Chapter 2

Still nothing occurred
to really alarm her till about a month after her arrival. It was early
in the evening, soon after twilight, and she had gone down into one of
the cellars to look for a boot-jack, which the Admiral swore by all
that was holy must be found before supper. Placing the light she had
brought with her on a packing-case, she was groping about among the
boxes, when she perceived, to her astonishment, that the flame of the
candle had suddenly turned blue. She then felt icy cold, and was much
startled on hearing a loud clatter as of some metal instrument on the
stone floor in the far-off corner of the cellar. Glancing in the
direction of the noise, she saw, looking at her, two eyes--two
obliquely set, lurid, light eyes, full of the utmost devilry. Sick
with terror and utterly unable to account for what she beheld, she
stood stock-still, her limbs refusing to move, her throat parched, her
tongue tied. The clanging was repeated, and a shadowy form began
slowly to crawl towards her. She dared not afterwards surmise what
would have happened to her, had not the Laird himself come down at
this moment. At the sound of his stentorian voice the phantasm
vanished. But the shock had been too much for Letty; she fainted, and
the Admiral, carrying her upstairs as carefully as if she had been his
own daughter, gave peremptory orders that she should never again be
allowed to go into the cellar alone.

But now that Letty herself had witnessed a manifestation, the other
servants no longer felt bound to secrecy, and soon poured into her
ears endless accounts of the hauntings.

Every one, they informed her, except Master Gregory and Perkins (the
butler) had seen one or other of the ghosts, and the cellar
apparition was quite familiar to them all. They also declared that
there were other parts of the house quite as badly haunted as the
cellar, and it might have been partly owing to these gruesome stories
that poor Letty always felt scared, when crossing the passages leading
to the attics. As she was hastening down one of them, early one
morning, she heard some one running after her. Thinking it was one of
the other servants, she turned round, pleased to think that some one
else was up early too, and saw to her horror a dreadful-looking
object, that seemed to be partly human and partly animal. The body was
quite small, and its face bloated, and covered with yellow spots. It
had an enormous animal mouth, the lips of which, moving furiously
without emitting any sound, showed that the creature was endeavouring
to speak but could not. The moment Letty screamed for help the
phantasm vanished.

But her worst experience was yet to come. The spare attic which she
was told was so badly haunted that no one would sleep in it, was the
room next to hers. It was a room Letty could well believe was
haunted, for she had never seen another equally gloomy. The ceiling
was low and sloping, the window tiny, and the walls exhibited all
sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm-eaten, stood
in one recess, a black oak chest in another, and at right angles with
the door, in another recess, stood a wardrobe that used to creak and
groan alarmingly every time Letty walked a long the passage. Once she
heard a chuckle, a low, diabolical chuckle, which she fancied came
from the chest; and once, when the door of the room was open, she
caught the glitter of a pair of eyes--the same pale, malevolent eyes
that had so frightened her in the cellar. From her earliest childhood
Letty had been periodically given to somnambulism, and one night, just
about a year after she went into service, she got out of bed, and
walked, in her sleep, into the Haunted Room. She awoke to find herself
standing, cold and shivering, in the middle of the floor, and it was
some seconds before she realised where she was. Her horror, when she
did discover where she was, is not easily described. The room was
bathed in moonlight, and the beams, falling with noticeable
brilliancy on each piece of furniture the room contained, at once
riveted Letty's attention, and so fascinated her that she found
herself utterly unable to move. A terrible and most unusual silence
predominated everywhere, and although Letty's senses were wonderfully
and painfully on the alert, she could not catch the slightest sound
from any of the rooms on the landing.

The night was absolutely still, no breath of wind, no rustle of
leaves, no flapping of ivy against the window; yet the door suddenly
swung back on its hinges and slammed furiously. Letty felt that this
was the work of some supernatural agency, and, fully expecting that
the noise had awakened the cook, who was a light sleeper (or pretended
she was), listened in a fever of excitement to hear her get out of bed
and call out. The slightest noise and the spell that held her prisoner
would, Letty felt sure, be broken. But the same unbroken silence
prevailed. A sudden rustling made Letty glance fearfully at the bed;
and she perceived, to her terror, the valance swaying violently, to
and fro. Sick with fear, she was now constrained to stare in abject
helplessness. Presently there was a slight, very slight movement on
the mattress, the white dust cover rose, and, under it, Letty saw the
outlines of what she took to be a human figure, gradually take shape.
Hoping, praying, that she was mistaken, and that what appeared to be
on the bed was but a trick of her imagination, she continued staring
in an agony of anticipation. But the figure remained--extended at full
length like a corpse. The minutes slowly passed, a church clock boomed
two, and the body moved. Letty's jaw fell, her eyes almost bulged from
her head, whilst her fingers closed convulsively on the folds of her
night-dress. The unmistakable sound of breathing now issued from the
region of the bed, and the dust-cover commenced slowly to slip aside.
Inch by inch it moved, until first of all Letty saw a few wisps of
dark hair, then a few more, then a thick cluster; then something white
and shining--a protruding forehead; then dark, very dark brows; then
two eyelids, yellow, swollen, and fortunately tightly closed; then--a
purple conglomeration of Letty knew not what--of anything but what
was human. The sight was so monstrous it appalled her; and she was
overcome with a species of awe and repulsion, for which the language
of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. She momentarily
forgot that what she looked on was merely superphysical, but regarded
it as something alive, something that ought to have been a child,
comely and healthy as herself--and she hated it. It was an outrage on
maternity, a blot on nature, a filthy discredit to the house, a
blight, a sore, a gangrene. It turned over in its sleep, the cover was
hurled aside, and a grotesque object, round, pulpy, webbed, and of
leprous whiteness--an object which Letty could hardly associate with a
hand--came grovelling out. Letty's stomach heaved; the thing was
beastly, indecent, vile, it ought not to live! And the idea of killing
flashed through her mind. Boiling over with indignation and absurdly
forgetful of her surroundings, she turned round and groped for a stone
to smash it. The moonlight on her naked toes brought her to her
senses--the thing in the bed was a devil! Though brought up a member
of the Free Church, with an abhorrence of anything that could in any
way be contorted into Papist practices, Letty crossed herself. As she
did so, a noise in the passage outside augmented her terror. She
strained her ears painfully, and the sound developed into a footstep,
soft, light, and surreptitious. It came gently towards the door; it
paused outside, and Letty intuitively felt that it was listening. Her
suspense was now so intolerable, that it was almost with a feeling of
relief that she beheld the door slowly--very slowly--begin to open. A
little wider--a little wider--and yet a little wider; but still
nothing came. Ah! Letty's heart turned to ice. Another inch, and a
shadowy something slipped through and began to wriggle itself
stealthily over the floor. Letty tried to divert her gaze, but could
not--an irresistible, magnetic attraction kept her eyes glued to the
gradually approaching horror. When within a few feet of her it halted;
and again Letty felt it was listening--listening to the breathing on
the bed, which was heavy and bestial. Then it twisted round, and Letty
watched it crawl into the wardrobe. After this there was a long and
anxious wait. Then Letty saw the wardrobe door slyly open, and the
eyes of the cellar--inexpressibly baleful, and glittering like
burnished steel in the strong phosphorescent glow of the moon, peep
out,--not at her but _through_ her,--at the object lying on the bed.
There were not only eyes, this time, but a form,--vague, misty, and
irregular, but still with sufficient shape to enable Letty to identify
it as that of a woman, tall and thin, and with a total absence of
hair, which was emphasised in the most lurid and ghastly fashion. With
a snakelike movement, the evil thing slithered out of the wardrobe,
and, gliding past Letty, approached the bed. Letty was obliged to
follow every proceeding. She saw the thing deftly snatch the bolster
from under the sleeping head; noted the gleam of hellish satisfaction
in its eyes as it pressed the bolster down; and watched the murdered
creature's contortions grow fainter, and fainter, until they finally
ceased. The eyes then left the room; and from afar off, away below, in
the abysmal cellars of the house, came the sound of digging--faint,
very faint, but unquestionably digging. This terminated the grim,
phantasmal drama for that night at least, and Letty, chilled to the
bone, but thoroughly alert, escaped to her room. She spent her few
remaining hours of rest wide-awake, determining never to go to bed
again without fastening one of her arms to the iron staples.

With regard the history of the house, Letty never learned anything
more remarkable than that, long ago, an idiot child was supposed to
have been murdered in the haunted attic--by whom, tradition did not
say. The Admiral and his family left Pringle's Mansion the year Letty
became Miss South's nurse, and as no one would stay in the house,
presumably on account of the hauntings, it was pulled down, and an
inexcusably inartistic edifice was erected in its place.

CASE III

THE BOUNDING FIGURE OF "---- HOUSE," NEAR
BUCKINGHAM TERRACE, EDINBURGH

No one is more interested in Psychical Investigation Work than Miss
Torfrida Vincent, one of the three beautiful daughters of Mrs. H. de
B. Vincent, who is, herself, still in the heyday of life, and one of
the loveliest of the society women I have met. Though I have known her
sisters several years, I only met Torfrida for the first time a few
months ago, when she was superintending the nursing of her mother, who
had just undergone an operation for appendicitis. One day, when I was
visiting my convalescent friend, Torfrida informed me that she knew of
a haunted house in Edinburgh, a case which she felt sure would arouse
my interest and enthusiasm. "It is unfortunate," she added somewhat
regretfully, "that I cannot tell you the number of the house, but as
I have given my word of honour to disclose it to no one, I feel sure
you will excuse me. Indeed, my friends the Gordons, who extracted the
promise from me, have got into sad trouble with their landlord for
leaving the house under the pretext that it was haunted, and he has
threatened to prosecute them for slander of title."

The house in question has no claim to antiquity. It may be eighty years
old--perhaps a little older--and was, at the time of which I speak, let
out in flats. The Gordons occupied the second storey; the one above
them was untenanted, and used as a storage place for furniture; the
first floor and ground floor were divided into chambers and offices.
They had not been in their new quarters more than a week, when Mrs.
Gordon asked the night porter who it was that made such a noise, racing
up their stairs between two and three in the morning. It had awakened
her every night, she told him, and she would be glad if the disturbance
were discontinued. "I am sorry, Madam, but I cannot imagine who it can
be," the man replied. "Of course, it may be some one next door, sounds
are so often deceptive; no one inhabits the rooms above you." But Mrs.
Gordon was not at all convinced, and made up her mind to complain to
the landlord should it occur again. That night nothing happened, but
the night after she was roused from her sleep at two o'clock, by a
feeling that something dreadful, some dire catastrophe, was about to
take place. The house was very still, and beyond the far-away echoes of
a policeman's patrol on the hard pavement outside, nothing, absolutely
nothing, broke the universal, and as it seemed to her, unnatural
silence. Generally at night-time there are sounds one likes to assure
oneself are too trivial to be heard during the day--the creaking of
boards, stairs (nearly always stairs), and the tapping of some leaf (of
course some leaf) at the windows. Who has not heard such sounds, and
who in his heart of hearts has not been only too well aware that they
are nocturnal, exclusively nocturnal. The shadows of evening bring with
them visitors; prying, curious visitors; grim and ghastly visitors;
grey, esoteric visitors; visitors from a world seemingly inconsequent,
wholly incomprehensible. Mrs. Gordon did not believe in ghosts. She
scoffed at the idea of ghosts, and, like so many would-be wits,
unreasonably brave by day, and the reverse by night, had hitherto
attributed banshees and the like to cats and other animals. But
now,--now when all was dark,--pitch dark and hushed, and she, for aught
she knew to the contrary, the only one, in that great rambling
building, awake, she reviewed again and again, in her mind, that
rushing up the stairs. The wind! It could not have been the wind. The
wind shuts doors, and rattles windows, and moans, and sighs, and howls
and screeches, but it does not walk the house in boots. Neither do
rats! And if she had imagined the noises, why did she not imagine other
things; why, for example, did she not see tables dance, and tea-urns
walk? All that would be fancy, unblushing, genuine fancy, and if she
conjured up one absurdity, why not another! That was a conundrum for
any sceptic. Thus did she argue, naturally and logically, in the quite
sensible fashion of a lawyer, or a scientist; yet, all the while, her
senses told her that the atmosphere of the house had undergone some
profoundly subtle and unaccountable change,--a change that brought with
it a presence, at once sinister and hostile. She longed to strike a
light and awake one of her daughters--Diana, by preference; since Diana
was the least likely to mind being disturbed, and had the strongest
nerves. She made a start, and, loosening the bedclothes that she always
liked tightly tucked round her, thrust out a quivering toe. The next
instant she drew it back with a tiny gasp of terror. The cold darkness
without had suggested to her mind a great, horny hand, mal-shaped and
murderous, that was lying in wait to seize her. A deadly sickness
overcame her, and she lay back on the pillow, her heart beating with
outrageous irregularity and loudness. Very slowly she recovered, and,
holding her breath, sidled to the far edge of the bed, and with a
dexterous movement, engendered by the desperation of fear, made a
lightning-like dab in the direction of the electric bell. Her soft,
pink finger missed the mark, and coming in violent contact with the
wall, bent the carefully polished nail. She bit her lips to stop a cry
of pain, and shrinking back within the folds of her dainty lace
embroidered nightdress, abandoned herself to despair. Her consciousness
of the Unknown Presence increased, and she instinctively felt the thing
pass through the closed door, down on to the landing outside, when it
dashed upstairs with a loud clatter, and, entering the lumber-room
immediately overhead, began bounding as if its feet were tied together,
backwards and forwards across the floor. After continuing for fully
half an hour, the noises abruptly ceased and the house resumed its
accustomed quiet. At breakfast, Mrs. Gordon asked her daughters if they
had heard anything in the night, and they laughingly said "No, not even
a mouse!"

There was now an intermission of the disturbances, and no further
demonstration occurred for about a month. Diana was then sleeping in
her mother's room, Mrs. Gordon being away on a visit to Lady Voss, who
was entertaining a party of friends at her shooting-box in Argyle. One
evening, as Diana was going into her bedroom to prepare for dinner,
she saw the door suddenly swing open, and something, she could not
tell what--it was so blurred and indistinct--come out with a bound.
Tearing past her on to the landing, it rushed up the stairs with so
much clatter that Diana imagined, though she could see nothing, that
it must have on its feet, heavy lumbering boots. Filled with an
irresistible curiosity, in spite of her alarm, Diana ran after it,
and, on reaching the upper storey, heard it making a terrific racket
in the room above the one in which she now slept. Nothing daunted,
however, she boldly approached, and, flinging open the door, perceived
its filmy outline standing before a shadowy and very antique eight-day
clock, which apparently it was in the habit of winding. A great fear
now fell on Diana. What was the thing? And supposing it should turn
round and face her, what should she see? She was entirely isolated
from her sisters, and the servants--alone--the light fading--in a big,
gloomy room full of strange old furniture which suggested
hiding-places for all sorts of grim possibilities. She was assured now
that the thing she had followed was nothing human, neither was it a
delusion, for when she shut her eyes and opened them, it was still
there--and, oddly enough, it was now more distinct than it was when
she had seen it downstairs. A curious feeling of helplessness stole
over Diana; the power of speech forsook her; and her limbs grew rigid.
She was so fearful, too, of attracting the notice of the mysterious
thing that she hardly dare breathe, and each pulsation of her heart
sent cold chills of apprehension down her spine. Once she endured
agonies through a mad desire to sneeze, and once her lips opened to
scream as something suspiciously like the antennae of a huge beetle,
and which she subsequently discovered was a "devil's coach-horse,"
tickled the calf of her leg. She fancied, too, that all sorts of queer
shapes lurked in the passage behind her, and that innumerable unseen
eyes were malignantly rejoicing in her terror. At last, the climax to
her suspense seemed at hand. The unknown thing, until now too busy
with the clock to take heed of her, paused for a moment or so, as if
undecided what to do next, and then slowly began to veer round. But
the faint echo of a voice below, calling her by name, broke the
hypnotic spell that bound Diana to the floor, and with a frantic
spring she cleared the threshold of the room. She then tore madly
downstairs, never halting till she reached the dining-room, where she
sank on a sofa, and, more dead than alive, panted out to her amazed
sisters a full account of all that had transpired.

That night she shared her sister's bedroom, but neither she nor her
sister slept.

From this time till the return of Mrs. Gordon, nothing happened. It
was one evening after she came back, when she was preparing to get
into bed, that the door of her own room unexpectedly opened, and she
saw standing, on the threshold, the unmistakable figure of a man,
short and broad, with a great width of shoulders, and very long arms.
He was clad in a peajacket, blue serge trousers, and jack-boots. He
had a big, round, brutal head, covered with a tangled mass of yellow
hair, but where his face ought to have been there was only a blotch,
underlying which Mrs. Gordon detected the semblance to something
fiendishly vindictive and immeasurably nasty. But, in spite of the
horror his appearance produced, her curiosity was aroused with regard
to the two objects he carried in his hands, one of which looked like
a very bizarre bundle of red and white rags, and the other a small
bladder of lard. Whilst she was staring at them in dumb awe, he swung
round, and, hitching them savagely under his armpits, rushed across
the landing, and, with a series of apish bounds, sprang up the
staircase and disappeared in the gloom.

This was the climax; Mrs. Gordon felt another such encounter would
kill her. So, in spite of the fact that she had taken the flat for a
year, and had only just commenced her tenancy, she packed up her goods
and left the very next day. The report that the building was haunted
spread rapidly, and Mrs. Gordon had many indignant letters from the
landlord. She naturally made inquiries as to the early history of the
house, but of the many tales she listened to, only one, the
authenticity of which she could not guarantee, seemed to suggest any
clue to the haunting.

It was said that a retired Captain in the Merchant Service, many years
previously, had rented the rooms she had occupied.

He was an extraordinary individual, and, despite the fact that he had
lived so far inland, would never wear any but nautical clothes--blue
jersey and trousers, reefer coat and jack-boots. But this was not his
only peculiarity. His love of grog eventually brought on delirium
tremens, and his excessive irritability in the interval between each
attack was a source of anxiety to all who came in contact with him. At
that time there happened to be a baby in the rooms overhead, whose
crying so annoyed the Captain that he savagely informed its mother
that if she did not keep it quiet, he would not be answerable for the
consequences. His warnings having no effect, he flew upstairs one day,
when she was temporarily absent, and, snatching up the bread knife
from the table, decapitated the infant. He then stuffed both its head
and body into a grandfather's clock which stood in one corner of the
room, and, retiring to his own quarters, drank till he was insensible.

He was, of course, arrested on a charge of murder, but being found
"insane" he was committed during His Majesty's pleasure to a lunatic
asylum.

He eventually committed suicide by opening an artery in his leg with
one of his finger-nails.

As the details of this tragedy filled in so well with the phenomena
they had witnessed, the Gordons could not help regarding the story as
a very probable explanation of the hauntings. But, remember, its
authenticity is dubious.

CASE IV

JANE OF GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH

"The news that, for several years at any rate, George Street,
Edinburgh, was haunted," wrote a correspondent of mine some short time
ago, "might cause no little surprise to many of its inhabitants." And
my friend proceeded to relate his experience of the haunting, which I
will reproduce as nearly as possible in his own words. I quote from
memory, having foolishly destroyed the letter.

* * * * *

I was walking in a leisurely way along George Street the other day,
towards Strunalls, where I get my cigars, and had arrived opposite No.
--, when I suddenly noticed, just ahead of me, a tall lady of
remarkably graceful figure, clad in a costume which, even to an
ignoramus in fashions like myself, seemed extraordinarily out of date.
In my untechnical language it consisted of a dark blue coat and
skirt, trimmed with black braid. The coat had a very high collar,
turned over to show a facing of blue velvet, its sleeves were very
full at the shoulders, and a band of blue velvet drew it tightly in at
the waist. Moreover, unlike every other lady I saw, she wore a small
hat, which I subsequently learned was a toque, with one white and one
blue plume placed moderately high at the side. The only other
conspicuous items of her dress, the effect of which was, on the whole,
quiet, were white glace gloves,--over which dangled gold curb
bracelets with innumerable pendants,--shoes, which were of patent
leather with silver buckles and rather high Louis heels, and fine,
blue silk openwork stockings. So much for her dress. Now for her
herself. She was a strikingly fair woman with very pale yellow hair
and a startlingly white complexion; and this latter peculiarity so
impressed me that I hastened my steps, determining to get a full view
of her. Passing her with rapid strides, I looked back, and as I did so
a cold chill ran through me,--what I looked at was--the face of the
dead. I slowed down and allowed her to take the lead.

I now observed that, startling as she was, no one else seemed to
notice her. One or two people obviously, though probably
unconsciously, possessing the germs of psychism, shivered when they
passed her, but as they neither slackened their pace nor turned to
steal a second look, I concluded they had not seen her. Without
glancing either to the right or left, she moved steadily on, past
Molton's the confectioner's, past Perrin's the hatter's. Once, I
thought she was coming to a halt, and that she intended crossing the
road, but no--on, on, on, till we came to D---- Street. There we were
preparing to cross over, when an elderly gentleman walked deliberately
into her. I half expected to hear him apologise, but naturally nothing
of the sort happened; she was only too obviously a phantom, and, in
accordance with the nature of a phantom, she passed right through him.
A few yards farther on, she came to an abrupt pause, and then, with a
slight inclination of her head as if meaning me to follow, she glided
into a chemist's shop. She was certainly not more than six feet ahead
of me when she passed through the door, and I was even nearer than
that to her when she suddenly disappeared as she stood before the
counter. I asked the chemist if he could tell me anything about the
lady who had just entered his shop, but he merely turned away and
laughed.

"Lady!" he said; "what are you talking about? You're a bit out of your
reckoning. This isn't the first of April. Come, what do you want?"

I bought a bottle of formamints, and reluctantly and regretfully
turned away. That night I dreamed I again saw the ghost. I followed
her up George Street just as I had done in reality; but when she came
to the chemist's shop, she turned swiftly round. "I'm Jane!" she said
in a hollow voice. "Jane! Only Jane!" and with that name ringing in my
ears I awoke.

Some days elapsed before I was in George Street again. The weather had
in the meanwhile undergone one of those sudden and violent changes, so
characteristic of the Scottish climate. The lock-gates of heaven had
been opened and the rain was descending in cataracts. The few
pedestrians I encountered were enveloped in mackintoshes, and carried
huge umbrellas, through which the rain was soaking, and pouring off
from every point. Everything was wet--everywhere was mud. The water,
splashing upwards, saturated the tops of my boots and converted my
trousers into sodden sacks. Some weather isn't fit for dogs, but this
weather wasn't good enough for tadpoles--even fish would have kicked
at it and kept in their holes. Imagine, then, the anomaly! Amidst all
this aqueous inferno, this slippery-sloppery, filth-bespattering
inferno, a spotlessly clean apparition in blue without either
waterproof or umbrella. I refer to Jane. She suddenly appeared, as I
was passing The Ladies' Tea Association Rooms, walking in front of me.
She looked just the same as when I last saw her--spick and span,
and--dry. I repeat the word--dry--for that is what attracted my
attention most. Despite the deluge, not a single raindrop touched
her--the plumes on her toque were splendidly erect and curly, her
shoe-buckles sparkled, her patent leathers were spotless, whilst the
cloth of her coat and skirt looked as sheeny as if they had but just
come from Keeley's.

Anxious to get another look at her face, I quickened my pace, and,
darting past her, gazed straight into her countenance. The result was
a severe shock. The terror of what I saw--the ghastly horror of her
dead white face--sent me reeling across the pavement. I let her pass
me, and, impelled by a sickly fascination, followed in her wake.

Outside a jeweller's stood a hansom--quite a curiosity in these days
of motors--and, as Jane glided past, the horse shied. I have never
seen an animal so terrified. We went on, and at the next crossing
halted. A policeman had his hand up checking the traffic. His glance
fell on Jane--the effect was electrical. His eyes bulged, his cheeks
whitened, his chest heaved, his hand dropped, and he would undoubtedly
have fallen had not a good Samaritan, in the guise of a non-psychical
public-house loafer, held him up.