back to back with that sheet of cardboard is another, which also, by laws of its own, is in perpetual but independent motion. In it too there is another hole, and when, fortuitously it would seem, these two holes, the one through which we are always looking, and the other in the spiritual plane, come opposite one another, we see through, and then only do the sights and sounds of the spiritual world become visible or audible to us. With most people these holes never come opposite each other during their life. But at the hour of death they do, and then they remain stationary. That, I fancy, is how we ‘pass over.’

“Now, in some natures, these holes are comparatively large, and are constantly coming into opposition. Clairvoyants, mediums are like that. But, as far as I knew, I had no clairvoyant or mediumistic powers at all. I therefore am the sort of person who long ago made up his mind that he never would see a ghost. It was, so to speak, an incalculable chance that my minute spy-hole should come into opposition with the other. But it did: and it knocked me out of time.”

I had heard some such theory before, and though Hugh put it rather picturesquely, there was nothing in the least convincing or practical about it. It might be so, or again it might not.

“I hope your ghost was more original than your theory,” said I, in order to bring him to the point.

“Yes, I think it was. You shall judge.”

I put on more coal and poked up the fire. Hugh has got, so I have always considered, a great talent for telling stories, and that sense of drama which is so necessary for the narrator. Indeed, before now, I have suggested to him that he should take this up as a profession, sit by the fountain in Piccadilly Circus, when times are, as usual, bad, and tell stories to the passers-by in the street, Arabian fashion, for reward. The most part of mankind, I am aware, do not like long stories, but to the few, among whom I number myself, who really like to listen to lengthy accounts of experiences, Hugh is an ideal narrator. I do not care for his theories, or for his similes, but when it comes to facts, to things that happened, I like him to be lengthy.

“Go on, please, and slowly,” I said. “Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is the ruin of story-telling. I want to hear when and where and how it all was, and what you had for lunch and where you had dined and what—”

Hugh began:

“It was the 24th of June, just eighteen months ago,” he said. “I had let my flat, you may remember, and came up from the country to stay with you for a week. We had dined alone here—”

I could not help interrupting.

“Did you see the ghost here?” I asked. “In this square little box of a house in a modern street?”

“I was in the house when I saw it.”

I hugged myself in silence.

“We had dined alone here in Graeme Street,” he said, “and after dinner I went out to some party, and you stopped at home. At dinner your man did not wait, and when I asked where he was, you told me he was ill, and, I thought, changed the subject rather abruptly. You gave me your latchkey when I went out, and on coming back, I found you had gone to bed. There were, however, several letters for me, which required answers. I wrote them there and then, and posted them at the pillar-box opposite. So I suppose it was rather late when I went upstairs.

“You had put me in the front room, on the third floor, overlooking the street, a room which I thought you generally occupied yourself. It was a very hot night, and though there had been a moon when I started to my party, on my return the whole sky was cloud-covered, and it both looked and felt as if we might have a thunderstorm before morning. I was feeling very sleepy and heavy, and it was not till after I had got into bed that I noticed by the shadows of the window-frames on the blind that only one of the windows was open. But it did not seem worth while to get out of bed in order to open it, though I felt rather airless and uncomfortable, and I went to sleep.

“What time it was when I awoke I do not know, but it was certainly not yet dawn, and I never remember being conscious of such an extraordinary stillness as prevailed. There was no sound either of foot-passengers or wheeled traffic; the music of life appeared to be absolutely mute. But now, instead of being sleepy and heavy, I felt, though I must have slept an hour or two at most, since it was not yet dawn, perfectly fresh and wide-awake, and the effort which had seemed not worth making before, that of getting out of bed and opening the other window, was quite easy now and I pulled up the blind, threw it wide open, and leaned out, for somehow I parched and pined for air. Even outside the oppression was very noticeable, and though, as you know, I am not easily given to feel the mental effects of climate, I was aware of an awful creepiness coming over me. I tried to analyse it away, but without success; the past day had been pleasant, I looked forward to another pleasant day tomorrow, and yet I was full of some nameless apprehension. I felt, too, dreadfully lonely in this stillness before the dawn.

“Then I heard suddenly and not very far away the sound of some approaching vehicle; I could distinguish the tread of two horses walking at a slow foot’s pace. They were, though not yet visible, coming up the street, and yet this indication of life did not abate that dreadful sense of loneliness which I have spoken of. Also in some dim unformulated way that which was coming seemed to me to have something to do with the cause of my oppression.

“Then the vehicle came into sight. At first I could not distinguish what it was. Then I saw that the horses were black and had long tails, and that what they dragged was made of glass, but had a black frame. It was a hearse. Empty.

“It was moving up this side of the street. It stopped at your door.

“Then the obvious solution struck me. You had said at dinner that your man was ill, and you were, I thought, unwilling to speak more about his illness. No doubt, so I imagined now, he was dead, and for some reason, perhaps because you did not want me to know anything about it, you were having the body removed at night. This, I must tell you, passed through my mind quite instantaneously, and it did not occur to me how unlikely it really was, before the next thing happened.

“I was still leaning out of the window, and I remember also wondering, yet only momentarily, how odd it was that I saw things — or rather the one thing I was looking at — so very distinctly. Of course, there was a moon behind the clouds, but it was curious how every detail of the hearse and the horses was visible. There was only one man, the driver, with it, and the street was otherwise absolutely empty. It was at him I was looking now. I could see every detail of his clothes, but from where I was, so high above him, I could not see his face. He had on grey trousers, brown boots, a black coat buttoned all the way up, and a straw hat. Over his shoulder there was a strap, which seemed to support some sort of little bag. He looked exactly like — well, from my description what did he look exactly like?”

“Why — a bus-conductor,” I said instantly.

“So I thought, and even while I was thinking this, he looked up at me. He had a rather long thin face, and on his left cheek there was a mole with a growth of dark hair on it. All this was as distinct as if it had been noonday, and as if I was within a yard of him. But — so instantaneous was all that takes so long in the telling — I had not time to think it strange that the driver of a hearse should be so unfunereally dressed.

“Then he touched his hat to me, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“‘Just room for one inside, sir,’ he said.

“There was something so odious, so coarse, so unfeeling about this that I instantly drew my head in, pulled the blind down again, and then, for what reason I do not know, turned on the electric light in order to see what time it was. The hands of my watch pointed to half-past eleven.

“It was then for the first time, I think, that a doubt crossed my mind as to the nature of what I had just seen. But I put out the light again, got into bed, and began to think. We had dined; I had gone to a party, I had come back and written letters, had gone to bed and had slept. So how could it be half-past eleven? … Or — what half-past eleven was it?

“Then another easy solution struck me; my watch must have stopped. But it had not; I could hear it ticking.

“There was stillness and silence again. I expected every moment to hear muffled footsteps on the stairs, footsteps moving slowly and smally under the weight of a heavy burden, but from inside the house there was no sound whatever. Outside, too, there was the same dead silence, while the hearse waited at the door. And the minutes ticked on and ticked on, and at length I began to see a difference in the light in the room, and knew that the dawn was beginning to break outside. But how had it happened, then, that if the corpse was to be removed at night it had not gone, and that the hearse still waited, when morning was already coming?

“Presently I got out of bed again, and with the sense of strong physical shrinking I went to the window and pulled back the blind. The dawn was coming fast; the whole street was lit by that silver hueless light of morning. But there was no hearse there.

“Once again I looked at my watch. It was just a quarter-past four. But I would swear that not half an hour had passed since it had told me that it was half-past eleven.

“Then a curious double sense, as if I was living in the present and at the same moment had been living in some other time, came over me. It was dawn on June 25th, and the street, as natural, was empty. But a little while ago the driver of a hearse had spoken to me, and it was half-past eleven. What was that driver, to what plane did he belong? And again what half-past eleven was it that I had seen recorded on the dial of my watch?

“And then I told myself that the whole thing had been a dream. But if you ask me whether I believed what I told myself, I must confess that I did not.

“Your man did not appear at breakfast next morning, nor did I see him again before I left that afternoon. I think if I had, I should have told you about all this, but it was still possible, you see, that what I had seen was a real hearse, driven by a real driver, for all the ghastly gaiety of the face that had looked up to mine, and the levity of his pointing hand. I might possibly have fallen asleep soon after seeing him, and slumbered through the removal of the body and the departure of the hearse. So I did not speak of it to you.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

There was something wonderfully straight-forward and prosaic in all this; here were no Jacobean houses oak-panelled and surrounded by weeping pine-trees, and somehow the very absence of suitable surroundings made the story more impressive. But for a moment a doubt assailed me.

“Don’t tell me it was all a dream,” I said.

“I don’t know whether it was or not. I can only say that I believe myself to have been wide awake. In any case the rest of the story is — odd.

“I went out of town again that afternoon,” he continued, “and I may say that I don’t think that even for a moment did I get the haunting sense of what I had seen or dreamed that night out of my mind. It was present to me always as some vision unfulfilled. It was as if some clock had struck the four quarters, and I was still waiting to hear what the hour would be.

“Exactly a month afterwards I was in London again, but only for the day. I arrived at Victoria about eleven, and took the underground to Sloane Square in order to see if you were in town and would give me lunch. It was a baking hot morning, and I intended to take a bus from the King’s Road as far as Graeme Street. There was one standing at the corner just as I came out of the station, but I saw that the top was full, and the inside appeared to be full also. Just as I came up to it the conductor, who, I suppose, had been inside, collecting fares or what not, came out on to the step within a few feet of me. He wore grey trousers, brown boots, a black coat buttoned, a straw hat, and over his shoulder was a strap on which hung his little machine for punching tickets. I saw his face, too; it was the face of the driver of the hearse, with a mole on the left cheek. Then he spoke to me, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

“‘Just room for one inside, sir,’ he said.

“At that a sort of panic-terror took possession of me, and I knew I gesticulated wildly with my arms, and cried, ‘No, no!’ But at that moment I was living not in the hour that was then passing, but in that hour which had passed a month ago, when I leaned from the window of your bedroom here just before the dawn broke. At this moment too I knew that my spy-hole had been opposite the spy-hole into the spiritual world. What I had seen there had some significance, now being fulfilled, beyond the significance of the trivial happenings of today and tomorrow. The Powers of which we know so little were visibly working before me. And I stood there on the pavement shaking and trembling.

“I was opposite the post-office at the corner, and just as the bus started my eye fell on the clock in the window there. I need not tell you what the time was.

“Perhaps I need not tell you the rest, for you probably conjecture it, since you will not have forgotten what happened at the corner of Sloane Square at the end of July, the summer before last. The bus pulled out from the pavement into the street in order to get round a van that was standing in front of it. At the moment there came down the King’s Road a big motor going at a hideously dangerous pace. It crashed full into the bus, burrowing into it as a gimlet burrows into a board.”

He paused.

“And that’s my story,” he said.

“The Pall Mall Magazine”, December 1906

THE VOICE

Bernard Capes

1907

The day had been wet and mellow after a longish drought. The soil sucked at the warm flood, as a thirsty horse swills at a trough, drawing in its satisfaction quietly and intently; the cottage windows twinkled under their brows of dripping thatch; the hills, misty and phantasmic, seemed to roll like leviathans in a fog of descending water. And it was under such circumstances of weather that I first saw Balmworth.

One could not conceive a village more faithful to its etymology. It saunters down a gentle slope, half a mile long, from the hills to the sea; slips without a stumble into a tiny cove — landlocked for nine-tenths of its circumference, and green as an aquamarine set in a loop of silver chalk — and elsewhere and on all sides is made comfortable in its place with cushions of velvet down. Coming from the little station-village of Flock — itself a drowsy portal to the hills — one ascends a three-mile rise, traverses a short tableland, and goes straight down, smiling, into the harbourage of the tranquil valley. What does it concern one that those slumberous green pillows which contain it are neighboured on either side by populous and popular “seaside resorts”? The hills are ramparts as well as boundaries, and the vulgar, confined to char-à-bancs and high roads, essay to storm them but fitfully. Their flying visits but serve, in fact, to accent the peace, as the casual rush of a motorcar outside lonely windows leaves a profounder silence in its wake.

And the inhabitants are all in keeping. Here are no sharks of landladies, hungering to feed on the inexperienced adventurer; no maximum of cost for a minimum of service; no cracked pianos at a shilling a thump; no castors estimated in the weekly bill at a figure which would keep a furrier in pepper for a year; no priceless china, cheapened from the nearest crockery store, and put up on brackets to be accidentally broken, and paid for; no charge for the attendance which is ever lacking; no suffering protests, no extortion, no inflated prices whatever. No fleas, I would fain add; but that would not be true. Yet even they feed delicately, with ever a gentle consideration for the provision of the only man in the place who sells Keating.

Balmworth, to be sure, lets lodgings (indeed, in the “season” it is so greatly affected by those who love not the swarming warrens of August that it is difficult to secure a bed there), but on an artless Arcadian plan. It is as ready to take in the houseless traveller as it would be to be taken in by him. Any Jeremy Diddler so inclined might steal his dirty week’s toll of its hospitality. Its landladies tot up their bills, all wrong, with infinite travail, and finally beg the good graces of their lodgers to help them to screw and pummel the items into some correspondence with the totals. They smile; they confide; they are on pleasant personal, but not in the least self-obtrusive terms with you from the outset. Supercilious or baronial-nosed people discomfort them. Sometimes they entreat your acceptance of a basket of blackberries or rosy apples. They are mostly the wives and mothers of the boatmen, to whom appertaineth the conduct of the Cove, sailing and fishing, the letting out of craft, the exploiting, in short, of little Balmworth as a sea pleasure-garden.

It is a very quaint and pretty basin among the cliffs, is this Cove — something like Mother Carey’s Peace-pool. It is just a mile in circumference; and the land’s fond arms, not quite meeting round it, leave open a narrow waterway, through which pleasuring steamers can creep in in all but stormy weather. They do not trouble one much. The life of the Cove congregates all the morning about the eastern side, to which they do not come, and where cluster the little white bathing-huts which are the real lodgings of Balmworth. For this pool of translucent water, on whose floor sixteen feet down one may see the weeds swaying pale as if in moonlight, is very grateful to the bather; and there be those who will camp all day among the little huts, that they may undress and plunge at pleasure.

Opposite the waterway above mentioned sweeps up a mighty forehead of chalk, mottled like old ivory, which, descending gradually as it curves either way about the Cove, ends at the entrance in horns of stratified rock. In the western arm of this curve is gathered the business material of the place — boats, nets, lobster-pots, prawn-chests, lugworms and lumber. It is significant that never a life-belt is to be seen there, unless in the shed where the men of the coastguard keep their trim black boats with the brass fittings. Balmworth pays no tax to the white-horsed farmers of the sea, and that for a simple reason. When the wind blows enough to imperil small craft, no sailing-boat can make the outward passage of the waterway. Even in calm weather so narrow is it that the tripper-steamers have to slip in with caution. Meet that such a place, so secure, so unvexed, so childlike in its character, should be haunted, if at all, by a child’s voice.

Perhaps it was the cluck of choked gutters, or the soft trample of the rain on the road, or some small, inarticulate converse of unseen talkers that deceived my hearing; but, as I walked, while the hills sunk fading about me into night and water, I could have thought, and more than once, that something ran beside me, a little thing that begged in a little voice, as a small trained mendicant might do, and sobbed and sniffed to rouse my unresponsive sympathy. The impression was so faint, so unreal, that my only wonder lay in its imposing itself on me so persistently. I sought to associate the fancy with the sights and sounds about me; but it would not so be put away. It ran and babbled, sometimes in front of me, sometimes at my side — not words, but their shadow; no face, but the uplifted glimmering blotch of one, which, when I bent to canvass it, was always a stone in the road.

I felt no distress, but a certain curiosity. That the delusion was a delusion I never had a doubt. The key to the enigma was all that lacked. But I was confident that I should find it sooner or later.

I went on placidly, descending to the Cove. The lights of an inn, of cottages, met me right and left. And then I was going down a narrow gully; and then came a pool of ashy water.

It lapped out of the mists, reaching vainly for the rank of little boats which lay thereby, drawn up on the shingle. Grey wet and desolation held all this quarter of the Cove. Not a light twinkled from the coastguard station, perched high aloft on the butt of the western horn. It was just a minute section of beach and sea, half veiled, half disclosed in the drowning fog. Not a sign of life was in evidence but the figure of a solitary boatman, roping up his craft for the night.

And then, all of a sudden, the voice had become articulate, and I saw the dark form of a little girl go bounding down the stones to the lonely figure.

“Bill, Bill!” she cried, “do let me pull! O, Bill, do let me pull!”

The tone pierced as shrill, as hollowly treble through that sodden desolation as the cry of a hawking seagull. Yet the figure among the boats took no notice of it whatever.

“Bill!” wailed the child; “do let me pull!”

The figure worked on stolidly. “Is he stone deaf?” I thought.

She danced round him, crying and entreating — always in that piercing young voice. He could not fail to see, even if he had not heard her. Suddenly he rose to his height, his task finished, and came clumping up the shingle towards me. In the same moment the figure of the child seemed to go down into the waters and disappear. I uttered a shout and pounded to the spot. Not a bubble, not a ripple betrayed the place of that noiseless plunge. The tide came in, wrinkle over wrinkle, without a break. I beat back and forth, peering, calling, but with no avail. Finally I desisted, and went up the beach to the man. He, at least, though I had questioned it at first, was no ghost. I felt that I was shaking through and through as I approached him. No doubt he thought me demented.

But, if he did, he made a successful pretence of unconcern, as he stood soberly lighting his pipe. His face in the act was revealed to me, glowing and shadowing, as he pulled at the match. It was the face, indisputably, of a kindly, rugged soul, humane, earnest, unguileful — an expression of that spirit of simple gravity which comes of long association with the awe and mystery of the sea.

“I thought I heard a child calling down there,” I said, commanding my voice with difficulty. “But there wasn’t one, of course?”

“Bless you, see,” he said, in a curiously small, indrawn way for such a bushy man, “this isn’t no night for children.”

“No,” I replied, “a black night — no sort of weather for one’s first visit to your Cove.”

“I’ve never known the like,” he answered, looking up at the sky. (They never have.)

His atmosphere invited frankness.

“What’s your name?” I asked. He told me. “And your Christian name?”

“Bill, see,” he said. So he pronounced “Sir,” quite mincingly.

He was going up the village, and I was suddenly anxious for his company. I refrained, even, from looking over my shoulder as we left the boats and the whispering crescent of beach.

“Ah!” I said; “that was the name I thought I heard the child call — Bill.”

“Yes, see,” he responded heartily.

“‘Bill,’ I thought I heard her say, ‘do let me pull, Bill.’”

“Ah!” he said; “that’ll be little Miss Vera.”

“Little Miss — but you said you didn’t hear her?”

“No, see,” he answered simply. “I can’t do it; but others can. She visits us time and again by their showing — the little drownded sperit of her.”

“How was she drowned?” My voice seemed something apart from me.

“Had set her heart,” he said soberly, “on pulling of a boat all by herself — was always a-crying on me to let her. But I had my orders. She was a bit what you’d call wilful, see; and one evening — it might have been like this” (he had forgotten his former statement) — “she give her lady mother the slip, and run down to the boats, and had one out, all with her own hands, before a soul knew she was gone.” He stopped a moment, blowing at his pipe till it scattered a very shower of sparks into the wet. “I picked up her little body myself,” he said. “There it was in the water, as quiet as sleep. She’d just run the boat off of the beach, and herself with it. So she’d never had her pull after all. God rest her pretty sperit!”

I saw him later, in the tap of The Pure Drop. He was having his temperate pot and pipe before turning in, and was taking his earnest share in a political discussion. The visitation lay, if it lay at all, quite simply and unharmfully on his mind. Surely that was the right unsophisticated way to accept it. The responsibility for haunting lies with the haunter. As for myself, I have not learned to appreciate Balmworth at a figure less than its due because of that infinite weirdness of my introduction to it. It is a rare haven on a noisy coast; its voices murmur either out of sleep or death. But that one shrill small voice I have never heard again.

“The Pall Mall Magazine”, June 1907

THE UNFINISHED GAME

Barry Pain

1909

At Tanslowe, which is on the Thames, I found just the place that I wanted. I had been born in the hotel business, brought up in it, and made my living at it for thirty years. For the last twenty I had been both proprietor and manager, and had worked uncommonly hard, for it is personal attention and plenty of it which makes a hotel pay. I might have retired altogether, for I was a bachelor with no claims on me and had made more money than enough; but that was not what I wanted. I wanted a nice, old-fashioned house, not too big, in a nice place with a longish slack season. I cared very little whether I made it pay or not. The Regency Hotel at Tanslowe was just the thing for me. It would give me a little to do and not too much. Tanslowe was a village, and though there were two or three public-houses, there was no other hotel in the place, nor was any competition likely to come along. I was particular about that, because my nature is such that competition always sets me fighting, and I cannot rest until the other shop goes down. I had reached a time of life when I did want to rest and did not want any more fighting. It was a free house, and I have always had a partiality for being my own master. It had just the class of trade that I liked — principally gentlefolk taking their pleasure in a holiday on the river. It was very cheap, and I like value for money. The house was comfortable, and had a beautiful garden sloping down to the river. I meant to put in some time in that garden — I have a taste that way.

The place was so cheap that I had my doubts. I wondered if it was flooded when the river rose, if it was dropping to pieces with dry-rot, if the drainage had been condemned, if they were going to start a lunatic asylum next door, or what it was. I went into all these points and a hundred more. I found one or two trifling drawbacks, and one expects them in any house; however good — especially when it is an old place like the Regency. I found nothing whatever to stop me from taking the place.

I bought the whole thing, furniture and all, lock, stock, and barrel, and moved in. I brought with me my own head-waiter and my man-cook, Englishmen both of them. I knew they would set the thing in the right key. The head-waiter, Silas Goodheart, was just over sixty, with grey hair and a wrinkled face. He was worth more to me than two younger men would have been. He was very precise and rather slow in his movements. He liked bright silver, clean table-linen, and polished glass. Artificial flowers in the vases on his tables would have given him a fit. He handled a decanter of old port as if he loved it — which, as a matter of fact, he did. His manner to visitors was a perfect mixture of dignity, respect, and friendliness. If a man did not quite know what he wanted for dinner, Silas had sympathetic and very useful suggestions. He took, I am sure, a real pleasure in seeing people enjoy their luncheon or dinner. Americans loved him, and tipped him out of all proportion. I let him have his own way, even when he gave the thing away.

“Is the coffee all right here?” a customer asked after a good dinner.

“I cannot recommend it,” said Silas. “If I might suggest, sir, we have the Chartreuse of the old French shipping.”

I overheard that, but I said nothing. The coffee was extract, for there was more work than profit in making it good. As it was, that customer went away pleased, and came back again and again, and brought his friends too. Silas was really the only permanent waiter. When we were busy, I got one or two foreigners from London temporarily. Silas soon educated them.

My cook, Timbs, was an honest chap, and understood English fare. He seemed hardly ever to eat, and never sat down to a meal; he lived principally on beer, drank enough of it to frighten you, and was apparently never the worse for it. And a butcher who tried to send him second-quality meat was certain of finding out his mistake.

The only other man I brought with me was young Harry Bryden. He always called me uncle, but as a matter of fact he was no relation of mine. He was the son of an old friend. His parents died when he was seven years old and left him to me .It was about all they had to leave. At this time he was twenty-two, and was making himself useful. There was nothing which he was not willing to do, and he could do most things. He would mark at billiards, and played a good game himself. He had run the kitchen when the cook was away on his holiday. He had driven the station-omnibus when the driver was drunk one night. He understood book-keeping, and when I got a clerk who was a wrong ‘un, he was on to him at once, and saved me money. It was my intention to make him take his proper place more when I got to the Regency; for he was to succeed me when I died. He was clever, and not bad-looking in a gipsy-faced kind of way. Nobody is perfect, and Harry was a cigarette-maniac. He began when he was a boy, and I didn’t spare the stick when I caught him at it. But nothing I could say or do made any difference; at twenty-two he was old enough and big enough to have his own way, and his way was to smoke cigarettes eternally. He was a bundle of nerves, and got so jumpy sometimes that some people thought he drank, though he had never in his life tasted liquor. He inherited his nerves from his mother, but I dare say the cigarettes made them worse.

I took Harry down with me when I first thought of taking the place. He went over it with me and made a lot of useful suggestions. The old proprietor had died eighteen months before, and the widow had tried to run it for herself and made a mess of it. She had just sense enough to clear out before things got any worse. She was very anxious to go, and I thought that might have been the reason why the price was so low.

The billiard-room was an annexe to the house, with no rooms over it. We were told that it wasn’t used once in a twelvemonth, but we took a look at it — we took a look at everything. The room had got a very neglected look about it. I sat down on the platform — tired with so much walking and standing — and Harry whipped the cover off the table. “This was the one they had in the Ark,” he said.

There was not a straight cue in the rack, the balls were worn and untrue, the jigger was broken. Harry pointed to the board. “Look at that, uncle,” he said. “Noah had made forty-eight; Ham was doing nicely at sixty-six; and then the Flood came and they never finished.” From neatness and force of habit he moved over and turned the score back. “You’ll have to spend some money here. My word, if they put the whole lot in at a florin, we’re swindled.”

As we came out Harry gave a shiver. “I wouldn’t spend a night in there,” he said, “not for a five-pound note.”

His nerves always made me angry. “That’s a very silly thing to say,” I told him. “Who’s going to ask you to sleep in a billiard-room?”

Then he got a bit more practical, and began to calculate how much I should have to spend to make a bright, up-to-date billiard-room of it. But I was still angry.

“You needn’t waste your time on that,” I said, “because the place will stop as it is. You heard what Mrs. Parker said — that it wasn’t used once in a twelvemonth. I don’t want to attract all the loafers in Tanslowe into my house. Their custom’s worth nothing, and I’d sooner be without it. Time enough to put that room right if I find my staying visitors want it, and people who’ve been on the river all day are mostly too tired for a game after dinner.”

Harry pointed out that it sometimes rained, and there was the winter to think about. He had always got plenty to say, and what he said now had sense in it. But I never go chopping and changing about, and I had made my mind up. So I told him he had got to learn how to manage the house, and not to waste half his time over the billiard-table. I had a good deal done to the rest of the house in the way of redecorating and improvements, but I never touched the annexe.

The next time I saw the room was the day after we moved in. I was alone, and I thought it certainly did look a dingy hole as compared with the rest of the house. Then my eye happened to fall on the board, and it still showed sixty-six — forty-eight, as it had done when I entered the room with Harry three months before. I altered the board myself this time. To me it was only a funny coincidence; another game had been played there and had stopped exactly at the same point. But I was glad Harry was not with me, for it was the kind of thing that would have made him jumpier than ever.

It was the summertime, and we soon had something to do. I had been told that motorcars had cut into the river trade a good deal; so I laid myself out for the motorist. Tanslowe was just a nice distance for a run from town before lunch. It was all in the old-fashioned style, but there was plenty of choice and the stuff was good; and my wine-list was worth consideration. Prices were high, but people will pay when they are pleased with the way they are treated. Motorists who had been once came again and sent their friends. Saturday to Monday we had as much as ever we could do, and more than I had ever meant to do. But I am built like that — once I am in a shop, I have got to run it for all it’s worth.

I had been there about a month, and it was about the height of our season, when one night, for no reason that I could make out, I couldn’t get to sleep. I had turned in, tired enough, at half-past ten, leaving Harry to shut up and see the lights out, and at a quarter-past twelve I was still awake. I thought to myself that a pint of stout and a biscuit might be the cure for that. So I lit my candle and went down to the bar. The gas was out on the staircase and in the passages, and all was quiet. The door into the bar was locked, but I had thought to bring my passkey with me. I had just drawn my tankard of stout when I heard a sound that made me put the tankard down and listen again.

The billiard-room door was just outside in the passage, and there could not be the least doubt that a game was going on. I could hear the click-click of the balls as plainly as possible. It surprised me a little, but it did not startle me. We had several staying in the house, and I supposed two of them had fancied a game. At the time that I was drinking the stout and munching my biscuit the game went on — click, click-click, click. Everybody has heard the sound hundreds of times standing outside the glass-panelled door of a billiard-room and waiting for the stroke before entering. No other sound is quite like it.

Suddenly the sound ceased. The game was over. I had nothing on but my pyjamas and a pair of slippers, and I thought I would get upstairs again before the players came out. I did not want to stand there shivering and listening to complaints about the table. I locked the bar, and took a glance at the billiard-room door as I was about to pass it. What I saw made me stop short.

The glass panels of the door were as black as my Sunday hat, except where they reflected the light of my candle. The room, then, was not lit up, and people do not play billiards in the dark. After a second or two I tried the handle. The door was locked. It was the only door to the room.

I said to myself: “I’ll go on back to bed. It must have been my fancy, and there was nobody playing billiards at all.”

I moved a step away, and then I said to myself again: “I know perfectly well that a game was being played. I’m only making excuses because I’m in a funk.”

That settled it. Having driven myself to it, I moved pretty quickly. I shoved in my passkey, opened the door, and said: “Anybody there?” in a moderately loud voice that sounded somehow like another man’s. I am very much afraid that I should have jumped if there had come any answer to my challenge, but all was silent. I took a look round. The cover was on the table. An old screen was leaning against it; it had been put there to be out of the way. As I moved my candle, the shadows of things slithered across the floor and crept up the walls. I noticed that the windows were properly fastened, and then, as I held my candle high, the marking-board seemed to jump out of the darkness. The score recorded was sixty-six — forty-eight.

I shut the door, locked it again, and went up to my room. I did these things slowly and deliberately, but I was frightened and I was puzzled. One is not at one’s best in the small hours.

The next morning I tackled Silas.

“Silas,” I said, “what do you do when gentlemen ask for the billiard-room?”

“Well, sir,” said Silas, “I put them off if I can. Mr. Harry directed me to, the place being so much out of order.”

“Quite so,” I said. “And when you can’t put them off?”

“Then they just try it, sir, and the table puts them off. It’s very bad. There’s been no game played there since we came.”

“Curious,” I said. “I thought I heard a game going on last night.”

“I’ve heard it myself, sir, several times. There being no light in the room, I’ve put it down to a loose ventilator. The wind moves it and it clicks.”

“That’ll be it,” I said. Five minutes later I had made sure that there was no loose ventilator in the billiard-room. Besides, the sound of one ball striking another is not quite like any other sound. I also went up to the board and turned the score back, which I had omitted to do the night before. Just then Harry passed the door on his way from the bar, with a cigarette in his mouth as usual. I called him in.

“Harry,” I said, “give me thirty, and I’ll play you a hundred up for a sovereign. You can tell one of the girls to fetch our cues from upstairs.”

Harry took his cigarette out of his mouth and whistled. “What, uncle!” he said. “Well, you’re going it, I don’t think. What would you have said to me if I’d asked you for a game at ten in the morning?”

“Ah!” I said, “but this is all in the way of business. I can’t see much wrong with the table, and if I can play on it, then other people may. There’s a chance to make a sovereign for you, anyhow. You’ve given me forty-five and a beating before now.”

“No, uncle,” he said, “I wouldn’t give you thirty. I wouldn’t give you one. The table’s not playable. Luck would win against Roberts on it.”

He showed me the faults of the thing and said he was busy. So I told him if he liked to lose the chance of making a sovereign, he could.

“I hate that room,” he said, as we came out. “It’s not too clean, and its smells like a vault.”

“It smells a lot better than your cigarettes,” I said.

For the next six weeks we were all busy, and I gave little thought to the billiard-room. Once or twice I heard old Silas telling a customer that he could not recommend the table, and that the whole room was to be redecorated and refitted as soon as we got the estimates. “You see, sir, we’ve only been here a little while, and there hasn’t been time to get everything as we should like it quite yet.”

One day, Mrs. Parker, the woman who had the Regency before me, came down from town to see how we were getting on. I showed the old lady round, pointed out my improvements, and gave her a bit of lunch in my office.

“Well, now,” I said, as she sipped her glass of port afterwards, “I’m not complaining of my bargain, but isn’t the billiard-room a bit queer?”

“It surprises me,” she said, “that you’ve left it as it is. Especially with everything else going ahead, and the yard half full of motors. I should have taken it all down myself if I’d stopped. That iron roof’s nothing but an eyesore, and you might have a couple of beds of geraniums there and improve the look of your front.”

“Let’s see,” I said. “What was the story about that billiard-room?”

“What story do you mean?” she said, looking at me suspiciously.

“The same one you’re thinking of,” I said.

“About that man, Josiah Ham?”

“That’s it.”

“Well, I shouldn’t worry about that, if I were you. That was all thirty years ago, and I doubt if there’s a soul in Tanslowe knows it now. Best forgotten, I say. Talk of that kind doesn’t do a hotel any good. Why, how did you come to hear of it?”

“That’s just it,” I said. “The man who told me was none too clear. He gave me a hint of it. He was an old commercial passing through, and had known the place in the old days. Let’s hear your story, and see if it agrees with his.”

But I had told my fibs to no purpose. The old lady seemed a bit flustered. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Sanderson, I’d rather not speak of it.”

I thought I knew what was troubling her. I filled her glass and my own. “Look here,” I said. “When you sold the place to me, it was a fair deal. You weren’t called upon to go thirty years back, and no reasonable man would expect it. I’m satisfied. Here I am, and here I mean to stop, and twenty billiard-rooms wouldn’t drive me away. I’m not complaining. But just as a matter of curiosity, I’d like to hear your story.”

“What’s your trouble with the room?”

“Nothing to signify. But there’s a game played there and marked there — and I can’t find the players, and it’s never finished. It stops always at sixty-six — forty-eight.”

She gave a glance over her shoulder.

“Pull the place down,” she said. “You can afford to do it, and I couldn’t.” She finished her port. “I must be going, Mr. Sanderson. There’s rain coming on, and I don’t want to sit in the train in my wet things. I thought I would just run down to see how you were getting on, and I’m sure I’m glad to see the old place looking up again.”

I tried again to get the story out of her, but she ran away from it. She had not got the time, and it was better not to speak of such things. I did not worry her about it much, as she seemed upset over it.

I saw her across to the station, and just got back in time. The rain came down in torrents. I stood there and watched it, and thought it would do my garden a bit of good. I heard a step behind me and looked round. A fat chap with a surly face stood there, as if he had just come out of the coffee-room. He was the sort that might be a gentleman and might not.

“Afternoon, sir,” I said. “Nasty weather for motoring.”

“It is,” he said. “Not that I came in a motor. You the proprietor, Mr. Sanderson?”

“I am,” I said. “Came here recently.”

“I wonder if there’s any chance of a game of billiards.”

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Table’s shocking. I’m having it all done up afresh, and then—”

“What’s it matter?” said he. “I don’t care. It’s something to do, and one can’t go out.”

“Well,” I said, “if that’s the case, I’ll give you a game, sir. But I’m no flyer at it at the best of times, and I’m all out of practice now.”

“I’m no good, myself. No good at all. And I’d be glad of the game.”

At the billiard-room door I told him I’d fetch a couple of decent cues. He nodded and went in.

When I came back with my cue and Harry’s, I found the gas lit and the blinds drawn, and he was already knocking the balls about.

“You’ve been quick, sir,” I said, and offered him Harry’s cue. But he refused and said he would keep the one he had taken from the rack. Harry would have sworn if he had found that I had lent his cue to a stranger, so I thought that was just as well. Still, it seemed to me that a man who took a twisted cue by preference was not likely to be an expert.

The table was bad, but not so bad as Harry had made out. The luck was all my side. I was fairly ashamed of the flukes I made, one after the other. He said nothing, but gave a short, loud laugh once or twice — it was a nasty-sounding laugh. I was at thirty-seven when he was nine, and I put on eleven more at my next visit and thought I had left him nothing.

Then the fat man woke up. He got out of his first difficulty, and after that the balls ran right for him. He was a player, too, with plenty of variety and resource, and I could see that I was going to take a licking. When he had reached fifty-one, an unlucky kiss left him an impossible position. But I miscued,and he got going again. He played very, very carefully now, taking a lot more time for consideration than he had done in his previous break. He seemed to have got excited over it, and breathed hard, as fat men do when they are worked up. He had kept his coat on, and his face shone with perspiration.

At sixty-six he was in trouble again; he walked round to see the exact position, and chalked his cue. I watched him rather eagerly, for I did not like the score. I hoped he would go on.

His cue slid back to strike, and then dropped with a clatter from his hand. The fat man was gone — gone, as I looked at him, like a flame blown out, vanished into nothing.

I staggered away from the table. I began to back slowly towards the door, meaning to make a bolt for it. There was a click from the scoring-board, and I saw the thing marked up. And then — I am thankful to say — the billiard-room door opened, and I saw Harry standing there. He was very white and shaky. Somehow, the fact that he was frightened helped to steady me.

“Good Heavens, uncle!” he gasped. “I’ve been standing outside. What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s the matter,” I said sharply. “What are you shivering about?” I swished backed the curtain, and sent up the blind with a snap. The rain was over now, and the sun shone in through the wet glass — I was glad of it.

“I thought I heard voices — laughing — somebody called the score.”

I turned out the gas. “Well,” I said, “this table’s enough to make any man laugh, when it don’t make him swear. I’ve been trying your game of one hand against another, and I dare say I called the score out loud. It’s no catch — not even for a wet afternoon. I’m not both-handed, like the apes and Harry Bryden.”

Harry is as good with the left hand as the right, and a bit proud of it. I slid my own cue back into its case. Then whistling a bit of a tune, I picked up the stranger’s cue, which I did not like to touch. I nearly dropped it again when I saw the initials “J. H.” on the butt. “Been trying the cues,” I said, as I put it in the rack.

He looked at me as if he were going to ask more questions. So I put him on to something else. “We’ve not got enough cover for those motorcars,” I said. “Lucky we hadn’t got many here in this rain. There’s plenty of room for another shed, and it needn’t cost much. Go and see what you can make of it. I’ll come out directly, but I’ve got to talk to that girl in the bar first.”

He went off, looking rather ashamed of his tremors.

I had not really very much to say to Miss Hesketh in the bar. I put three fingers of whisky in a glass and told her to put a dash of soda on the top of it. That was all. It was a full-sized drink and did me good.

Then I found Harry in the yard. He was figuring with pencil on the back of an envelope. He was always pretty smart where there was anything practical to deal with. He had spotted where the shed was to go, and he was finding what it would cost at a rough estimate.

“Well,” I said, “if I went on with that idea of mine about the flower-beds, it needn’t cost much beyond the labour.”

“What idea?”

“You’ve got a head like a sieve. Why, carrying on the flower-beds round the front where the billiard-room now stands. If we pulled that down, it would give us all the materials we want for the new motor-shed. The roofing’s sound enough, for I was up yesterday looking into it.”

“Well, I don’t think you mentioned it to me, but it’s a rare good idea.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

That evening, my cook, Timbs, told me he’d be sorry to leave me, but he was afraid he’d find the place too slow for him — not enough doing. Then old Silas informed me that he hadn’t meant to retire so early, but he wasn’t sure — the place was livelier than he had expected, and there would be more work than he could get through.

I asked no questions. I knew the billiard-room was somehow or other at the bottom of it, and so it turned out. In three days’ time the workmen were in the house and bricking up the billiard-room door; and after that Timbs and old Silas found the Regency suited them very well, after all. And it was not just to oblige Harry, or Timbs, or Silas, that I had the alteration made. That unfinished game was in my mind; I had played it, and wanted never to play it again. It was of no use for me to tell myself that it had all been a delusion, for I knew better. My health was good, and I had no delusions. I had played it with Josiah Ham — with the lost soul of Josiah Ham — and that thought filled me not with fear, but with a feeling of sickness and disgust.

It was two years later that I heard the story of Josiah Ham, and it was not from old Mrs. Parker. An old tramp came into the saloon bar begging, and Miss Hesketh was giving him the rough side of her tongue.

“Nice treatment!” said the old chap. “Thirty years ago I worked here, and made good money, and was respected, and now it’s insults.”

And then I struck in. “What did you do here?” I asked.

“Waited at table and marked at billiards.”

“Till you took to drink?” I said.

“Till I resigned from a strange circumstance.”

I sent him out of the bar, and took him down the garden, saying I’d find him an hour or two’s work. “Now, then,” I said, as soon as I had got him alone, “what made you leave?”

He looked at me curiously. “I expect you know, sir,” he said. “Sixty-six. Unfinished.”

And then he told me of a game played in that old billiard-room on a wet summer afternoon thirty years before. He, the marker, was one of the players. The other man was a commercial traveller, who used the house pretty regularly. “A fat man, ugly-looking, with a nasty laugh. Josiah Ham, his name was. He was at sixty-six when he got himself into a tight place. He moved his ball — did it when he thought I wasn’t looking. But I saw it in the glass, and I told him of it. He got very angry. He said he wished he might be struck dead if he ever touched the ball.”

The old tramp stopped. “I see,” I said.

“They said it was apoplexy. It’s known to be dangerous for fat men to get very angry. But I’d had enough of it before long. I cleared out, and so did the rest of the servants.”

“Well,” I said, “we’re not so superstitious nowadays. And what brought you down in the world?”

“It would have driven any man to it,” he said. “And once the habit is formed — well, it’s there.”

“If you keep off it, I can give you a job weeding for three days.”

He did not want the work. He wanted a shilling, and he got it; and I saw to it that he did not spend it in my house.

We have got a very nice billiard-room upstairs now. Two new tables and everything shipshape. You may find Harry there most evenings. It is all right. But I have never taken to billiards again myself.

And where the old billiard-room was, there are flower-beds. The pansies that grow there have got funny markings — like figures.

“The Windsor Magazine”, September 1909

THE GATEWAY
OF THE MONSTER

William Hope Hodgson

1910

In response to Carnacki’s usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor and I were all engaged in the “pleasant occupation” of dining.

“You’ve not been long away, this time,” I remarked, as I finished my soup; forgetting momentarily, Carnacki’s dislike of being asked even to skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he would not stint words.

“That’s all,” he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject, remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely good-humoured appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation.

Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with very little circumlocution:

•   •   •

As Dodgson was remarking just now, I’ve only been away a short time, and for a very good reason too — I’ve only been away a short distance. The exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won’t spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary things ever I have run against.

I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson, asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found that he wished me to investigate, and see whether I could not clear up a long-standing and well — too well — authenticated case of what he termed “haunting.” He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the came seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.

Two days later, I drove to the house, late in the afternoon. I found it a very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence, and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.

But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time after time — thud! thud! thud! — so that sleep was impossible.

From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it — an ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a feeling I had a striking case to investigate, that I went upstairs after dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.

Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger, and then he could accompany me himself.

Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I explained that I should do no more than look round a bit, and, perhaps, affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing. But he shook his head, when I said that.

“There isn’t many ghosts like ours, sir,” he assured me, with mournful pride. And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.

I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed, with his bunch of keys. He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me. He was evidently in a fright, and he renewed his request, that I would put off my examination, until daylight. Of course, I laughed at him again, and told him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.

“It never comes outside, sir,” he said, in his funny, old, solemn manner. Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have the “creeps” right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know.

I left him there, and examined the room. It is a big apartment, and well furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.

After I had taken a good look round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the fireplace and the wall-closets. All the time, as I worked, the butler stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter; though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here and there about my work. Every now and again, he would say: — “You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I’m fair in a quake for you.”

I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all alone there. He apologised; but made it very clear that I did not realise the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a pretty frightened state. All the same, I had to make the room so that I should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother me, unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on my nerves, and the “feel” of the room was bad enough, without making it any nastier.

For a time further, I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor, and sealing them, so that the merest touch would have broken them, were anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had anticipated; and, suddenly, I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken off my coat soon after commencing work; now, however, as I had practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to the settee, and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it, when the old butler’s voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came sharp and frightened: — “Come out, sir, quick! There’s something going to happen!” Jove! but I jumped, and then, in the same moment, one of the candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind, or what, I do not know; but, just for a moment, I was enough startled to make a run for the door; though I am glad to say that I pulled up, before I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing there, after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on “bein’ brave, y’know.” So I just turned right round, picked up the two candles off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still alight; then I went to those on the two tables, and blew them out. Then, outside of the door, the old man called again: — “Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!”

“All right, Peter,” I said, and by Jove, my voice was not as steady as I should have liked! I made for the door, and had a bit of work, not to start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine. Near the door, I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little. I got to the door, and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of instinctive way. “Collar the candles, Peter!” I said, pretty sharply, and shoved them into his hands. I turned, and caught the handle, and slammed the door shut, with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so, I thought I felt something pull back on it; but it must have been only fancy. I turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the door. I felt easier then, and set-to and sealed the door. In addition, I put my card over the keyhole, and sealed it there; after which I pocketed the key, and went downstairs — with Peter; who was nervous and silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar! It had not struck me until that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the last two or three hours.

About midnight, I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor upon which opens the door of the Grey Room. I counted the doors between it and mine, and found that five rooms lay between. And I am sure you can understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax, and sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I should know just which one.

I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage. I sat up in bed, and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I was in the very act of lighting it when there came the bang of a door being violently slammed, along the corridor. I jumped out of bed, and got my revolver. I unlocked the door, and went out into the passage, holding my candle high, and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing happened. I could not go a step towards the Grey Room. You all know I am not really a cowardly chap. I’ve gone into too many cases connected with ghostly things, to be accused of that; but I tell you I funked it; simply funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom, and shut and locked the door. Then I sat on the bed all night, and listened to the dismal thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all the house.

Daylight came at last, and I washed and dressed. The door had not slammed for about an hour, and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt ashamed of myself; though, in some ways it was silly; for when you’re meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go, sometimes. And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight. Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it is something warning you, and fighting for you. But, all the same, I always feel mean and miserable, after a time like that.

When the day came properly, I opened my door, and, keeping my revolver handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the stairs, along the way, and who should I see coming up, but the old butler, carrying a cup of coffee. He had merely tucked his nightshirt into his trousers, and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on.

“Hullo, Peter!” I said, feeling suddenly cheerful; for I was as glad as any lost child to have a live human being close to me. “Where are you off to with the refreshments?”

The old man gave a start, and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up at me, and I could see that he looked white and done-up. He came on up the stairs, and held out the little tray to me. “I’m very thankful indeed, sir, to see you safe and well,” he said. “I feared, one time, you might risk going into the Grey Room, sir. I’ve lain awake all night, with the sound of the Door. And when it came light, I thought I’d make you a cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it seems safer if there’s two, sir.”

“Peter,” I said, “you’re a brick. This is very thoughtful of you.” And I drank the coffee. “Come along,” I told him, and handed him back the tray. “I’m going to have a look at what the Brutes have been up to. I simply hadn’t the pluck to in the night.”

“I’m very thankful, sir,” he replied. “Flesh and blood can do nothing, sir, against devils; and that’s what’s in the Grey Room after dark.”

I examined the seals on all the doors, as I went along, and found them right; but when I got to the Grey Room, the seal was broken; though the card, over the keyhole, was untouched. I ripped it off, and unlocked the door, and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine; but the whole room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light. I examined all my seals, and not a single one was disturbed. The old butler had followed me in, and, suddenly, he called out: — “The bedclothes, sir!”

I ran up to the bed, and looked over; and, surely, they were lying in the corner to the left of the bed. Jove! you can imagine how queer I felt. Something had been in the room. I stared for a while, from the bed, to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He went over to the bed-coverings, and was going to pick them up, as, doubtless, he had done every day these twenty years back; but I stopped him. I wanted nothing touched, until I had finished my examination. This, I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up the bed; after which we went out, and I locked the door; for the room was getting on my nerves.

I had a short walk, and then breakfast; after which I felt more my own man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter’s help, and one of the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed — even the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I can assure you, I began to realise, in very truth, that some incredible thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up everything again, and went out, locking and sealing the door, as before.

After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the Grey Room, with a string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens; and after that I went off to my bedroom, and to bed; for I intended to be up at midnight; and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me; also I left my candle burning.

The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing-gown and slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side-pocket, and opened my door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp, and withdrew the slide, so that it would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so that it would show me anything that might approach along the dark passage. Then I went back, and sat in the doorway of my room, with my revolver handy, staring up the passage towards the place where I knew my camera stood outside the door of the Grey Room.

I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half, when, suddenly, I heard a faint noise, away up the corridor. I was immediately conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of the passage flicked into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight. There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint glow of my dark-lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of the flash-power…. And then, as I stooped forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt horrible — as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did stare, and how I listened. And then it came again — thud, thud, thud, and then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see a yard before me. I realised all at once that I was doing a very silly thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I thought I heard a sound in the passage, and quite near me. I made one backward spring into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed, and stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side of that door. For some unknown reason I knew it was pressed up against the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most extraordinary thing to think.

Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of the Grey Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a miserable, brutal night.

When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the corridor, and went along the corridor, in the half light, to cap the lense of my camera. I can tell you, it took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had been sitting.

Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As we went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also was the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very queer; but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that not one had been broken.

Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me, nodding his head.

“Let’s get out of here!” I said. “It’s no place for any living human to enter, without proper protection.

We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.

After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey Room.

I go back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this, Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in the centre of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went towards the bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, “Yes, sir,” and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me and himself, if he had known what I intended.

But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and hurried back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set to work, for I had a lot to do before it got dark.

First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried the cat — still fastened in its basket — over towards the far wall, and left it. I returned then to the centre of the room, and measured out a space twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a “broom of hyssop.” About this, I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the circle. Beyond this I smudged, with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right around the chalked circle, and when this was complete, I took from among my stores in the centre a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the parchment, and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in the little jar, I went round the circle again, making upon the floor, just within the line of chalk, the Second Sign of the Saaamaaa Ritual, and joining each Sign most carefully with the left-handed crescent. I can tell you, I felt easier when this was done, and the “water circle” complete. Then, I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought, and placed a lighted candle in the “valley” of each Crescent. After that, I drew a Pentacle, so that each of the five points of the defensive star touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five portions of the bread, each wrapped in linen, and in the five “vales,” five opened jars of the water I had used to make the “water circle.” And now I had my first protective barrier complete.

Now, anyone, except you who know something of my methods of investigation, might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish superstition; but you all remember the Black Veil case, in which I believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection, whilst Aster, who sneered at it, and would not come inside, died. I got the idea from the Sigsand MS., written, so far as I can make out, in the 14th century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of the superstition of his time; and it was not until a year later that it occurred to me to test his “Defense,” which I did, as I’ve just said, in that horrible Black Veil business. You know how that turned out. Later, I used it several times, and always I came through safe, until that Moving Fur case. It was only a partial “defense” therefore, and I nearly died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder’s “Experiments with a Medium.” When they surrounded the Medium with a current, in vacuum, he lost his power — almost as if it cut him off from the Immaterial. That made me think a lot; and that is how I came to make the Electric Pentacle, which is a most marvellous “Defense” against certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this protection, because I have, personally, no doubt at all but that there is some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a Twentieth Century man to admit, is it not? But, then, as you all know, I never did, and never will, allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap laughter. I ask questions, and keep my eyes open.

In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a supernatural monster, and I meant to take every possible care; for the danger is abominable.

I turned-to now to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of its “points” and “vales” coincided exactly with the “points” and “vales” of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery, and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum tubes shone out.

I glanced about me then, with something of a sigh of relief, and realised suddenly that the dusk was upon me, for the window was grey and unfriendly. Then round at the big, empty room, over the double barrier of electric and candle light. I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of weirdness thrust upon me — in the air, you know; as it were, a sense of something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised garlic, a smell I hate.

I turned now to the camera, and saw that it and the flashlight were in order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully; though I had little thought that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialisation of an ab-natural creature is possible, given favourable conditions, no one can say; and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see, or feel the presence of. I might, in the end, have to fight with a materialised monster. I did not know, and could only be prepared. You see, I never forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me, and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case.

By this time, the night had come; though the room was very light with the burning candles; and I found myself glancing behind me, constantly, and then all round the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little, cold wind sweeping over me, coming from behind. I gave one great nerve-thrill, and a prickly feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hove myself round with a sort of stiff jerk, and stared straight against that queer wind. It seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed — the place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet, I could see nothing unusual; no opening — nothing!…

Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that unnatural wind…. I believe I just squatted there and stared in a horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile, cold wind! And then, flick! flick! flick! all the candles round the outer barrier went out; and there was I, locked and sealed in that room, and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle.

A time of abominable tenseness passed, and still that wind blew upon me; and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward, unused sense than by either sight or sound; for the pale, short-radius glare of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as I stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight — a moving shadow, a little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the vagueness, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side, with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was directed to the bed. All the coverings were being drawn steadily off, with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging slither of the clothes; but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled. I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the “creep” had come upon me; yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating coldly, and to shift my revolver, half-consciously, whilst I rubbed my right hand dry upon my knee; though never, for an instant, taking my gaze or my attention from those moving clothes.

The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet, immediately afterwards, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the camera, and reached round for it; but without looking away from the bed. And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as they were hurled into the corner.

There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of minutes; and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been thrown with such savageness! And, then again, the brutal unnaturalness of the thing that had just been done before me!

Abruptly, over by the door, I heard a faint noise — a sort of crickling sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head; for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something was there. I could not see the door; at least, I mean to say that it was impossible to say how much I actually saw, and how much my imagination supplied. I made it out, only as a continuation of the grey walls…. And then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered there among the shadows.

Abruptly, I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I reached again for my camera; but before I could aim it the door was slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of hollow thunder. I jumped, like a frightened child. There seemed such a power behind the noise; as though a vast, wanton Force were “out.” Can you understand?

The door was not touched again; but, directly afterwards, I heard the basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose suddenly a hideous catterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then — too late — I snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare, I saw that the basket had been overturned, and the lid was wrenched open, with the cat lying half in, and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of the knowledge that I was in the presence of some Being or Thing that had power to destroy.

During the next two or three minutes, there was an odd, noticeable quietness in the room, and you much remember I was half-blinded, for the time, because of the flashlight; so that the whole place seemed to be pitchy dark just beyond the shine of the Pentacle. I tell you it was most horrible. I just knelt there in the star, and whirled round, trying to see whether anything was coming at me.

My power of sight came gradually, and I got a little hold of myself; and abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the “water circle.” It was big and indistinct, and wavered curiously, as though the shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It passed swiftly round the circle, and seemed to probe ever towards me; but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living person if they touched the hot bar of a grate.

Round and round it moved, and round and round I turned. Then, just opposite to one of the “vales” in the pentacles, it seemed to pause, as though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the glow of the vacuum light, and then came straight towards me, appearing to gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast, malign determination behind the movement, that must succeed. I was on my knees, and I jerked back, falling on to my left hand and hip, in a wild endeavour to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was grabbing madly for my revolver, which I had let slip. The brutal thing came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the “water circle,” almost to the vale of the pentacle. I believe I yelled. Then, just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by some mighty, invisible force.

It must have been some moments before I realised that I was safe; and then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles, feeling horribly gone and shaken, and glancing round and round the barrier; but the thing had vanished. Yet, I had learnt something, for I knew now that the Grey Room was haunted by a monstrous hand.

Suddenly, as I crouched there, I saw what had so nearly given the monster an opening through the barrier. In my movements within the pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water; for just where the thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the “deep” of the “vale” had been moved to one side, and this had left one of the “five doorways” unguarded. I put it back, quickly, and felt almost safe again, for I had found the cause, and the “defense” was still good. And I began to hope again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so nearly succeed, I had an awful, weak, overwhelming feeling that the “barriers” could never bring me safe through the night against such a Force. You can understand?

For a long time I could not see the hand; but, presently, I thought I saw, once or twice, an odd wavering, over among the shadows near the door. A little later, as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage, the dead body of the cat was picked up, and beaten with dull, sickening blows against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer.

A minute afterwards, the door was opened and slammed twice with tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart at me, from out of the shadows. Instinctively, I started sideways from it, and so plucked my hand from upon the Electric Pentacle, where — for a wickedly careless moment — I had placed it. The monster was hurled off from the neighbourhood of the pentacles; though — owing to my inconceivable foolishness — it had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer barriers. I can tell you, I shook for a time, with sheer funk. I moved right to the centre of the pentacles again, and knelt there, making myself as small and compact as possible.

As I knelt, there came to me presently, a vague wonder at the two “accidents” which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me. Was I being influenced to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me? The thought took hold of me, and I watched my every movement. Abruptly, I stretched a tired leg, and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some was spilled; but, because of my suspicious watchfulness, I had it upright and back within the vale while yet some of the water remained. Even as I did so, the vast, black, half-materialised hand beat up at me out of the shadows, and seemed to leap almost into my face; so nearly did it approach; but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether enormous, overmastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which it left me, I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered, which is felt only upon the too near approach of the ab-human, and is more dreadful, in a strange way, than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this more of the extent and closeness of the danger; and for a long time I was simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that Force upon my spirit. I can put it no other way.

I knelt again in the centre of the pentacles, watching myself with more fear, almost, than the monster; for I knew now that, unless I guarded myself from every sudden impulse that came to me, I might simply work my own destruction. Do you see how horrible it all was?

I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright, and so tense that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the Influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the barrier that ghastly thing went round and round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time, I heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack. And all the time the horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left of the bed.

Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in the sudden stopping of that wind, to entice me from the pentacles.

At last, when the dawn was strong and bright, I took one last look round, and ran for the door. I got it unlocked, in a nervous and clumsy fashion, then locked it hurriedly, and went to my bedroom, where I lay on the bed, and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came, presently, with the coffee, and when I had drunk it, I told him I meant to have a sleep, as I had been up all night. He took the tray, and went out quietly; and after I had locked my door I turned in properly, and at last got to sleep.

I woke about midday, and after some lunch, went up to the Grey Room. I switched off the current from the Pentacle, which I had left on in my hurry; also, I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not want anyone to see the poor brute. After that, I made a very careful search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several holes, and probed, and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with my instrument under the skirting. I did so, and heard my wire ring on metal. I turned the hook end that way, and fished for the thing. At the second go, I got it. It was a small object, and I took it to the window. I found it to be a curious ring, made of some greying material. The curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon; that is, the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle, but without the “mounts,” which form the points of the defensive star. It was free from all chasing or engraving.

You will understand that I was excited, when I tell you that I felt sure I held in my hand the famous Luck Ring of the Anderson family; which, indeed, was of all things the one most intimately connected with the history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son through generations, and always — in obedience to some ancient family tradition — each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring, I may say, was brought home by one of the Crusaders, under very peculiar circumstances; but the story is too long to go into here.

It appears that young Sir Hulbert, an ancestor of Anderson’s, made a bet, in drink, you know, that he would wear the ring that night. He did so, and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the bed, in the very room in which I stood. Many people, it would seem, thought young Sir Hulbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken anger; and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no one has ever spent a night in the Grey Room, until I did so. The ring had been lost so long, that it had become almost a myth; and it was most extraordinary to stand there, with the actual thing in my hand, as you can understand.

It was whilst I stood there, looking at the ring, that I got an idea. Supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway — You see what I mean? A sort of gap in the world-hedge. It was a queer idea, I know, and probably was not my own, but came to me from the Outside. You see, the wind had come from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it. Then the shape — the inside of a pentacle. It had no “mounts,” and without mounts, as the Sigsand MS. has it: — “Thee mownts wych are thee Five Hills of safetie. To lack is to gyve pow’r to thee daemon; and surelie to fayvor the Evill Thynge.” You see, the very shape of the ring was significant; and I determined to test it.

I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made afresh and around the one to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door; after which I left the house, to get certain matters, for neither “yarbs nor fyre nor waier” must be used a second time. I returned about seven-thirty, and as soon as the things I had brought had been carried up to the Grey Room, I dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before. When he had gone downstairs, I let myself into the room, and locked and sealed the door. I went to the place in the centre of the room where all the stuff had been packed, and set to work with all my speed to construct a barrier about me and the ring.

I do not remember whether I explained it to you. But I had reasoned that, if the ring were in any way a “medium of admission,” and it were enclosed with me in the Electric Pentacle, it would be, to express it loosely, insulated. Do you see? The Force, which had visible expression as a Hand, would have to stay beyond the Barrier which separates the Ab from the Normal; for the “gateway” would be removed from accessibility.

As I was saying, I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in that room “unprotected.” Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialisation. You will see whether I was right.

I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle once more all about me. From then, onwards, for about two hours, I sat quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o’clock a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold, queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to come from behind me, and I whipped round, with a hideous quake of fear. The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it. Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something queer about the ring — funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me, seeming to pour upwards through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows. Suddenly, I realised that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand was forming within the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realise it! I had brought the “gateway” into the pentacles, and the brute was coming through — pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the mouth of a pipe.

I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright. Then, with a mad, awkward movement, I snatched at the ring, intending to hurl it out of the Pentacle. Yet it eluded me, as though some invisible, living thing jerked it hither and thither. At last, I gripped it; yet, in the same instant, it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal force. A great, black shadow covered it, and rose into the air, and came at me. I saw that it was the Hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I gave one crazy yell, and jumped over the Pentacle and the ring of burning candles, and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and ineffectually with the key, and all the time I stared, with a fear that was like insanity, towards the Barriers. The hand was plunging towards me; yet, even as it had been unable to pass into the Pentacle when the ring was without, so, now that the ring was within, it had no power to pass out. The monster was chained, as surely as any beast would be, were chains riveted upon it.

Even then, I got a flash of this knowledge; but I was too utterly shaken with fright, to reason; and the instant I managed to get the key turned, I sprang into the passage, and slammed the door with a crash. I locked it, and got to my room somehow; for I was trembling so that I could hardly stand, as you can imagine. I locked myself in, and managed to get the candle lit; then I lay down on my bed, and kept quiet for an hour or two, and so I got steadied.

I got a little sleep, later; but woke when Peter brought my coffee. When I had drunk it I felt altogether better, and took the old man along with me whilst I had a look into the Grey Room. I opened the door, and peeped in. The candles were still burning, wan against the daylight; and behind them was the pale, glowing star of the Electric Pentacle. And there, in the middle, was the ring … the gateway of the monster, lying demure and ordinary.

Nothing in the room was touched, and I knew that the brute had never managed to cross the Pentacles. Then I went out, and locked the door.

After a sleep of some hours, I left the house. I returned in the afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet, and two cylinders, containing the gases. I carried the things into the Grey Room, and there, in the centre of the Electric Pentacle, I erected the little furnace. Five minutes later the Luck Ring, once the “luck,” but now the “bane,” of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid splash of hot metal.

•   •   •   •   •   •

Carnacki felt in his pocket, and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. He passed it to me. I opened it, and found a small circle of greyish metal, something like lead, only harder and rather brighter.

“Well?” I asked, at length, after examining it and handing it round to the others. “Did that stop the haunting?”

Carnacki nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I slept three nights in the Grey Room, before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to; but by the third night he seemed to realise that the house was just safe and ordinary. And, you know, I believe, in his heart, he hardly approved.”

Carnacki stood up and began to shake hands. “Out you go!” he said, genially. And, presently, we went, pondering, to our various homes.

“The Idler”, January 1910

THE DARK INTERVAL

J. B. Powell

1925

His spirit could not be happy
until he restored happiness
to the one he loved

Hargrove thought: “Pray — pray — why don’t I pray? Can’t — never learned. Well, what’s the difference? Why don’t I get frightened? Whisky — it’s got me now. I’ve been a fool. Anne — Anne — where is Anne? The will — Anne — Anne—”

The man was dying. At first he had thought the attack was simply another spell with his heart. He had gotten up out of bed and poured himself a whisky and soda, as was his habit when he had these sudden heart pains. He had then returned to bed to await relief and finally sleep. But the stimulant had failed, and as time went on he felt his fat body grow limp and weak. The sharp pains crept nearer to his heart, and his brain felt numb and tired.

He had checked an impulse to ring for a servant. He knew he was dying, beyond aid. And he wanted no hysterical old man tottering about the room and wringing his useless hands. He had thought it strange that one should feel the approach of death so definitely, and so calmly. He had sometimes wondered just what the sensation would be like. He had wondered if those who lead so-called blameless lives would die more easily than men of his own type. He decided not. Funny, no regrets, no fright, no desire to hang on to life. Strange, too, that one could face the unknown so fearlessly when the time came. Well, he had gotten more out of life than most people. He had lived!

Death was a promise, he had thought — a promise of release, of rest; but only a promise. He had tried to turn this last thought over in his mind, but he felt his senses blurring, and his thoughts became vague and disconnected.

And then, “Anne — Anne — .”

He tried to call but the words froze on his cold lips. John Hargrove was dead.

II

“Will you be goin’ in right away, ma‘am?”

“Please, Mary.”

“I kinda looked for you yisterdee, but I guess you was so fur away an’ everythin’.”

“Yes, Mary.”

“They put him in the big room. I thought it would be best with all his friends an’ all. I bin keepin’ the door locked agin his relations and such. They come yisterdee. I wanted to wait till yon got here, ma’am. He’s bin in there two days now.”

The servant unlocked a pair of large oak doors, and the two women stepped into the darkened room.

“Them candles are a-burnin’ low agin. I bin keepin’ ’em lit but seems like they burn down mighty quick. He’s over here by the grate, ma’am.”

The women stopped suddenly and peered down into the black coffin.

“Looks natchurl, don’t he, ma’am?”

“Did he suffer, Mary?”

“Went too quick to suffer, ma’am. Died in bed. Heart trouble takes ’em that way. Liquor, the doctors said. Guess he drank purty much after you went, ma’am.”

Neither spoke for some minutes. The figure in the coffin fascinated them. Their eyes remained fixed upon the massive face, a face which might have been molded out of soft putty. The small eyes were closed, but the heavy jowl drew them downward and revealed slits of pale blue. The wide chin was creased twice, and seemed to roll down below the stiff white collar.

The servant broke the silence. “Perhaps I better git you a bite to eat, ma’am. A warm cup o’ tea would do you good.”

“No, Mary. Just take my things up. I’ll be out presently.”

The doors swung silently shut behind the servant. The woman who remained gazed quietly down upon her husband. Only one candle now remained lighted. It cast a pale yellow light into the face of the dead man. At length the woman lifted her eyes and glanced about her. The large room was dark and still. She could just discern the outlines of familiar objects. A chair, a table, a picture. She lowered her eyes once more and studied the expressionless face below her.

She thought: “Death is stronger than love. Death has made him meek and still. Love only gave him the power to hurt, to crush. I don’t hate him any more; I simply pity him.”

The lone candle sputtered and went out. The white face in the coffin was the only object that could be seen in the black room. Mrs. Hargrove did not move. She continued to watch the face, still thinking.

“Anne — Anne.”

Mrs. Hargrove whirled about. The voice came from behind. She had heard no one enter. The room was dark.

“Anne — Anne — the will — Anne!”

It was a man’s voice, deep and solemn. It sounded like her husband’s voice. She turned back to the coffin.

“Anne — Anne—”

No, it came from behind, but it was John’s voice.

“Yes, John,” she said softly.

A shaft of light crossed the room.

“Are you all right ma’am? I thought mebbe you took sick bein’ in here so long.”

The servant switched the lights on as she talked.

“Yes, Mary, I’m quite all right,” replied Mrs. Hargrove calmly.

III

It seemed to Hargrove that he had been asleep an unusually long time. The sun was already streaming through the open windows as he leisurely rose from his bed. Ten o’clock, at least, he thought. He turned mechanically toward the small table that contained his whisky siphon and he moved slowly toward it. He reached for a glass, but his hand seemed unable to close upon it. In fact, he thought his hand went right through it as if it were a shadow. Somewhat dismayed, he turned and walked back to his bed. He decided that he was very sleepy, or perhaps still under the influence. He sat down on the edge of the bed and thoughtfully placed his head in his two hands. Finally he stood up again, convinced that he was neither asleep nor drunk. He glanced down at the foot of the bed for his bathrobe. He would bathe and get dressed. Then he would feel better. His eyes fell upon the fat figure stretched out beside him and he remembered then that it was dead.

With the realization of death came intense misery. Hargrove had never felt its equal in life. It was not physical discomfort, nor was it quite mental agony. It was worse than either of them, but not so tangible. Comparing the feeling to life, it was, he thought, as if he had murdered everyone in the world and was consequently forced to live alone. Alone, he thought, with a strict, puritan conscience for company. He felt utterly abandoned, and he was all misery. In life he might have thrown off even so intense a suffering by drink or by any form of material pleasure. But in his present state he was helpless.

This persistent spiritual aching soon drove him into panic. He felt he must go somewhere, talk to someone, anyone. He wondered if he must remain in the bedroom with his useless body, and soon found that he could move through solid objects, but that he could not leave the floor. He realized that he was invisible because no part of his being was visible to himself. He thought it strange that he could walk, although he seemed to drift along rather than take actual steps.

But such misery! And every pang said, “Anne, Anne.” It was as if Anne herself were prodding his wounded soul, persecuting him with pain. He tried to think of other things, of pleasant things, but the voice said, “Anne,” with added distress, with unbearable wretchedness.

Deciding that he could bear it no longer, Hargrove left the bedroom and went downstairs. The servants were in the kitchen eating breakfast. Undoubtedly they had not yet discovered his body, and they knew better than to disturb him before noon. He decided not to bother them. He would walk out and try to find relief from this insufferable agony.

He left the house and drifted aimlessly along familiar streets. He encountered several acquaintances, stopped and bade them good morning, but they passed through him, unperturbed. He shouted after them, but they paid him no heed. His misery increased. He could not understand, if his present state were death, why life was so near at hand. And since life was so close why could he not reach out and grasp it? He wondered if he must go on thus eternally. Where was the promise death had pledged him?

Drifting — drifting. He who had been so completely material now so entirely spiritual. Thoughts. He could do nothing but think. Think back on Anne. Think back with a pang of remorse over each sordid detail of his life with her. He who had been so unutterably unfeeling, so thoroughly selfish. Think back, always back. No future, no ray of hope, no merciful rest. He must continue drifting, always drifting — drifting.

He lived again his lurid years with his wife. He saw her, young, attractive, an orphan depending on the world of men for her livelihood. She had been his secretary, and he had wanted her. And because she was honest he had married her. But although she did become his wife she was simply another woman in his life. That she had loved him mattered not. It was the same old hackneyed story of the man grown tired of the woman and the woman dying a little from each rebuke — dying that slow, creeping death which only a woman who loves knows.

And when finally she left him he had thought it a great joke. He had hastened to his lawyer’s so that he might exclude her from any share of his worldly goods in case he died first. She had worked before; she could work now, and continue to work until she cursed the day she left him. Just the same old trite story. Beauty and the Beast. That same old bromide, worked to death, a drug on the market. Beauty and the Beast.

Hargrove lost track of all time in his suffering. How long he had drifted thus musing he knew not. At night he returned to his house through habit, and spent the long night pacing the rooms. He would wander into the drawing room at times and stand before his coffin, vainly yearning that he might crawl back into his dead body and breathe again. Then he would enter the bedrooms where his relatives were quartered, seeking comfort there. He could hear them laughingly discussing his death. How much would they get? Already they were eager. Planning to have the will read immediately after his funeral. Yes, they would get it. His dear relatives. Every penny of it. His sweet relatives!

And then back into the drawing room again to pace the deep carpet by his coffin until Anne came. He felt satisfied that she would come. Death has strange drawing powers. It draws forgotten wives back to forgetting husbands.

He was not startled when he heard the key turn in the lock and saw the doors swing open. Of course it would be Anne. He swooped forward to meet her and called her name frantically. He called again — again. No response. The servant. Would she never go? Again — again. Ah, the servant was going now — gone. Again. She heard him. answered him. Tell her, tell her something. What? The will; yes, the will. The servant again. Both going now. Both gone.

He followed his wife to her room and called to her all night in vain.

IV

It was a coincidence that John Hargrove’s will was to be read in the same room from which he had been buried. He thought of this as he watched his eager cousins file in and choose their seats. He noticed the anxious greed in their faces and cursed himself. His wife, dry-eyed and calm, sat apart from the group quietly conversing with the attorney. The large room was no longer dark and somber. Cheerful flames shot from the log fireplace, and the late October sun flooded the room with brightness. The flowers which had yesterday graced his coffin had been removed. Even the gorgeous candelabrum had been hidden from sight.

Hargrove marveled at the change death had worked in his heart. He wished Anne could know him now. He wished she might feel the deep love in his heart and know the gentle thoughtfulness that had enveloped him. Too late. All things come too late. He felt that he could atone for every wrong he had ever done her, now. Yes — now.

His intense misery had given way to more quiet pain. He felt that he was soon to die another death. The small leather ease which the lawyer so carelessly tossed upon the table held poverty for Anne, and eternal suffering for him. It held a scrap of paper with the ravings of a madman scribbled on it, yet with the power to destroy two lives — a living one and a dead one.

A sense of rebellion surged through him when the lawyer quietly opened his brief ease and extracted the document. He paced the floor frantically. The paper must not be read.

“No, no!” he shouted.

The attorney had already begun.

“I, John Hargrove, being of good health and sound mind do hereby—”

Hargrove swooped forward and flung himself desperately upon the man. The paper slid gracefully from his hands and fluttered slowly down into the fireplace. An over-anxious cousin brought out a single charred edge and a burned hand for his pains. All eyes were riveted upon the lawyer. Hargrove’s relatives were trying to digest what had just happened. A fortune had been burned before their very eyes.

The attorney smiled not sadly.

“The accident was unfortunate,” he said blandly. “According to the law of this state regarding lost and destroyed wills, the entire property, both real and personal, descends to John Ilargrove’s wife, Mrs. Anne Hargrove.”

With the attorney’s last words Hargrove felt himself lifted up out of the open window. He felt cool breezes play about him. The odor of fresh green fields came to him. Warm, friendly hands touched him. He heard soft, soothing music in the distance. His heart was light and his soul was finally at rest.

“Weird Tales”, April 1925

THE MAGIC OF FEAR

Edgar Wallace

1925

The story of a maiden terribly wise
in the ways of ancient sorcery

There was once an Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who had risen from the ranks of the lesser politicians by the force of his personality and the great charm and eloquence of his many public speeches.

This Nickerson Haben married a rich widow, who most providentially died at the crisis of his affairs, and when her friends were whispering of the divorce suit she was bringing. It was a very prosaic case of an appendicitis operation that did not go well. To the astonishment of the greatest of English surgeons, and at a period when she should have been out of danger, she suffered a collapse and died. Whereupon the sympathetic colleagues of Mr. Under-Secretary Haben found an excuse for sending him to the River Territories — that vast hinterland which was governed by Mr. Commissioner Sanders, one Captain of Houssas and a youthful lieutenant whose name was Tibbetts but who was invariably called “Bones.”

The ministry felt that the change would be beneficial to the grief-stricken man, who seemed inconsolable even by the immense fortune which his wife had left to him — her new will, which left him nothing, being unsigned.

So he set forth for the Territories by the first available boat, and because this lank and pallid man had a “streak of commonness in him” (his dead wife had often said this to her most intimate friends), he did not warn the officials of the big river that he was honoring them with a visit. Mr. Haben was of the type who set traps for possibly dishonest servants, and suspected his chauffeur of being in league with the garage man to rob him. And he thought it likely that arriving unannounced, he might be in a position to discover certain irregularities which would be hidden away if his coming was widely advertised.

As it happened, his furtiveness introduced no scandal, though, had Sanders of the River the gift of forevision, he might well have taken Agasaka, the Chimbiri woman, and hidden her deep in her native forest.

Agasaka was very closely linked with the life and fate of Mr. Nickerson Haben, though this he did not dream. Mr. Haben was dressed by the best tailor in Saville Row — Agasaka wore no clothes at all except for the kilt of dried grass which hung from her beautiful waist.

A tall maiden, very slim of body and very grave of eyes, no lover for any man, having a great love for something more imponderable than man; terribly wise too, in the ways of ghosts and devils; straight-backed, small-breasted, beloved of children, so strong in the arm and skilled in her strength that she could put a spear beyond the range of any young man’s throw: this was Agasaka, the Chimbiri woman, daughter of N’kman’kimi, the dead village woodman.

She was elderly for a virgin, being seventeen; had been wooed by men in their every mood. Agasaka had kindness for all, but generosity for none.

She lived with her brother, M’suru, the hunting man, and his women hated her, for she never spoke a lie and was frank to her elderly brother on the matter of their numerous lovers. They would have beaten her, but that they knew the strength of her throwing arm. Where hands did not dare, tongues were more reckless, but none of their mud stuck. Few men were so poor in mind that they would admit others had succeeded where they had failed.

She had lived for many years with her father in the deep of the forest in the abiding place of M’shimba M’shamba, the fearfully boisterous devil who tears up trees with each hand, whilst his mouth drips molten fire; here, also, dwell other mighty ones. N’guro, the headless dog, and Chikalaka-m’bofunga, the eater of moons — indeed all except the Fire Lizard, whose eyes talk death. He is to be found in no one place. N’kema had taught her the mysteries of life and the beginning of life and the ground where life is sown. She knew men in their rawness and in their strength. N’ktema taught her the way in which she might be more wonderful than any other woman; the magic handed down from mouth to mouth — the magic which was old when they laid the first deep stones of the Pyramids.…

•   •   •   •   •   •

Men were afraid of her; even Oboro, the witch-doctor, avoided her.

For this was her strangest magic: that she had the power to bring before the eyes of men and women that which they desired least to see.

Once, a small chief stalked her by the river path where the grass is chin high, having certain plans with her. And at the right and lonely moment he slipped from cover, dropping his spears in the grass, and caught her by the arms so that, strong as she was, she could not break his hold.

“Agasaka,” he said, “I have a hut in this forest that has never heard a woman’s voice—”

He got so far and then, over her silken shoulder, he saw three black leopards walking shoulder to shoulder down the narrow path towards him. Their heads hung low, their golden eyes shone hungrily.

In an instant he released her and fled to his spears. When he turned again, leopards and woman were gone.

Aliki, the huntsman of her village, neither feared nor cared, for he was familiar with magics of all kinds and often walked in the woods communing with devils. One night he saw a vision in the fire, a great red lizard that blinked its heavy eyelids, Aliki looked round his family circle in a cold-blooded search for a victim. Calichi, the fire lizard, is the most benevolent of devils and will accept a deputy for the man or woman to whom, with its red and blinking eyes, it has given its terrible warning of death.

Aliki saw his three wives and his father and an uncle who had come many days’ journey on a hunting trip, and none of these, save the youngest wife, was well enough favored for the purpose. Calichi is a fastidious devil; nothing short of the best and the most beautiful will please him. Beyond the group sitting about the red fire and eating from the big pot that stood in the embers, were other groups. The village street of Chimbiri-Isisi runs from the forest to the river, a broad avenue fringed with huts, and before each hut burnt a fire, and about each fire squatted the men and women of the house.

Dark had come; above the tall gum trees the sky was encrusted with bright stars that winked and blinked at Calichi, but more rapidly.

Aliki saw the stars and rubbed his palms in the dust for luck, and at that moment into his vision came the second wife of his neighbor, a tall woman of eighteen, a nymph carved in mahogany, straight and supple of back, naked to the waistline of her grass skirt. And Aliki knew that he had found a proper substitute and said her name under his breath as he caught the lizard’s eyes. Thereupon the beast faded and died away, and Aliki knew that the fire-god approved his choice.

Later that night, when Loka, the wife of M’suru the huntsman, went down to the river to draw water for the first wife’s needs, Aliki intercepted her.

“There is nobody so beautiful as you, Loka,” he said, “for you have the legs of a lion and the throat of a young deer.”

He enumerated other physical perfections and Loka laughed and listened. She had quarreled that day with the first wife of her husband, and her husband had beaten her. She was terribly receptive to flattery and ripe for adventure.

“Have you no wives, Aliki?” she asked, pleased. “Now, I will give you Agasaka, the sister of my husband, who is very beautiful and has never touched the shoulder of a man.” This she said in spite, for she hated Agasaka, and it is a way of women to praise, to strangers, the qualities of the sisters they loathe.

“As to Agasaka … and wives.…” He made a gesture of contempt. “There is no such wife as you, not even in the hut of the old king beyond the mountains, which are the end of the world,” said Aliki, and Loka laughed again.

“Now I know that you are mad, as M’suru says. Also that you see strange sights which are not there to see,” she said in her deep, gurgling voice. “And not M’suru alone, but all men, say that you have the sickness mongo.”

It was true that Aliki was sick and had shooting pains in his head. He saw other things than lizards.

“M’suru is an old man and a fool,” he said. “I have a ju-ju who gives me eyes to see wonders. Come with me into the forest, Loka, and I will tell you magic and give you love such as as old man cannot give.”

She put down her gourd, hiding it in a patch of elephant gnus near the river’s edge, and walked behind him into the forest. There, eventually, he killed her. And he lit a fire and saw the lizard, who seemed satisfied. Aliki washed himself in the river and went back to his hut and to sleep.

When he awoke in the morning he was sorry he had killed Loka, for of all the women in the world she had been most beautiful in his eyes. The village was half empty, for Loka’s gourd had been found and trackers had gone into the woods searching for her. Her they found; but nobody had seen her walking to death. Some people thought she had been taken by Ochori fishermen, others favored a devil notorious for his amorous tricks. They brought the body back along the village street, and all the married women made skirts of green leaves and stamped the Death Dance, singing, the while, very strangely.

Aliki, squatting before his fire, watched the procession with incurious eyes. He was sorry he had killed the Thing that was carried shoulder high, and, dropping his gaze to the dull fire, was even more sorry, for the hot lizard was leering up at him, his bulging eyelids winking at a great rate.

So he had taken the wrong sacrifice.

His eyes rose … rested on the slim figure of a woman, one hand gripping the doorpost of her brother’s hut. And there came to Aliki a tremendous conviction.

The lizard had vanished from the heart of the fire when he looked down.

No time was to be lost: he rose and went toward the virgin of Chimbiri.

“I see you, Agasaka,” he said. “Now this is a terrible shame to come to your brother’s house, for men say that this woman Loka had a lover who killed her.”

She turned her big eyes slowly towards him. They were brown and filled with marvelous luminosity that seemed to quiver as she looked at him.

“Loka died because she was a fool.” she said, “but he who killed her was a bigger. Her pain is past; his to come. Soon Sandi malaka will come, the brown butcher bird, and he will pick the eyes of the man who did this thing.”

Aliki hated her, but he was clever to nod his agreement.

“I am wise, Agasaka,” he said. “I see wonders which no man sees. Now before Sandi comes with his soldiers, I will show you a magic that will bring this wicked man to the door of your brother’s hut when the moon is so and the river is so.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

Her grave eyes were on his; the sound of the singing women was a drone of sound at the far end of the village. A dog barked wheeezily in the dark of the hut and all faces were turned toward the river where the body was being laid in a canoe before before it was ferried to the little middle island where the dead lie in their shallow graves.

“Let us go,” she said, and walked behind him through an uneven field of maize, gained the shelter of the wood behind the village, and by awkward paths reached the outline of the forest, where there was no noise, for this place was too sad for the weaver birds and too near to the habitation of man for the little monkeys which have white beards. Still he walked on until they made a patch of yellow flowers growing in a clearing. Here the trees were very high, and ten men might have stood on one another’s heads against the smooth boles, and the top most alone could have touched the lowermost branch.

He stopped and turned. At that second came an uneasy stirring of the treetops, a cold wind and the rumbling of thunder.

“Let us sit down,” he said. “First I will talk to you of the women who have loved me, and of how I would not walk before them because of my great thoughts for you. Then we will be lovers—”

“There is no magic in that, Aliki,” she said, and he saw that she was against him and lifted his spear.

“You die; as Loka died, because of the word which the lizard of fire brought to me,” he said, his voice very low, and his shoulder hunched back for the throw.

“I am Loka!” said the girl, and he looked and his jaw dropped. For she was truly Loka, the woman he had killed. Loka, with her sly eyes and long fingers. And she had Loka’s way of putting a red flower behind her ear, and Loka’s long, satiny legs.

“O ko!” he said in distress, and dropped his spear.

Agasaka bent in the middle and picked it up and in that moment became herself again. There was no flower and her fingers were shorter, and where the sly smile had been was the gravity of death.

“This is my magic,” she said. “Now walk before me, Aliki, killer of Loka, for I am not made for love, but for strange power.”

Without a word the bemused man walked back the way he had come and Agasaka followed, and, following, felt the edge of the spear’s broad blade.… Though she touched lightly there was a line of blood on her thumb where blade and skin had met. The wood was growing dark, the wind was alternately a shriek and a whimper of sound.

Near the pool at the edge of the forest, she swung the spear backward over her left shoulder as a cavalry soldier would swing his sword, and he half-turned at the sound of the whistle it made.…

The first wife of her brother was by the pool gathering manioc root from a place where it had been left to soak — the head of Aliki fell at her feet as the first flash of lightning lit the gloom of the world.…

The sun was four hours old when a river gunboat, a white and glittering thing, came round the bluff which is called The Fish, because of its shape. The black waters of the river were piled up around its bows, a glassy hillock of water, tinged red at its edges, for the Zaire was driving against a six-knot current. Every river from the Isisi to the Mokalibi was in spate, and there were sand shoals, where deeps had been, and deeps in the places where the crocodiles had slept open-mouthed the last time Mr. Commissioner Sanders had come that way.

He stood by the steersman, a slim and dapper figure in spotless white, his pith helmet at a rakish angle, for an elephant fly had bitten him on the forehead the night before, and the lump it had induced was painful to the touch. Between his regular white teeth was a long black cheroot. He had breakfasted and an orderly was clearing away the silver coffee pot and the fruit plates. Overhead the sky was a burning blue, but the glass was falling with alarming rapidity and he desired the safe harborage of a deep bank and the shelter of high trees which a little bay south of Chimbiri would give to him.

“Lo’ba, ko’lo ka! A fathom of water by the mercy of God!”

The sleepy-eyed boy sitting in the bow of the boat drew up his wet sounding-rod.

Sanders’s hand shot out to the handle of the telegraph and pulled,-and Yoka the engineer sent a clanging acknowledgement.

“Half a fathom.”

Thump!

The boat slowed of itself, its wheel threshing astern, but the nose was in sand and a side swinging current drove the stem round until it was broadside to the sand-reef. Then, as the wheel reversed, the Zaire began to move to wards the right bank of the river, skirting the shoal until the nose found the deep water of the river again.

“Lord,” said the steersman, virtuously annoyed, “this bank has come up from hell, for it has never been here since I was without clothing.”

“Think only of the river, man,” said Sanders, not inclined for gossip.

•   •   •   •   •   •

And now above the tree tops ahead, Sanders saw the rolling smoke of clouds, yellow clouds that tumbled and tossed, and threw out tawny banners before the wind.

And the still surface of the river was ripped into little white shreds that leapt and scattered in spray. Sanders moved his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, took it out, looked at it regretfully and threw it over the side. His servant was behind him with an oilskin invitingly held; he struggled into the coat, passed his helmet back and took in exchange the sou’wester which he fastened under his chin. The heat was intolerable. The storm was driving a furnace blast of hot air to herald its fury. He was wet to the skin, his clothes sticking to him.

A ribbon of blinding light leapt across the sky, and split into a tracery of branches. The explosion of the thunder was deafening, it seemed as if heavy weight was pressing down on his head; again the flash, and again and again. Now it showed bluely on either bank, vivid blue streaks of light that ran jaggedly from sky to earth. The yellow clouds had become black; the darkness of night was upon the world, a darkness intensified by the ghastly sideways light that came from a distant horizon where the clouds were broken.

“Port,” said Sanders curtly. “Now starboard again — now port!”

They had reached the shelter of the bank as the first rain fell. Sanders sent a dozen men overboard with the fore and aft hawser and made fast to the big gums that grew down to the riverside.

In a second the deck was running with water and the Commissioner’s white shoes had turned first to dove-gray and then to slate. He sent for Yoka the engineer, who was also his headman.

“Put out another hawser and keep a full head of steam.” He spoke in coast Arabic, which is a language allowing of many nice distinctions.

“Lord, shall I sound the oopa-oopa?” he asked. “For I see that these thieving Akasava people are afraid to come out into the rain to welcome your lordship.”

Sanders shook his head.

“They will come in their time — the village is a mile away and they would not hear your oopa-oopa!” he said, and went to his cabin to recover his breath. A ninety-knot wind had been blowing into his teeth for ten minutes, and ten minutes is a long time when you are trying to breathe.

The cabin had two long windows, one at each side. That to the left above the settee on which he dropped, gave him a view of the forest path along which, sooner or later, a villager would come and inevitably carry a message to the chief.

The lightning was still incessant; the rain came down in such volume that he might well think he had anchored beneath a small waterfall; but the light had changed, and ahead the black of clouds had become a gray opacity.

Sanders pulled open the doors he had closed behind him; the wind was gusty but weaker. He reached out for a cheroot and lit it, patient to wait. The river was running eight knots; he would need hand-towing to the beach of the village. He hoped they had stacked wood for him. The Chimbiri folk were lazy, and the last time he had tied they showed him a wood stack — green logs and few of them.

His eyes sought the river-side path — and at the critical moment. For he saw eight men walking two and two and they carried on their shoulders a trussed figure.

An electric chrysanthemum burst into blinding bloom as he leapt to the bank — its dazzling petals, twisting every way through the dark clouds, made light enough to see the burden very clearly, long before he reached the path to stand squarely in the way of eight sullen men and the riff-raff which had defied the storm to follow at a distance.

“O men,” said Sanders softly — he showed his teeth when he talked that way — “who are you that you put the ghost mark on this woman’s face?”

For the face of their passenger was daubed white with clay. None spoke: he saw their toes wriggling, all save those of one man, and him he addressed.

“M’suru, son of N’kema, what woman is this?”

M’suru cleared his throat.

“Lord, this woman is the daughter of my own mother; she killed Aliki, also she killed first my wife Loka.”

“Who saw this?”

“Master, my first wife, who is a true woman to me since her lover was drowned, she saw the head of Aliki fall. Also she heard Agasaka say, ‘Go, man, where I sent Loka, as you know best, who saw me slay her.’”

Sanders was not impressed.

“Let loose this woman that she may stand in my eyes,” he said, and they untied the girl and by his order wiped the joke of death from her face.

“Tell me,” said Sanders.

She spoke very simply and her story was good. Yet…

“Bring me the woman who heard her say these evil things.”

The wife was found in the tail of the procession and came forward important … frightened … for the cold eyes of Sanders were unnerving. But she was voluble when she had discovered her voice.

•   •   •   •   •   •

The man in the streaming oilskins listened, his head bent. Agasaka, the slim woman, stood grave, unconscious of shame — the grass girdle had gone and she was as her mother had first seen her. Presently the first wife came to the end of her story.

“Sandi, this is the truth, and if I speak a lie may the long-ones take me to the bottom of the river and feed me to the snakes.”

Sanders, watching her, saw the brown skin go dull and gray; saw the mouth open in shocking fear.

What he did not see was the “long one,” the yellow crocodile that was creeping through the grass toward the perjurer, his little eyes gleaming, his wet mouth open to show the cruel white spikes of teeth.

Only the first wife of M’suru saw this, and fell screaming and writhing at her husband’s feet, clasping his knees.

Sanders said nothing, but heard much that was in contradiction of the earlier story she had told.

“Come with me, Agasaka, to my fine ship,” he said, for he knew that trouble might follow if the girl stayed with her people. Wars have started for less cause.

He took her to the Zaire; she followed meekly at his heels, though meekness was certainly not in her.

That night came a tired pigeon from headquarters, and Sanders, reading the message, was neither pleased nor sorry.

High officials, especially the armchair men, worried him a little, but those he had met were such charming and understanding gentlemen that he had lost some of his fear of them. What worried him more were the reports which reached him from reliable sources of Agasaka’s strange powers. He had seen many queer things on the river; the wonder of the lokali that hollowed the tree trunk by which messages might be relayed across a continent was still something of a wonder to him. Magic inexplicable, sometimes revolting, was an every day phenomenon. Some of it was crude hypnotism, but there were higher things beyond his understanding. Many of these had come down through the ages from Egypt and beyond; Abraham had brought practices from the desert lands about Babylon which were religious rites amongst people who had no written language.

The Zaire was steaming for home the next day when he sent for Abiboo, his orderly.

“Bring me this woman of Chimbiri,” he said, and they brought her from the little store-cabin where she was both guest and prisoner.

“They tell me this and that about you, Agasaka,” he said, giving chapter and verse of his authority.

“Lord, it is true,” said Agasaka when he had finished. “These things my father taught me, as his father taught him. For, Lord, he was the son of M’kufusu, the son of Bonfongu-m’lini, the son of N’sambi…”

She recited thirty generations before he stopped her — roughly four hundred years.

Even Sanders was staggered, though he had once met an old man of the N’gombi who had lived in the days of Saladin.

“Show me your magic, woman,” he said, and to his surprise she shook her head.

“Lord, this one magic only comes when I am afraid.”

Sanders dropped his hand to his Browning and half drew it from its leather holster.

He was sitting under an awning spread over the bridge. The steersman was at the wheel, in the bow of the kano boy with his long sounding-rod. Purposely he did not look at the woman, fixing his eyes on the steersman’s back.

His hand had scarcely closed on the brown grip when, almost at his feet, he saw the one thing in the world that he loathed — an English puff adder, mottled and swollen, its head thrown back to strike.

Twice his pistol banged … the steersman skipped to cover with a yell and left the Zaire yawning in the strong current.

There was nothing … nothing but two little holes in the deck, so close together that they overlapped. Sanders sprang to the wheel and straightened the boat, and then, when the steersman had been called back and the sounding boy retrieved from the cover of the wood pile where he crouched and trembled Sanders returned to his chair, waving away Abiboo, who had arrived, rifle in hand, to the rescue of his master.

“Woman,” said Sanders quietly, “you may go back to your little house.”

And Agasaka went without the evidence of triumph a lesser woman might have felt. He had not looked at her … there was no mesmerism here.

He stooped down and examined the bullet holes, too troubled to feel foolish.

That afternoon he sent for her again and gave her chocolate to eat, talking of her father. She was sitting on the deck at his feet, and once, when he thought he had gained her confidence, he dropped his hand lightly on her head as he had dropped his hand on so many other young heads before.

The puff adder was there — within striking distance, his spade head thrown back, his coils rigid.

Sanders stared at the thing and did not move his hand, and then, through the shining body, he saw the deck planks, and the soft bitumen where plank joined plank, and then the viper vanished.

“You do not fear?” he asked gently.

“Lord … a little; but now I do not fear, for I know that you would not hurt women.”

The Zaire, with its strange passenger, came alongside the residency wharf two hours before sundown on the third day. Captain Hamilton was waiting, a fuming, angry man, for he had been the unwilling host of one who lacked something in manners.

•   •   •   •   •   •

A figure dressed in white stretched languidly in a deep chair, turned his head but did not trouble to rise. Still less was he inclined to exchange the cool of the broad veranda for the furnace of space open to a red-hot sun.

Sanders saw a white face that looked oddly dirty in contrast with the spotless purity of a duck jacket. Two deep, suspicious eyes, a long, untidy whip of hair lying lankly on a high forehead — a pink, almost bloodless mouth.

“You’re Sanders?”

Mr. Haben looked up at the trim figure.

“I am the Commissioner, sir,” said Sanders.

“Why weren’t you here to meet me — you knew that I was due?”

Sanders was more shocked than nettled by the tone. A coarse word in the mouth of a woman would have produced the same effect. Secretaries and under-secretaries of state were Godlike people who employed a macrology of their own, wrapping their reproofs in the silver tissue of stilted diction which dulled the sting of their rebukes.

“Do you hear me, sir?” he asked, impatiently.

Hamilton, standing by, was near to kicking him off the step.

“I heard you. I was on a visit to the Chimbiri country. No notice of your arrival or your pending arrival was received.”

Sanders spoke very carefully; he was staring down at the scowling Nickerson.

Mr. Haben had it on the tip of his tongue to give him the lie. There was, as the late Mrs. Haben had said, a streak of commonness in him; but there was a broader streak of discretion. The gun still hung at the Commissioner’s hip; the grip was shiny with use.

“H’m!” said Mr. Under-Secretary Haben, and allowed himself to relax in his chair.

He was clever enough, Sanders found; knew the inside story of the territories; was keen for information. He thought the country was not well run. The system was wrong, the taxes fell short of the highest possible index. In all ways his attitude was antagonistic. Commissioners were lazy people, intent on having a good time and “their shooting.” Sanders, who had never shot a wild beast in his life, save for the pot or to rid himself of a pressing danger, said nothing.

“A thoroughly nasty fellow,” said Hamilton.

But it was at dinner that he touched the zenith of his boorishness. The dinner was bad; he hated palm nut chop; sweet potatoes made him ill; the chicken was tough; the coffee vile. Happily he had brought his own cigars.

Lieutenant Tibbetts, second-in-command of the Houssas, spent that trying hour wondering what would happen to him if he leaned across the table and batted an Under-secretary with a cut-glass salt cellar.

Only Sanders showed no sign of annoyance. Not a muscle of his face moved when Mr. Nickerson Haben made the most unforgivable of all suggestions. He did this out of sheer ignorance and because of that streak of commonness which was his very own.

“A native woman is … a native woman,” said Sanders quietly. “Happily, I have only had gentlemen under my control, and that complication has never arisen.”

Mr. Haben smiled skeptically; he was sourest when he smiled.

“Very noble,” he said dryly, “and yet one has heard of such things happening.”

Hamilton was white with rage. Bones stared open-mouthed, like a boy who only dimly understood. The pale man asked a question and, to the amazement of the others, Sanders nodded.

“Yes, I brought a girl down from Chimbiri,” he said. “She is at present in the Houssa lines with the wife of Sergeant Abiboo. I hardly know what to do with her.”

“I suppose not,” more dryly yet. “A prisoner, I suppose?”

“N-no,” Sanders hesitated; seemed confused in Haben’s eyes. “She has a peculiar brand of magic which rather confounds me—”

Here Mr. Nickerson Haben laughed.

“That stuff!” he said contemptuously. “Let me see your magician.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

Bones was sent to fetch her — he swore loudly all the way across the dark square.

“That is what we complain about,” said Mr. Haben in the time of waiting. “You fellows are in the country so long that you get niggerized.” (Sanders winced. “Nigger” is a word you do not use in Africa.) “You absorb their philosophies and superstitions. Magic … good God!”

He waggled his long head hopelessly.

“My poor wife believed in the same rubbish — she came from one of the Southern States — had a black mammy who did wonderful things with chicken bones!…”

Sanders had not credited him with a wife. When he learned that the poor lady had died, he felt that much worse — things could happen to a woman.

“Appendicitis — an operation … fool of a doctor.…” Mr. Haben unbent so far as to scatter these personal items. “As I said before, you people — hum.…”

Agasaka stood in the doorway, “missionary dressed,” as they say. Her figure was concealed in a blue cotton “cloth” wrapped and pinned about her to the height of her breast.

“This is the lady, eh? Come here!” he beckoned her and she came to him. “Let us see her magic … speak to her!”

Sanders nodded.

“This man wishes to see your magic, Agasaka; he is a great chief amongst my people.”

She did not answer.

“Not bad looking,” said Nickerson, and did a thing which amazed these men, for he rose and, putting his hand under her chin, raised her face to his. And there was something in his queer, hard eyes that she read, as we may read the printed word. The streak of commonness was abominably broad and raw-edged.

“You’re not so bad for a nig.…”

He dropped his hands suddenly; they saw his face pucker hideously. He was looking at a woman, a handsome woman with deep shadows under her eyes. It was the face he often saw and always tried to forget. A dead white face. She wore a silk nightdress, rather high to the throat.

And she spoke.

“Won’t you wait until the nurse comes back, Nick? I don’t think I ought to drink ice-water … the doctor says…”

“Damn the doctor!” said Nickerson Haben between his teeth, and the three men heard him, saw his hand go up holding an imaginary glass, saw his eyes fall to the level of an imaginary pillow.

“I’m sick of you … sick of you! Make a new will, eh? Like hell!”

He stared and stared, and then slowly turned his drawn face to Sanders.

“My wife…” he pointed to space and mumbled the words. “I … I killed her,”

And then he realized that he was Nickerson Haben, Under-Secretary of State, and these were three very unimportant officials — and a black woman who was regarding him gravely. But this discovery of his was just the flash of a second too late.

“Go to your room, sir,” said Sanders, and spent the greater part of the night composing a letter to the Foreign Secretary.

“Everybody’s” magazine, December 1925,

THE HAUNTER OF THE RING

Robert E. Howard

1934

As I entered John Kirowan’s study I was too much engrossed in my own thoughts to notice, at first, the haggard appearance of his visitor, a big, handsome young fellow well known to me.

“Hello, Kirowan,” I greeted. “Hello, Gordon. Haven’t seen you for quite a while. How’s Evelyn?” And before he could answer, still on the crest of the enthusiasm which had brought me there, I exclaimed: “Look here, you fellows, I’ve got something that will make you stare! I got it from that robber Ahmed Mektub, and I paid high for it, but it’s worth it. Look!” From under my coat I drew the jewel-hilted Afghan dagger which had fascinated me as a collector of rare weapons.

Kirowan, familiar with my passion, showed only polite interest, but the effect on Gordon was shocking.

With a strangled cry he sprang up and backward, knocking the chair clattering to the floor. Fists clenched and countenance livid he faced me, crying: “Keep back! Get away from me, or—”

I was frozen in my tracks.

“What in the—” I began bewilderedly, when Gordon, with another amazing change of attitude, dropped into a chair and sank his head in his hands. I saw his heavy shoulders quiver. I stared helplessly from him to Kirowan, who seemed equally dumbfounded.

“Is he drunk?” I asked.

Kirowan shook his head, and filling a brandy glass, offered it to the man. Gordon looked up with haggard eyes, seized the drink and gulped it down like a man half famished. Then he straightened up and looked at us shamefacedly.

“I’m sorry I went off my handle, O’Donnel” he said. “It was the unexpected shock of you drawing that knife.”

“Well,” I retorted, with some disgust, “I suppose you thought I was going to stab you with it!”

“Yes, I did!” Then, at the utterly blank expression on my face, he added: “Oh, I didn’t actually think that; at least, I didn’t reach that conclusion by any process of reasoning. It was just the blind primitive instinct of a hunted man, against whom anyone’s hand may be turned.”

His strange words and the despairing way he said them sent a queer shiver of nameless apprehension down my spine.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded uneasily. “Hunted? For what? You never committed a crime in your life.”

“Not in this life, perhaps,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“What if retribution for a black crime committed in a previous life were hounding me?” he muttered.

“That’s nonsense,” I snorted.

“Oh, is it?” he exclaimed, stung. “Did you ever hear of my great-grandfather, Sir Richard Gordon of Argyle?”

“Sure; but what’s that got to do with—”

“You’ve seen his portrait: doesn’t it resemble me?”

“Well, yes,” I admitted, “except that your expression is frank and wholesome whereas his is crafty and cruel.”

“He murdered his wife,” answered Gordon. “Suppose the theory of reincarnation were true? Why shouldn’t a man suffer in one life for a crime committed in another?”

“You mean you think you are the reincarnation of your great-grandfather? Of all the fantastic — well, since he killed his wife, I suppose you’ll be expecting Evelyn to murder you!” This last was delivered in searing sarcasm, as I thought of the sweet, gentle girl Gordon had married. His answer stunned me.

“My wife,” he said slowly, “has tried to kill me three times in the past week.”

There was no reply to that. I glanced helplessly at John Kirowan. He sat in his customary position, chin resting on his strong, slim hands; his white face was immobile, but his dark eyes gleamed with interest. In the silence I heard a clock ticking like a death-watch.

“Tell us the full story, Gordon,” suggested Kirowan, and his calm, even voice was like a knife that cut a strangling, relieving the unreal tension.

“You know we’ve been married less than a year,” Gordon began, plunging into the tale as though he were bursting for utterance; his words stumbled and tripped over one another. “All couples have spats, of course, but we’ve never had any real quarrels. Evelyn is the best natured girl in the world.”

“The first thing out of the ordinary occurred about a week ago. We had driven up in the mountains, left the car, and were wandering around picking wild flowers. At last we came to a steep slope, some thirty feet in height, and Evelyn called my attention to the flowers which grew thickly at the foot. I was looking over the edge and wondering if I could climb down without tearing my clothes to ribbons, when I felt a violent shove from behind that toppled me over.

“If it had been a sheer cliff, I’d have broken my neck. As it was, I went tumbling down, rolling and sliding, and brought up at the bottom scratched and bruised, with my garments in rags. I looked up and saw Evelyn staring down, apparently frightened half out of her wits.

“‘Oh Jim!” she cried. “Are you hurt? How came you to fall?’

“It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that there was such a thing as carrying a joke too far, but these words checked me. I decided that she must have stumbled against me unintentionally, and actually didn’t know it was she who precipitated me down the slope.”

“So I laughed it off, and went home. She made a great fuss over me, insisted on swabbing my scratches with iodine, and lectured me for my carelessness! I hadn’t the heart to tell her it was her fault.”

“But four days later, the next thing happened. I was walking along our driveway, when I saw her coming up it in the automobile. I stepped out on the grass to let her by, as there isn’t any curb along the driveway. She was smiling as she approached me, and slowed down the car, as if to speak to me. Then, just before she reached me, a most horrible change came over her expression. Without warning the car leaped at me like a living thing as she drove her foot down on the accelerator. Only a frantic leap backward saved me from being ground under the wheels. The car shot across the lawn and crashed into a tree. I ran to it and found Evelyn dazed and hysterical, but unhurt. She babbled of losing control of the machine.”

“I carried her into the house and sent for Doctor Donnelly. He found nothing seriously wrong with her, and attributed her dazed condition to fright and shock. Within half an hour she regained her normal senses, but she’s refused to touch the wheel since. Strange to say, she seemed less frightened on her own account than on mine. She seemed vaguely to know that she’d nearly run me down, and grew hysterical again when she spoke of it. Yet she seemed to take it for granted that I knew the machine had got out of her control. But I distinctly saw her wrench the wheel around, and I know she deliberately tried to hit me — why, God alone knows.”

“Still I refused to let my mind follow the channel it was getting into. Evelyn had never given any evidence of any psychological weakness or ‘nerves’; she’s always been a level-headed girl, wholesome and natural. But I began to think she was subject to crazy impulses. Most of us have felt the impulse to leap from tall buildings. And sometimes a person feels a blind, childish and utterly reasonless urge to harm someone. We pick up a pistol, and the thought suddenly enters our mind how easy it would be to send our friend, who sits smiling and unaware, into eternity with a touch of the trigger. Of course we don’t do it, but the impulse is there. So I thought perhaps some lack of mental discipline made Evelyn susceptible to these unguided impulses, and unable to control them.”

“Nonsense,” I broke in. “I’ve known her since she was a baby. If she has any such trait, she’s developed it since she married you.”

It was an unfortunate remark. Gordon caught it up with a despairing gleam in his eyes. “That’s just it — since she married me! It’s a curse — a black, ghastly curse, crawling like a serpent out of the past! I tell you, I was Richard Gordon and she — she was Lady Elizabeth, his murdered wife!” His voice sank to a blood-freezing whisper.

I shuddered; it is an awful thing to look upon the ruin of a keen clean brain, and such I was certain that I surveyed in James Gordon. Why or how, or by what grisly chance it had come about I could not say, but I was certain the man was mad.

“You spoke of three attempts.” It was John Kirowan’s voice again, calm and stable amid the gathering webs of horror and unreality.

“Look here!” Gordon lifted, his arm, drew back the sleeve and displayed a bandage, the cryptic significance of which was intolerable.

“I came into the bathroom this morning looking for my razor,” he said. “I found Evelyn just on the point of using my best shaving implement for some feminine purpose — to cut out a pattern, or something. Like many women she can’t seem to realize the difference between a razor and a butcher-knife or a pair of shears.

“I was a bit irritated, and I said: ‘Evelyn, how many times have I told you not to use my razors for such things? Bring it here; I’ll give you my pocket-knife.’

“‘I — I — I’m sorry, Jim,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know it would hurt the razor. Here it is.’

“She was advancing, holding the open razor toward me. I reached for it — then something warned me. It was the same look in her eyes, just as I had seen it the day she nearly ran over me. That was all that saved my life, for I instinctively threw up my hand just as she slashed at my throat with all her power. The blade gashed my arm as you see, before I caught her wrist. For an instant she fought me like a wild thing; her slender body was taut as steel beneath my hands. Then she went limp and the look in her eyes was replaced by a strange dazed expression. The razor slipped out of her fingers.”

“I let go of her and she stood swaying as if about to faint. I went to the lavatory — my wound was bleeding in a beastly fashion — and the next thing I heard her cry out, and she was hovering over me.

“‘Jim!” she cried. “How did you cut yourself so terribly?’”

Gordon shook his head and sighed heavily. “I guess I was a bit out of my head. My self-control snapped.

“‘Don’t keep up this pretense, Evelyn,’ I said. ‘God knows what’s got into you, but you know as well as I that you’ve tried to kill me three times in the past week.’

“She recoiled as if I’d struck her, catching at her breast and staring at me as if at a ghost. She didn’t say a word — and just what I said I don’t remember. But when I finished I left her standing there white and still as a marble statue. I got my arm bandaged at a drug store, and then came over here, not knowing what else to do.

“Kirowan — O’Donnel — it’s damnable! Either my wife is subject to fits of insanity—” He choked on the word. “No, I can’t believe it. Ordinarily her eyes are too clear and level — too utterly sane. But every time she has an opportunity to harm me, she seems to become a temporary maniac.”

He beat his fists together in his impotence and agony.

“But it isn’t insanity! I used to work in a psychopathic ward, and I’ve seen every form of mental unbalance. My wife is not insane!”

“Then what—” I began, but he turned haggard eyes on me.

“Only one alternative remains,” he answered. “It is the old curse — from the days when I walked the earth with a heart as black as hell’s darkest pits, and did evil in the sight of man and of God. She knows, in fleeting snatches of memory. People have seen before — have glimpsed forbidden things in momentary liftings of the veil, which bars life from life. She was Elizabeth Douglas, the ill-fated bride of Richard Gordon, whom he murdered in jealous frenzy, and the vengeance is hers. I shall die by her hands, as it was meant to be. And she—” he bowed his head in his hands.

“Just a moment.” It was Kirowan again. “You have mentioned a strange look in your wife’s eyes. What sort of a look? Was it of maniacal frenzy?”

Gordon shook his head. “It was an utter blankness. All the life and intelligence simply vanished, leaving her eyes dark wells of emptiness.”

Kirowan nodded, and asked a seemingly irrelevant question. “Have you any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You forget Joseph Roelocke,” I said. “I can’t imagine that elegant sophisticate going to the trouble of doing you actual harm, but I have an idea that if he could discomfort you without any physical effort on his part, he’d do it with a right good will.”

Kirowan turned on me an eye that had suddenly become piercing.

“And who is this Joseph Roelocke?”

“A young exquisite who came into Evelyn’s life and nearly rushed her off her feet for a while. But in the end she came back to her first love — Gordon here. Roelocke took it pretty hard. For all his suaveness there’s a streak of violence and passion in the man that might have cropped out but for his infernal indolence and blase indifference.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to be said against Roelocke,” interrupted Gordon impatiently. “He must know that Evelyn never really loved him. He merely fascinated her temporarily with his romantic Latin air.”

“Not exactly Latin, Jim,” I protested. “Roelocke does look foreign, but it isn’t Latin. It’s almost Oriental.”

“Well, what has Roelocke to do with this matter?” Gordon snarled with the irascibility of frayed nerves. “He’s been as friendly as a man could be since Evelyn and I were married. In fact, only a week ago he sent her a ring which he said was a peace-offering and a belated wedding gift; said that after all, her jilting him was a greater misfortune for her than it was for him — the conceited jackass!”

“A ring?” Kirowan had suddenly come to life; it was as if something hard and steely had been sounded in him. “What sort of a ring?”

“Oh, a fantastic thing — copper, made like a scaly snake coiled three times, with its tail in its mouth and yellow jewels for eyes. I gather he picked it up somewhere in Hungary.”

“He has traveled a great deal in Hungary?”

Gordon looked surprised at this questioning but answered: “Why, apparently the man’s traveled everywhere. I put him down as the pampered son of a millionaire. He never did any work, so far as I know.”

“He’s a great student,” I put in. “I’ve been up to his apartment several times, and I never saw such a collection of books—”

Gordon leaped to his feet with an oath, “Are we all crazy?” he cried. “I came up here hoping to get some help — and you fellows fall to talking of Joseph Roelocke. I’ll go to Doctor Donnelly—”

“Wait!” Kirowan stretched out a detaining hand. “If you don’t mind, we’ll go over to your house. I’d like to talk to your wife.”

Gordon dumbly acquiesced. Harried and haunted by grisly forebodings, he knew not which way to turn, and welcomed anything that promised aid.

We drove over in his car, and scarcely a word was spoken on the way. Gordon was sunk in moody ruminations, and Kirowan had withdrawn himself into some strange aloof domain of thought beyond my ken. He sat like a statue, his dark vital eyes staring into space, not blankly, but as one who looks with understanding into some far realm.

Though I counted the man as my best friend, I knew but little of his past. He had come into my life as abruptly and unannounced as Joseph Roelocke had come into the life of Evelyn Ash. I had met him at the Wanderer’s Club, which is composed of the drift of the world, travelers, eccentrics, and all manner of men whose paths lie outside the beaten tracks of life. I had been attracted to him, and intrigued by his strange powers and deep knowledge. I vaguely knew that he was the black sheep younger son of a titled Irish family, and that he had walked many strange ways. Gordon’s mention of Hungary struck a chord in my memory; one phase of his life Kirowan had once let drop fragmentarily. I only knew that he had once suffered a bitter grief and a savage wrong, and that it had been in Hungary. But the nature of the episode I did not know.

At Gordon’s house Evelyn met us calmly, showing inner agitation only by the over-restraint of her manner. I saw the beseeching look she stole at her husband. She was a slender, soft-spoken girl, whose dark eyes were always vibrant and alight with emotion. That child try to murder her adored husband? The idea was monstrous. Again I was convinced that James Gordon himself was deranged.

Following Kirowan’s lead, we made a pretense of small talk, as if we had casually dropped in, but I felt that Evelyn was not deceived. Our conversation rang false and hollow, and presently Kirowan said: “Mrs. Gordon, that is a remarkable ring you are wearing. Do you mind if I look at it?”

“I’ll have to give you my hand,” she laughed. “I’ve been trying to get it off today, and it won’t come off.”

She held out her slim white hand for Kirowan’s inspection, and his face was immobile as he looked at the metal snake that coiled about her slim finger. He did not touch it. I myself was aware of an unaccountable repulsion. There was something almost obscene about that dull copperish reptile wound about the girl’s white finger.

“It’s evil-looking, isn’t it?” She involuntarily shivered. “At first I liked it, but now I can hardly bear to look at it. If I can get it off I intend to return it to Joseph — Mr. Roelocke.”

Kirowan was about to make some reply, when the doorbell rang. Gordon jumped as if shot, and Evelyn rose quickly.

“I’ll answer it, Jim — I know who it is.”

She returned an instant later with two more mutual friends, those inseparable cronies, Doctor Donnelly, whose burly body, jovial manner and booming voice were combined with as keen a brain as any in the profession, and Bill Bain, elderly, lean, wiry, acidly witty. Both were old friends of the Ash family. Doctor Donnelly had ushered Evelyn into the world, and Bain was always Uncle Bill to her.

“Howdy, Jim! Howdy, Mr. Kirowan!” roared Donnelly. “Hey, O’Donnel, have you got any firearms with you? Last time your nearly blew my head off showing me an old flintlock pistol that wasn’t supposed to be loaded!”

“Doctor Donnelly!”

We all turned. Evelyn was standing beside a wide table, holding it as if for support. Her face was white. Our badinage ceased instantly. A sudden tension was in the air.

“Doctor Donnelly,” she repeated, holding her voice steady by an effort, “I sent for you and Uncle Bill — for the same reason for which I know Jim has brought Mr. Kirowan and Michael. There is a matter Jim and I can no longer deal with alone. There is something between us — something black and ghastly and terrible.”

“What are you talking about, girl?” All the levity was gone from Donnelly’s great voice.

“My husband—” She choked, then went blindly on: “My husband has accused me of trying to murder him.”

The silence that fell was broken by Bain’s sudden and energetic rise. His eyes blazed and his fists quivered.

“You young pup!” he shouted at Gordon. “I’ll knock the living daylights—”

“Sit down, Bill!” Donnelly’s huge hand crushed his smaller companion back into his chair. “No use goin’ off half cocked. Go ahead, honey.”

“We need help. We can not carry this thing alone.” A shadow crossed her comely face. “This morning Jim’s arm was badly cut. He said I did it. I don’t know. I was handing him the razor. Then I must have fainted. At least, everything faded away. When I came to myself he was washing his arm in the lavatory — and — and he accused me of trying to kill him.”

“Why, the young fool!” barked the belligerent Bain. “Hasn’t he sense enough to know that if you did cut him, it was an accident?”

“Shut up, won’t you?” snorted Donnelly. “Honey, did you say you fainted? That isn’t like you.”

“I’ve been having fainting spells,” she answered. “The first time was when we were in the mountains and Jim fell down a cliff. We were standing on the edge — then everything went black, and when my sight cleared, he was rolling down the slope.” She shuddered at the recollection.

“Then when I lost control of the car and it crashed into the tree. You remember — Jim called you over.”

Doctor Donnelly nodded his head ponderously.

“I don’t remember you ever having fainting spells before.”

“But Jim says I pushed him over the cliff!” she cried hysterically. “He says I tried to run him down in the car! He says I purposely slashed him with the razor!”

Doctor Donnelly turned perplexedly, toward the wretched Gordon.

“How about it, son?”

“God help me,” Gordon burst out in agony; “it’s true!”

“Why, you lying hound!” It was Bain who gave tongue, leaping again to his feet. “If you want a divorce, why don’t you get it in a decent way, instead of resorting to these despicable tactics—”

“Damn you!” roared Gordon, lunging up, and losing control of himself completely. “If you say that I’ll tear your jugular out!”

Evelyn screamed; Donnelly grabbed Bain ponderously and banged him back into his chair with no overly gentle touch, and Kirowan laid a hand lightly on Gordon’s shoulder. The man seemed to crumple into himself. He sank back into his chair and held out his hands gropingly toward his wife.

“Evelyn,” he said, his voice thick with laboring emotion, “you know I love you. I feel like a dog. But God help me, it’s true. If we go on this way, I’ll be a dead man, and you—”

“Don’t say it!” she screamed. “I know you wouldn’t lie to me, Jim. If you say I tried to kill you, I know I did. But I swear, Jim, I didn’t do it consciously. Oh, I must be going mad! That’s why my dreams have been so wild and terrifying lately—”

“Of what have you dreamed, Mrs. Gordon?” asked Kirowan gently.

She pressed her hands to her temples and stared dully at him, as if only half comprehending.

“A black thing,” she muttered. “A horrible faceless black thing that mows and mumbles and paws over me with apish hands. I dream of it every night. And in the daytime I try to kill the only man I ever loved. I’m going mad! Maybe I’m already crazy and don’t know it.”

“Calm yourself, honey.” To Doctor Donnelly, with all his science, it was only another case of feminine hysteria. His matter-of-fact voice seemed to soothe her, and she sighed and drew a weary hand through her damp locks.

“We’ll talk this all over, and everything’s goin’ to be okay,” he said, drawing a thick cigar from his vest pocket. “Gimme a match, honey.”

She began mechanically to feel about the table, and just as mechanically Gordon said: “There are matches in the drawer, Evelyn.”

She opened the drawer and began groping in it, when suddenly, as if struck by recollection and intuition, Gordon sprang up, white-faced, and shouted: “No, no! Don’t open that drawer — don’t—”

Even as he voiced that urgent cry, she stiffened, as if at the feel of something in the drawer. Her change of expression held us all frozen, even Kirowan. The vital intelligence vanished from her eyes like a blown-out flame, and into them came the look Gordon had described as blank. The term was descriptive. Her beautiful eyes were dark wells of emptiness, as if the soul had been withdrawn from behind them.

Her hand came out of the drawer holding a pistol, and she fired point-blank. Gordon reeled with a groan and went down, blood starting from his head. For a flashing instant she looked down stupidly at the smoking gun in her hand, like one suddenly waking from a nightmare. Then her wild scream of agony smote our ears.

“Oh God, I’ve killed him! Jim! Jim!”

She reached him before any of us, throwing herself on her knees and cradling his bloody head in her arms, while she sobbed in an unbearable passion of horror and anguish. The emptiness was gone from her eyes; they were alive and dilated with grief and terror.

I was making toward my prostrate friend with Donnelly and Bain, but Kirowan caught my arm. His face was no longer immobile; his eyes glittered with a controlled savagery.

“Leave him to them!” he snarled. “We are hunters, not healers! Lead me to the house of Joseph Roelocke!”

I did not question him. We drove there in Gordon’s car. I had the wheel, and something about the grim face of my companion caused me to hurl the machine recklessly through the traffic. I had the sensation of being part of a tragic drama which was hurtling with headlong speed toward a terrible climax.

I wrenched the car to a grinding halt at the curb before the building where Roelocke lived in a bizarre apartment high above the city. The very elevator that shot us skyward seemed imbued with something of Kirowan’s driving urge for haste. I pointed out Roelocke’s door, and he cast it open without knocking and shouldered his way in. I was close at his heels.

Roelocke, in a dressing-gown of Chinese silk worked with dragons, was lounging on a divan, puffing quickly at a cigarette. He sat up, overturning a wine-glass which stood with a half-filled bottle at his elbow.

Before Kirowan could speak, I burst out with our news. “James Gordon has been shot!”

He sprang to his feet. “Shot? When? When did she kill him?”

“She?” I glared in bewilderment. “How did you know—”

With a steely hand Kirowan thrust me aside, and as the men faced each other, I saw recognition flare up in Roelocke’s face. They made a strong contrast: Kirowan, tall, pale with some white-hot passion; Roelocke, slim, darkly handsome, with the saracenic arch of his slim brows above his black eyes. I realized that whatever else occurred, it lay between those two men. They were not strangers; I could sense like a tangible thing the hate that lay between them.

“John Kirowan!” softly whispered Roelocke.

“You remember me, Yosef Vrolok!” Only an iron control kept Kirowan’s voice steady. The other merely stared at him without speaking.

“Years ago,” said Kirowan more deliberately, “when we delved in the dark mysteries together in Budapest, I saw whither you were drifting. I drew back; I would not descend to the foul depths of forbidden occultism and diabolism to which you sank. And because I would not, you despised me, and you robbed me of the only woman I ever loved; you turned her against me by means of your vile arts, and then you degraded and debauched her, sank her into your own foul slime. I had killed you with my hands then, Yosef Vrolok — vampire by nature as well as by name that you are — but your arts protected you from physical vengeance. But you have trapped yourself at last!”

Kirowan’s voice rose in fierce exultation. All his cultured restraint had been swept away from him, leaving a primitive, elemental man, raging and gloating over a hated foe.

“You sought the destruction of James Gordon and his wife, because she unwittingly escaped your snare; you—”

Roelocke shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “You are mad. I have not seen the Gordons for weeks. Why blame me for their family troubles?”

Kirowan snarled. “Liar as always. What did you say just now when O’Donnel told you Gordon had been shot? ‘When did she kill him?’ You were expecting to hear that the girl had killed her husband. Your psychic powers had told you that a climax was close at hand. You were nervously awaiting news of the success of your devilish scheme.

“But I did not need a slip of your tongue to recognize your handiwork. I knew as soon as I saw the ring on Evelyn Gordon’s finger; the ring she could not remove; the ancient and accursed ring of Thoth-amon, handed down by foul cults of sorcerers since the days of forgotten Stygia, I knew that ring was yours, and I knew by what ghastly rites you came to possess it. And I knew its power. Once she put it on her finger, in her innocence and ignorance, she was in your power. By your black magic you summoned the black elemental spirit, the haunter of the ring, out of the gulfs of Night and the ages. Here in your accursed chamber you performed unspeakable rituals to drive Evelyn Gordon’s soul from her body, and to cause that body to be possessed by that godless sprite from outside the human universe.

“She was too clean and wholesome, her love for her husband too strong, for the fiend to gain complete and permanent possession of her body; only for brief instants could it drive her own spirit into the void and animate her form. But that was enough for your purpose. But you have brought ruin upon yourself by your vengeance!”

Kirowan’s voice rose to a feline screech.

“What was the price demanded by the fiend you drew from the Pits? Ha, you blench! Yosef Vrolok is not the only man to have learned forbidden secrets! After I left Hungary, a broken man, I took up again the study of the black arts, to trap you, you cringing serpent! I explored the ruins of Zimbabwe, the lost mountains of inner Mongolia, and the forgotten jungle islands of the southern seas. I learned what sickened my soul so that I forswore occultism for ever — but I learned of the black spirit that deals death by the hand of a beloved one, and is controlled by a master of magic.

“But, Yosef Vrolok, you are not an adept! You have not the power to control the fiend you have invoked. And you have sold your soul!”

The Hungarian tore at his collar as if it were a strangling noose. His face had changed, as if a mask had dropped away; he looked much older.

“You lie!” he panted. “I did not promise him my soul—”

“I do not lie!” Kirowan’s shriek was shocking in its wild exultation. “I know the price a man must pay for calling forth the nameless shape that roams the gulfs of Darkness. Look! There in the corner behind you! A nameless, sightless thing is laughing — is mocking you! It has fulfilled its bargain, and it has come for you, Yosef Vrolok!”

“No! No!” shrieked Vrolok, tearing his limp collar away from his sweating throat. His composure had crumpled, and his demoralization was sickening to see. “I tell you it was not my soul — I promised it a soul, but not my soul — he must take the soul of the girl, or of James Gordon.”

“Fool!” roared Kirowan. “Do you think he could take the souls of innocence? That he would not know they were beyond his reach? The girl and the youth he could kill; their souls were not his to take or yours to give. But your black soul is not beyond his reach, and he will have his wage. Look! He is materializing behind you! He is growing out of thin air!”

Was it the hypnosis inspired by Kirowan’s burning words that caused me to shudder and grow cold, to feel an icy chill that was not of earth pervade the room? Was it a trick of light and shadow that seemed to produce the effect of a black anthropomorphic shadow on the wall behind the Hungarian? No, by heaven! It grew, it swelled — Vrolok had not turned. He stared at Kirowan with eyes starting from his head, hair standing stiffly on his scalp, sweat dripping from his livid face.

Kirowan’s cry started shudders down my spine.

“Look behind you, fool! I see him! He has come! He is here! His grisly mouth gapes in awful laughter! His misshapen paws reach for you!”

And then at last Vrolok wheeled, with an awful shriek, throwing his arms above his head in a gesture of wild despair. And for one brain-shattering instant he was blotted out by a great black shadow — Kirowan grasped my arm and we fled from that accursed chamber, blind with horror.

•   •   •   •   •   •

The same paper which bore a brief item telling of James Gordon having suffered a slight scalp-wound by the accidental discharge of a pistol in his home, headlined the sudden death of Joseph Roelocke, wealthy and eccentric clubman, in his sumptuous apartments — apparently from heart-failure.

I read it at breakfast, while I drank cup after cup of black coffee, from a hand that was not too steady, even after the lapse of a night. Across the table from me Kirowan likewise seemed to lack appetite. He brooded, as if he roamed again through bygone years.

“Gordon’s fantastic theory of reincarnation was wild enough,” I said at last. “But the actual facts were still more incredible. Tell me, Kirowan, was that last scene the result of hypnosis? Was it the power of your words that made me seem to see a black horror grow out of the air and rip Yosef Vrolok’s soul from his living body?”

He shook his head. “No human hypnotism would strike that black-hearted devil dead on the floor. No; there are beings outside the ken of common humanity, foul shapes of transcosmic evil. Such a one it was with which Vrolok dealt.”

“But how could it claim his soul?” I persisted. “If indeed such an awful bargain had been struck, it had not fulfilled its part, for James Gordon was not dead, but merely knocked senseless.”

“Vrolok did not know it,” answered Kirowan. “He thought that Gordon was dead, and I convinced him that he himself had been trapped, and was doomed. In his demoralization he fell easy prey to the thing he called forth. It, of course, was always watching for a moment of weakness on his part. The powers of Darkness never deal fairly with human beings; he who traffics with them is always cheated in the end.”

“It’s a mad nightmare,” I muttered. “But it seems to me, then, that you as much as anything else brought about Vrolok’s death.”

“It is gratifying to think so,” Kirowan answered. “Evelyn Gordon is safe now; and it is a small repayment for what he did to another girl, years ago, and in a far country.”

“Weird Tales”, June 1934