Chapter 3

Jane was now close to the chemist's,
and it was with a sigh of relief that I saw her glide in and
disappear.

Had there been any doubt at all, after my first encounter with Jane,
as to her being superphysical, there was certainly none now. The
policeman's paroxysm of fear and the horse's fit of shying were facts.
What had produced them? I alone knew--and I knew for certain--it was
Jane. Both man and animal saw what I saw. Hence the phantom was not
subjective; it was not illusionary; it was a _bona fide_ spirit
manifestation--a visitant from the other world--the world of
earthbound souls. Jane fascinated me. I made endless researches in
connection with her, and, in answer to one of my inquiries, I was
informed that eighteen years ago--that is to say, about the time
Jane's dress was in fashion--the chemist's shop had been occupied by a
dressmaker of the name of Bosworth. I hunted up Miss Bosworth's
address and called on her. She had retired from business and was
living in St. Michael's Road, Bournemouth. I came to the point
straight.

"Can you give me any information," I asked, "about a lady whose
Christian name was Jane?"

"That sounds vague!" Miss Bosworth said. "I've met a good many Janes
in my time."

"But not Janes with pale yellow hair, and white eyebrows and
eyelashes!" And I described her in detail.

"How do you come to know about her?" Miss Bosworth said, after a long
pause.

"Because," I replied with a certain slowness and deliberation
characteristic of me, "because I've seen her ghost!"

Of course I knew Miss Bosworth was no sceptic--the moment my eyes
rested on her I saw she was psychic, and that the superphysical was
often at her elbow. Accordingly, I was not in the least surprised at
her look of horror.

"What!" she exclaimed, "is she still there? I thought she would surely
be at rest now!"

"Who was she?" I inquired. "Come--you need not be afraid of me. I have
come here solely because the occult has always interested me. Who was
Jane, and why should her ghost haunt George Street?"

"It happened a good many years ago," Miss Bosworth replied, "in 1892.
In answer to an advertisement I saw in one of the daily papers, I
called on a Miss Jane Vernelt--Mademoiselle Vernelt she called
herself--who ran a costumier's business in George Street, in the very
building, in fact now occupied by the chemist you have mentioned. The
business was for sale, and Miss Vernelt wanted a big sum for it.
However, as her books showed a very satisfactory annual increase in
receipts and her clientele included a duchess and other society
leaders, I considered the bargain a tolerably safe one, and we came to
terms. Within a week I was running the business, and, exactly a month
after I had taken it over, I was greatly astonished to receive a visit
from Miss Vernelt. She came into the shop quite beside herself with
agitation. 'It's all a mistake!' she screamed. 'I didn't want to sell
it. I can't do anything with my capital. Let me buy it back.' I
listened to her politely, and then informed her that as I had gone to
all the trouble of taking over the business and had already succeeded
in extending it, I most certainly had no intention of selling it--at
least not for some time. Well, she behaved like a lunatic, and in the
end created such a disturbance that I had to summon my assistants and
actually turn her out. After that I had no peace for six weeks. She
came every day, at any and all times, and I was at last obliged to
take legal proceedings. I then discovered that her mind was really
unhinged, and that she had been suffering from softening of the brain
for many months. Her medical advisers had, it appeared, warned her to
give up business and place herself in the hands of trustworthy friends
or relations, who would see that her money was properly invested, but
she had delayed doing so; and when, at last, she did make up her mind
to retire, the excitement, resulting from so great a change in her
mode of living, accelerated the disease, and, exactly three weeks
after the sale of her business, she became a victim to the delusion
that she was ruined. This delusion grew more and more pronounced as
her malady increased, and amidst her wildest ravings she clamoured to
be taken back to George Street. The hauntings, indeed, began before
she died; and I frequently saw her--when I knew her material body to
be under restraint--just as you describe, gliding in and out the
show-rooms.

"For several weeks after her death, the manifestations continued--they
then ceased, and I have never heard of her again until now."

If I remember rightly the account of the George Street ghost here
terminated; but my friend referred to it again at the close of his
letter.

"Since my return to Scotland," he wrote, "I have frequently visited
George Street, almost daily, but I have not seen 'Jane.' I only hope
that her poor distracted spirit has at last found rest." And with this
kindly sentiment my correspondent concluded.

CASE V

THE SALLOW-FACED WOMAN OF NO. -- FORREST
ROAD, EDINBURGH

The Public unfortunately includes a certain set of people, of the
middle class very "middlish," who are ever on the look-out for some
opportunity, however slight and seemingly remote, of bettering
themselves socially; and, learning that those in a higher strata of
society are interested in the supernatural, they think that they may
possibly get in touch with them by working up a little local
reputation for psychical research. I have often had letters from this
type of "pusher" (letters from genuine believers in the Occult I
always welcome) stating that they have been greatly interested in my
books--would I be so very kind as to grant them a brief interview, or
permit them to accompany me to a haunted house, or give them certain
information with regard to Lady So-and-so, whom they have long wanted
to know? Occasionally, I have been so taken in as to give permission
to the writer to call on me, and almost always I have bitterly
repented. The wily one--no matter how wily--cannot conceal the cloven
hoof for long, and he has either tried to thrust himself into the
bosom of my family, or has written to my neighbours declaring himself
to be my dearest friend; and when, in desperation, I have shown him
the cold shoulder, he has attacked me virulently in some "rag" of a
local paper, the proprietor, editor, or office-boy of which happens to
be one of his own clique. I have even known an instance where this
type of person has, through trickery, actually gained access to some
notoriously haunted house, and from its owners--the family he has long
had his eyes on, from a motive anything but psychic--has ferreted out
the secret and private history of the haunting. Then, when he has been
"found out" and forced to see that his friendship is not wanted, he
has, in revenge for the slight, unblushingly revealed the facts that
were only entrusted to him in the strictest confidence; and, through
influence with the lower stratum of the Press, caused a most glaring
and sensational account of the ghost to be published.

With such a case in view, I cannot be surprised that possessors of
family ghosts and haunted houses should show the greatest reluctance
to be approached on the subject, save by those they feel assured will
treat it with the utmost delicacy.

But I have quoted the above breach of confidence merely to give
another reason for my constant use of fictitious names with regard to
people and places, and having done so (I hope to some purpose), I will
proceed with the following story:--

Miss Dulcie Vincent, some of whose reminiscences appeared in my book
of _Ghostly Phenomena_ last year, is nearly connected with Lady Adela
Minkon, who owns a considerable amount of house property, including
No. -- Forrest Road, in Edinburgh, and whose yacht at Cowes is the
envy of all who have cruised in her. Three years ago, Lady Adela
stayed at No. -- Forrest Road. She had heard that the house was
haunted, and was anxious to put it to the test. Lady Adela was
perfectly open-minded. She had never experienced any occult phenomena
herself, but, very rationally, she did not consider that her
non-acquaintance with the superphysical in any way negatived the
evidence of those who declare that they have witnessed manifestations;
their statements, she reasoned, were just as worthy of credence as
hers. She thus commenced her occupation of the house with a perfectly
unbiased mind, resolved to stay there for at least a year, so as to
give it a fair trial. The hauntings, she was told, were at their
height in the late summer and early autumn. It is, I think,
unnecessary to enter into any detailed description of her house. In
appearance, it differed very little, if at all, from those adjoining
it; in construction, it was if anything a trifle larger. The basement,
which included the usual kitchen offices and cellars, was very dark,
and the atmosphere--after sunset on Fridays, only on Fridays--was
tainted with a smell of damp earth, shockingly damp earth, and of a
sweet and nauseating something that greatly puzzled Lady Adela. All
the rooms in the house were of fair dimensions, and cheerful,
excepting on this particular evening of the week; a distinct gloom
settled on them then, and the strangest of shadows were seen playing
about the passages and on the landings.

"It may be fancy," Lady Adela said to herself, "merely fancy! And,
after all, if I encounter nothing worse than a weekly menu of aromatic
smells and easily digested shadows, I shall not suffer any harm"; but
it was early summer then--the psychic season had yet to come. As the
weeks went by, the shadows and the smell grew more and more
pronounced, and by the arrival of August had become so emphatic that
Lady Adela could not help thinking that they were both hostile and
aggressive.

About eight o'clock on the evening of the second Friday in the month,
Lady Adela was purposely alone in the basement of the house. The
servants especially irritated her; like the majority of present-day
domestics, products of the County Council schools, they were so
intensely supercilious and silly, and Lady Adela felt that their
presence in the house minimised her chances of seeing the ghost. No
apparition with the smallest amount of self-respect could risk coming
in contact with such inane creatures, so she sent them all out for a
motor drive, and, for once, rejoiced in the house to herself. A
curious proceeding for a lady! True! but then, Lady Adela was a lady,
and, being a lady, was not afraid of being thought anything else; and
so acted just as unconventionally as she chose. But stay a moment; she
was not alone in the house, for she had three of her dogs with
her--three beautiful boarhounds, trophies of her last trip to the
Baltic. With such colossal and perfectly trained companions Lady Adela
felt absolutely safe, and ready--as she acknowledged afterwards--to
face a whole army of spooks. She did not even shiver when the front
door of the basement closed, and she heard the sonorous birring of the
motor, drowning the giddy voices of the servants, grow fainter and
fainter until it finally ceased altogether.

When the last echoes of the vehicle had died away in the distance,
Lady Adela made a tour of the premises. The housekeeper's room pleased
her immensely--at least she persuaded herself it did. "Why, it is
quite as nice as any of the rooms upstairs," she said aloud, as she
stood with her face to the failing sunbeams and rested her strong
white hand on the edge of the table. "Quite as nice. Karl and Max,
come here!"

But the boarhounds for once in their lives did not obey her with a
good grace. There was something in the room they did not like, and
they showed how strong was their resentment by slinking unwillingly
through the doorway.

"I wonder why that is?" Lady Adela mused; "I have never known them do
it before." Then her eyes wandered round the walls, and struggled in
vain to reach the remoter angles of the room, which had suddenly grown
dark. She tried to assure herself that this was but the natural effect
of the departing daylight, and that, had she watched in other houses
at this particular time, she would have noticed the same thing. To
show how little she minded the gloom, she went up to the darkest
corner and prodded the walls with her riding-whip. She laughed--there
was nothing there, nothing whatsoever to be afraid of, only shadows.
With a careless shrug of her shoulders, she strutted into the
passage, and, whistling to Karl and Max who, contrary to their custom,
would not keep to heel, made another inspection of the kitchens. At
the top of the cellar steps she halted. The darkness had now set in
everywhere, and she argued that it would be foolish to venture into
such dungeon-like places without a light. She soon found one, and,
armed with candle and matches, began her descent. There were several
cellars, and they presented such a dismal, dark appearance, that she
instinctively drew her skirts tightly round her, and exchanged the
slender riding-whip for a poker. She whistled again to her dogs. They
did not answer, so she called them both by name angrily. But for some
reason (some quite unaccountable reason, she told herself) they would
not come.

She ransacked her mind to recall some popular operatic air, and
although she knew scores she could not remember one. Indeed, the only
air that filtered back to her was one she detested--a Vaudeville tune
she had heard three nights in succession, when she was staying with a
student friend in the Latin Quarter in Paris. She hummed it loudly,
however, and, holding the lighted candle high above her head, walked
down the steps. At the bottom she stood still and listened. From high
above her came noises which sounded like the rumbling of distant
thunder, but which, on analysis, proved to be the rattling of
window-frames. Reassured that she had no cause for alarm, Lady Adela
advanced. Something black scudded across the red-tiled floor, and she
made a dash at it with her poker. The concussion awoke countless
echoes in the cellars, and called into existence legions of other
black things that darted hither and thither in all directions. She
burst out laughing--they were only beetles! Facing her she now
perceived an inner cellar, which was far gloomier than the one in
which she stood. The ceiling was very low, and appeared to be crushed
down beneath the burden of a stupendous weight; and as she advanced
beneath it she half expected that it would "cave in" and bury her.

A few feet from the centre of this cellar she stopped; and, bending
down, examined the floor carefully. The tiles were unmistakably newer
here than elsewhere, and presented the appearance of having been put
in at no very distant date. The dampness of the atmosphere was
intense; a fact which struck Lady Adela as somewhat odd, since the
floor and walls looked singularly dry. To find out if this were the
case, she ran her fingers over the walls, and, on removing them, found
they showed no signs of moisture. Then she rapped the floor and walls,
and could discover no indications of hollowness. She sniffed the air,
and a great wave of something sweet and sickly half choked her. She
drew out her handkerchief and beat the air vigorously with it; but the
smell remained, and she could not in any way account for it. She
turned to leave the cellar, and the flame of her candle burned blue.
Then for the first time that evening--almost, indeed, for the first
time in her life--she felt afraid, so afraid that she made no attempt
to diagnose her fear; she understood the dogs' feelings now, and
caught herself wondering how much they knew.

She whistled to them again, not because she thought they would
respond,--she knew only too well they would not,--but because she
wanted company, even the company of her own voice; and she had some
faint hope, too, that whatever might be with her in the cellar, would
not so readily disclose itself if she made a noise. The one cellar was
passed, and she was nearly across the floor of the other when she
heard a crash. The candle dropped from her hand, and all the blood in
her body rushed to her heart. She could never have imagined it was so
terrible to be frightened. She tried to pull herself together and be
calm, but she was no longer mistress of her limbs. Her knees knocked
together and her hands shook. "It was only the dogs," she feebly told
herself, "I will call them"; but when she opened her mouth, she found
her throat was paralysed--not a syllable would come. She knew, too,
that she had lied, and that the hounds could not have been responsible
for the noise. It was like nothing she had ever heard, nothing she
could imagine; and although she struggled hard against the idea, she
could not help associating the sound with the cause of the candle
burning blue, and the sweet, sickly smell. Incapable of moving a
step, she was forced to listen in breathless expectancy for a
recurrence of the crash. Her thoughts become ghastly. The inky sea of
darkness that hemmed her in on every side suggested every sort of
ghoulish possibility, and with each pulsation of her overstrained
heart her flesh crawled. Another sound--this time not a crash, nothing
half so loud or definite--drew her eyes in the direction of the steps.
An object was now standing at the top of them, and something lurid,
like the faint, phosphorescent glow of decay, emanated from all over
it; but _what_ it was, she could not for the life of her tell. It
might have been the figure of a man, or a woman, or a beast, or of
anything that was inexpressibly antagonistic and nasty. She would have
given her soul to have looked elsewhere, but her eyes were fixed--she
could neither turn nor shut them. For some seconds the shape remained
motionless, and then with a sly, subtle motion it lowered its head,
and came stealing stealthily down the stairs towards her. She followed
its approach like one in a hideous dream--her heart ready to burst,
her brain on the verge of madness. Another step, another, yet
another; till there were only three left between her and it; and she
was at length enabled to form some idea of what the thing was like.

It was short and squat, and appeared to be partly clad in a loose,
flowing garment, that was not long enough to conceal the glistening
extremities of its limbs. From its general contour and the tangled
mass of hair that fell about its neck and shoulders, Lady Adela
concluded it was the phantasm of a woman. Its head being kept bent,
she was unable to see the face in full, but every instant she expected
the revelation would take place, and with each separate movement of
the phantasm her suspense became more and more intolerable. At last it
stood on the floor of the cellar, a broad, ungainly, horribly ungainly
figure, that glided up to and past her into the far cellar. There it
halted, as nearly as she could judge on the new tiles, and remained
standing. As she gazed at it, too fascinated to remove her eyes, there
was a loud, reverberating crash, a hideous sound of wrenching and
tearing, and the whole of the ceiling of the inner chamber came down
with an appalling roar. Lady Adela thinks that she must then have
fainted, for she distinctly remembers falling--falling into what
seemed to her a black, interminable abyss. When she recovered
consciousness, she was lying on the tiles, and all around was still
and normal. She got up, found and lighted her candle, and spent the
rest of the evening, without further adventure, in the drawing-room.

All the week Lady Adela struggled hard to master a disinclination to
spend another evening alone in the house, and when Friday came she
succumbed to her fears. The servants were poor, foolish things, but it
was nice to feel that there was something in the house besides ghosts.
She sat reading in the drawing-room till late that night, and when she
lolled out of the window to take a farewell look at the sky and stars
before retiring to rest, the sounds of traffic had completely ceased
and the whole city lay bathed in a refreshing silence. It was very
heavenly to stand there and feel the cool, soft air--unaccompanied,
for the first time during the day, by the rattling rumbling sounds of
locomotion and the jarring discordant murmurs of unmusical
voices--fanning her neck and face.

Lady Adela, used as she was to the privacy of her yacht, and the
freedom of her big country mansion, where all sounds were regulated at
her will, chafed at the near proximity of her present habitation to
the noisy thoroughfare, and vaguely looked forward to the hours when
shops and theatres were closed, and all screeching, harsh-voiced
products of the gutter were in bed. To her the nights in Waterloo
Place were all too short; the days too long, too long for anything.
The heavy, lumbering steps of a policeman at last broke her reverie.
She had no desire to arouse his curiosity; besides, her costume had
become somewhat disordered, and she had the strictest sense of
propriety, at least in the presence of the lower orders. Retiring,
therefore, with a sigh of vexation, she sought her bedroom, and, after
the most scrupulous attention to her toilet, put out the lights and
got into bed. It was just one when she fell asleep, and three when she
awoke with a violent start. Why she started puzzled her. She did not
recollect experiencing any very dreadful dream, in fact no dream at
all, and there seemed nothing in the hush--the apparently unbroken
hush--that could in any way account for her action. Why, then, had she
started? She lay still and wondered. Surely everything was just as it
was when she went to sleep! And yet! When she ventured on a diagnosis,
there was something different, something new; she did not think it was
actually in the atmosphere, nor in the silence; she did not know where
it was until she opened her eyes--and then she _knew_. Bending over
her, within a few inches of her face, was another face, the ghastly
caricature of a human face. It was on a larger scale than that of any
mortal Lady Adela had ever seen; it was long in proportion to its
width--indeed, she could not make out where the cranium terminated at
the back, as the hinder portion of it was lost in a mist. The
forehead, which was very receding, was partly covered with a mass of
lank, black hair, that fell straight down into space; there were no
neck nor shoulders, at least none had materialised; the skin was
leaden-hued, and the emaciation so extreme that the raw cheek-bones
had burst through in places; the size of the eye sockets which
appeared monstrous, was emphasised by the fact that the eyes were
considerably sunken; the lips were curled downwards and tightly shut,
and the whole expression of the withered mouth, as indeed that of the
entire face, was one of bestial, diabolical malignity. Lady Adela's
heart momentarily stopped, her blood ran cold, she was petrified; and
as she stared helplessly at the dark eyes pressed close to hers, she
saw them suddenly suffuse with fiendish glee. The most frightful
change then took place: the upper lip writhed away from a few greenish
yellow stumps; the lower jaw fell with a metallic click, leaving the
mouth widely open, and disclosing to Lady Adela's shocked vision a
black and bloated tongue; the eyeballs rolled up and entirely
disappeared, whilst their places were immediately filled with the
foulest and most loathsome indications of advanced decay. A strong,
vibratory movement suddenly made all the bones in the head rattle and
the tongue wag, whilst from the jaws, as if belched up from some
deep-down well, came a gust of wind, putrescent with the ravages of
the tomb, and yet, at the same time, tainted with the same sweet,
sickly odour with which Lady Adela had latterly become so familiar.
This was the culminating act; the head then receded, and, growing
fainter and fainter, gradually disappeared altogether. Lady Adela was
now more than satisfied,--there was not a house more horribly haunted
in Scotland,--and nothing on earth would induce her to remain in it
another night.

However, being anxious, naturally, to discover something that might,
in some degree, account for the apparitions, Lady Adela made endless
inquiries concerning the history of former occupants of the house;
but, failing to find out anything remarkable in this direction, she
was eventually obliged to content herself with the following
tradition: It was said that on the site of No. -- Forrest Road there
had once stood a cottage occupied by two sisters (both nurses), and
that one was suspected of poisoning the other; and that the cottage,
moreover, having through their parsimonious habits got into a very bad
state of repair, was blown down during a violent storm, the surviving
sister perishing in the ruins. Granted that this story is correct, it
was in all probability the ghost of this latter sister that appeared
to Lady Adela. Her ladyship is, of course, anxious to let No.
-- Forrest Road, and as only about one in a thousand people seem to
possess the faculty of seeing psychic phenomena, she hopes she may one
day succeed in getting a permanent tenant. In the meanwhile, she is
doing her level best to suppress the rumour that the house is
haunted.

CASE VI

THE PHANTOM REGIMENT OF KILLIECRANKIE

Many are the stories that have from time to time been circulated with
regard to the haunting of the Pass of Killiecrankie by phantom
soldiers, but I do not think there is any stranger story than that
related to me, some years ago, by a lady who declared she had actually
witnessed the phenomena. Her account of it I shall reproduce as far as
possible in her own words:--

* * * * *

Let me commence by stating that I am not a spiritualist, and that I
have the greatest possible aversion to convoking the earthbound souls
of the dead. Neither do I lay any claim to mediumistic powers (indeed
I have always regarded the term "medium" with the gravest suspicion).
I am, on the contrary, a plain, practical, matter-of-fact woman, and
with the exception of this one occasion, never witnessed any psychic
phenomena.

The incident I am about to relate took place the autumn before last. I
was on a cycle tour in Scotland, and, making Pitlochry my temporary
headquarters, rode over one evening to view the historic Pass of
Killiecrankie. It was late when I arrived there, and the western sky
was one great splash of crimson and gold--such vivid colouring I had
never seen before and never have seen since. Indeed, I was so
entranced at the sublimity of the spectacle, that I perched myself on
a rock at the foot of one of the great cliffs that form the walls of
the Pass, and, throwing my head back, imagined myself in fairyland.
Lost, thus, in a delicious luxury, I paid no heed to the time, nor did
I think of stirring, until the dark shadows of the night fell across
my face. I then started up in a panic, and was about to pedal off in
hot haste, when a strange notion suddenly seized me: I had a latchkey,
plenty of sandwiches, a warm cape, why should I not camp out there
till early morning--I had long yearned to spend a night in the open,
now was my opportunity. The idea was no sooner conceived than put
into operation. Selecting the most comfortable-looking boulder I could
see, I scrambled on to the top of it, and, with my cloak drawn tightly
over my back and shoulders, commenced my vigil. The cold mountain air,
sweet with the perfume of gorse and heather, intoxicated me, and I
gradually sank into a heavenly torpor, from which I was abruptly
aroused by a dull boom, that I at once associated with distant
musketry. All was then still, still as the grave, and, on glancing at
the watch I wore strapped on my wrist, I saw it was two o'clock. A
species of nervous dread now laid hold of me, and a thousand and one
vague fancies, all the more distressing because of their vagueness,
oppressed and disconcerted me. Moreover, I was impressed for the first
time with the extraordinary solitude--solitude that seemed to belong
to a period far other than the present, and, as I glanced around at
the solitary pines and gleaming boulders, I more than half expected to
see the wild, ferocious face of some robber chief--some fierce yet
fascinating hero of Sir Walter Scott's--peering at me from behind
them. This feeling at length became so acute, that, in a panic of
fear--ridiculous, puerile fear, I forcibly withdrew my gaze and
concentrated it abstractedly on the ground at my feet. I then
listened, and in the rustling of a leaf, the humming of some night
insect, the whizzing of a bat, the whispering of the wind as it moaned
softly past me, I fancied--nay, I felt sure I detected something that
was not ordinary.