Part 1

Produced by ellinora, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

_The Ghost in the Tower_

_The Ghost in the Tower_

_An Episode in Jacobia_

BY EARL H. REED

Privately Printed 1921

Copyright, 1921 by Earl H. Reed

_The Ghost in the Tower_

A ghost never makes the mistake of appearing before more than one person at a time. There may be much logic in this, for the element of mystery, which is one of the essential attributes to comfortable ghostly existence, would be destroyed if that existence should be established at some one time and place by a preponderance of unimpeachable testimony.

There is a ghost in my friend Jacobs’ water tower over in Michigan, or at least there was one there last Christmas eve. To me he was visible most of the time during a long interview I had with him, and to me he had all of the elements of reality. Nobody who reads this narrative will be in a position to dispute his existence, for, so far as I know, he and I were the only occupants of the tower at the time. If my nebulous friend should choose to make himself known to somebody else, it may furnish material for discussion and comparison of experiences in the future, but in the meantime controversy is quite useless.

To those who do not live in the world of romance and errant fancy, the winter landscapes along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan offer few allurements. The sweeping miles of piled and broken ice, the bleak and desolate bluffs, with their pale brows--fringed with naked trees--in moody relief against the dull skies, that are flecked with the white forms of the roving winter gulls, seem to repel every thought except that of hoped for creature comforts in some human habitation beyond. If it were not for these distant aureoles of hope--mirages though they often are--how gray and dreary the world would be.

Notwithstanding a love of Nature in her sterner moods, it was not for this that I journeyed to my friend’s country retreat in the winter time. I knew that warm hearted hospitality awaited me in the little farm house, nestled among the knolls back of the bluffs.

High up on one of the hills of “Jacobia,” the tower bares its lofty brow to the blasts of the gales. The huge structure seems calmly to defy the winter winds whistling through its upper casements and pounding against its sturdy sides. The swirling snows envelop its weather scarred top in the darkness, and an atmosphere of loneliness and isolation seems to pervade the great bulk, silhouetted against the flying legions of shredded and angry clouds, scudding across the gloomy and storm embattled skies at night.

The storm that had lasted all day subsided during the evening, and the skies cleared, although a mournful wind still moved over the drifted snows. The genial glow of the Yule Tide spirit was in the little farm house. The small evergreen tree that stood in the front room had been cut on the bluffs and brought through the storm during the day. Its candle-lighted branches had been divested of the conventional gauze bags of popcorn, nuts and candy, much of which was now scattered over the floors, and the little ones, in whose hearts lived the happy illusions of childhood, had hung long stockings about in places where they thought that the expected Patron Saint would be most apt to find them. Their melodious saxophone band had become silent, and their tired loving mother had got them off to bed.

Melancholy reflections, that sometimes creep into older minds with Christmas memories of years that are gone, led me out over the moon-silvered hills for a walk.

There was a weird charm in the cold shadowed forest and the strange stillness of the sheltered hillsides. A subtle witchery brooded over the familiar landscapes in their robes of white. I spent some time in a dark nook listening to a sad old owl, located somewhere up among the grapevine tangles and sassafras trees on a hill about a quarter of a mile away. Periodically he sent forth his loud and dismal wail into the darkness. Like a wild cry of mockery to the world of a soul in torment, the sepulchral notes echoed through the woods and mingled with the low moanings of the wind rhythms among the dead clinging leaves and bare branches.

It was nearly midnight when I approached the tower on my way back. Many times during my visits the thought had occurred to me that it was an ideal habitation for a ghost. The maze of timbers, water pipes, wires, and open winding stairways that led up to various landings in the successive octagonal rooms, on the way to the upper chamber of the tall edifice, seemed to provide a perfect environment for a discriminating specter. There was every facility for concealment, and for sudden and vivid apparition when desired. The height of the vast interior would permit of majestic upward sweeps of a wraithy shape into the darkness above, and dissolution into the overhanging gloom. The arrangement of the stairways would enable a phantom to await the coming of whoever was to be haunted, upon any one of the floors, without being visible from the one above or below it.

Architects have probably never studied construction with reference to the needs and convenience of ghosts, but if the builder of the tower had considered these things carefully he could not have designed arrangements more satisfactory from a spectral standpoint.

I found the door leading into the big room on the ground floor unfastened and it was creaking sadly on its hinges. I opened it, stepped inside to light my pipe, and had just thrown the match aside when I noticed a tiny ascending wisp of something that looked like smoke at the base of one of the large wall stanchions near the first stairway. Thinking that it probably came from the dropped match I went toward it to make sure that it was quite extinguished. To my surprise the little wisp of vapor increased in volume as it ascended. There was a patch of moonlight on the floor, and a dim diffused light in the room that enabled me to make out various objects. The rising vapor seemed faintly luminous. I could not account for its strange visibility by the direction of the moonlight entering through the high window. The pale misty wreaths were slowly expanding in wavy convolutions and disappearing through the open steps of the stairway along the opposite wall that led to the floor above.

There was something uncanny in this and while I had often joked with my friend Jacobs about a possible ghost in the tower, and had read many thrilling tales of specters, both benignant and malign, I never had an idea that I would ever be confronted with a situation that would suggest the actual presence of anything of the kind. I had always prided myself upon freedom from superstition, but I distinctly felt a cold chill between my shoulder blades, as if an icy hand had suddenly been placed there, and was conscious of a slight nervous flutter and a clammy feeling. Just then something dropped on one of the upper floors and rolled across it. It had probably been displaced by a gust of wind somewhere far up in the tower but this inference did not help matters any, and, although I knew of no reason for it, I concluded that my nerves must have got into difficulties among themselves and refused to continue their normal functions.

I began to consider the advisability of a cautious retirement from the scene, thinking that a good night’s rest would probably correct the state of mind that made such a medley of unpleasant sensations possible.

Just as I was about to leave I distinctly heard the words, “Good Evening!” uttered in a thin, quiet voice. I looked around the room but could see nobody. “Here I am, up here,” continued the voice. I saw what appeared to be the face of a very pleasant and dignified old man, who seemed to be sitting on the stairs near the top of the room, just above the wreaths of disappearing vapor. The smoky waves apparently continued through the stairway and enveloped all of him except the head--or rather he seemed gradually to materialize out of the wreaths, for the head was the only part of the apparition that bore any semblance to reality. There were misty forms suggesting the shoulders, but they faded off down into the cloudy lines, which now seemed to have ceased rising and were slowly waving to and fro, as if they were suspended from something above and were being gently swayed by a current of air.

“Good evening,” I replied, not without some trepidation. “I hope I have not intruded. I had no idea that there was anybody here when I came in.”

“There isn’t anybody here but you,” continued the strange voice, “for according to your standards I am nobody at all; I am a ghost, but you needn’t be at all alarmed. If you’ll go over and make yourself comfortable on that empty box near the other wall we can have a nice little visit. I have not appeared to a mortal for a long time and it’s a relief to have somebody to talk to. Since I’ve been haunting this tower I’ve stayed in a little crypt I have down under it. I ooze up through that small hole that you see near the base of that stanchion, and I was just coming up when you happened in. It takes me some little time to get properly settled up here, or I would have made my presence known before. I am not quite settled yet, but as you evidently intended to leave I thought I had better make myself known before it was too late. Otherwise I would have had to wait until some other Christmas eve, for that’s the only time I ever visualize. I’ll tell you the reason of this later. Just remain quiet where you are and excuse me. I won’t be gone more than a few minutes.”

With that the nebulous shape above the stairs changed somewhat. It became a little lighter and the face was more distinct. The wraithy vapor lengthened out and all of it, with the head at its upper end, drifted silently up through the stairway hole into the gloom above as gently and softly as the smoke from a pipe.

Naturally I was now much interested. The clammy and creepy feeling, that had come over me at first, had entirely ceased. I was enmeshed in what seemed a supernatural web that presented fascinating possibilities. I looked at my watch which I held in the bright moonbeam from the window and saw that it was exactly midnight. At that moment I heard an unearthly sound that I judged was issuing from the top of the tower. It was a loud prolonged wail that ended in a dismal shriek and a high treble, and was repeated three times. I repressed a slight return of the creepy feeling, resumed my seat on the box, and patiently awaited further developments. Heavy thumping noises became audible from the big water pipes in the tower and reverberated away through the underground routes of the smaller pipes. It occurred to me that the ghost might have decided to take a plunge in the large tank in the upper part of the structure, or was preparing to pull it all down, or something of that kind, and I did not feel that I wanted to be among the debris. To use a favorite expression of one of my English friends, all this was “getting a bit thick.” I was again apprehensive and was tempted to slip quietly away, but was somewhat reassured when I saw the vapory wisps stealing back through the stairway opening. I was surprised to see them trail on down, becoming fainter and thinner, and disappear into the little hole at the base of the stanchion.

In the course of a few minutes the wraithy waves reappeared and I soon saw the kindly old face peering over at me from above the high stairway rail.

There was a sort of indefinable remoteness and aloofness about him--something abstract and far away--that seemed to discourage any familiarity, and I waited for him to speak first, as I felt embarrassed and in doubt as to how further conversation was to be conducted.

“I am very sorry if you have had any unpleasant sensations after what has just happened,” he began, after a few vague vibrations of the cloudy veil, that might have been shifted slightly to insure comfort on the stairway, “but it was necessary for me to float to the top of the tower at exactly midnight for a manifestation, and I retired into the crypt below for a moment afterwards to partake of a light draught from a phantom flagon that I keep there. Like the widow’s cruse of oil mentioned in the scriptures, my flagon is always full, and you will at once perceive that in my immaterial state I enjoy some priceless advantages. My flagon affords me much consolation. The contents might seem a little musty to you if you were down there, but I assure you that the liquid was once of the very highest quality. I found it here when I came. Evidently something was once kept in that flagon that had highly reactive qualities--something like the kick of a mad bull--but this element had long been latent when I found it. I hope that you are perfectly comfortable down there. If you feel cold I can easily warm you up with some sensations that you probably have never experienced.”

I assured him that I was quite contented and did not require any more sensations than I was having, and begged him not to worry about me at all.

“You probably would like to know something about me and how I happen to be haunting this tower,” he continued. “It’s quite a long story, but I think you’ll enjoy it. If there are any points in the narration that appear obscure to you, or any that you wish particularly to discuss, please don’t hesitate to interrupt me, as it’s no trouble to talk about my experiences, and there’s plenty of time, as long as we finish before daylight. If we should forget ourselves, and too much light should come, I may fade away quietly and become silent, but don’t be surprised or offended in any way, for if circumstances permit we can easily meet again and continue our little talk.

“My earthly name was Emric Szapolyai, and I died in Hungary in 1489. Measured by your standards that was a long time ago, but among the spirit fraternity time does not cut any particular figure, so, as far as my relationships in the abstract world are concerned, I might just as well have died hundreds of years before that or hundreds of years later.

“You may have difficulty at first in pronouncing my last name correctly, but if you sneeze slightly and try to say ‘Apollonaris’ while you are doing it, you will probably get it. I notice that a great many people in the material world are doing this now. Sometimes they get it and sometimes they don’t.”

“But how is it,” I asked, “that you speak modern English so fluently, if you were a Hungarian and died so long ago, before we had any modern English?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he replied. “One of the great advantages of a spiritual existence is the ability of perfect adaptation to any language that is used by the person to whom a visualization is accorded. You have undoubtedly seen instances of this at seances conducted by spiritual mediums. While they are mostly ignorant fakes and their methods entirely irregular, you have no doubt observed that Julius Caesar, who only talked Latin when he was alive, and Napoleon, who only talked Corsican and bad French, always speak the language or dialect peculiar to the region in which the seance is conducted.

“Up to three or four years ago probably no two spirits were more popular or more imposed upon. They were called on hundreds of times every night by mediums all over the world. They used every known tongue from Choctaw to Chinese, and the funny part of it was that they seemed to like it.

“They talked with a pronounced Scotch dialect in Glasgow, their tongues became thick in Cork, and down among the negro spiritualists in Alabama you would think that they were both born in Dahomy and died in Mobile.

“They have been latent now for some time. The recent war in Europe has clouded them over and rendered them quite obsolete. Nobody will have to listen to the stories of their exploits when they were alive for a good many years. The mediums are now invoking an entirely new class of spirits, and they are beseeching such peaceful shades as Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and Edgar Allen Poe to come forth, and lots of people are asking for the late Czar of Russia. They all want to know what really happened to him. Even the spiritual fraternity has become very tired of Caesar and Napoleon. I know both of these shades well and have no more trouble in communicating with them than I have with you. Don’t give yourself any further uneasiness regarding spirit language.

“I hope you will pardon my digression. We must get back to Hungary. I was one of the Magyar generals who fought in the wars of King Mathias Corvinus. For many years I was a baron, but afterwards I became a duke and had special privileges over quite a large domain. It will interest you to know that I happen to haunt this tower for the reason that its builder used my old baronial tower in Hungary as a model, and I will tell you later how I happened to discover it. It looked so familiar and so much like home that I concluded to make it my headquarters as long as it stands.

“It was my custom to keep sentinels posted in the top of my old tower who watched for small parties of travelers and single wayfarers on the roads crossing my lands. When they appeared my horsemen would go out and relieve them of two thirds of the money and other valuables that they happened to have with them. They would then be provided with a token which they could show to the minions of neighboring vassals of the king, over whose lands they might have occasion to pass, and these tokens would insure immunity from further high financing--to use a modern expression. We always respected these tokens from other domains, so you see the system enabled the traveling public to retain quite a decent portion of gold and worldly goods, considering the opportunities offered to business enterprise. We were called robber barons at that time, and the term may sound a little harsh, but we were universally respected throughout the country. Nowadays our practices would be called mild profiteering, and leaving the wayfarers a third of their pelf when there was a chance to get it all would be considered magnanimous charity.

“In return for these privileges from the crown it was my custom to send a wagon load of Turk’s heads to the King about once a month, and this was a source of great gratification to him. I was enabled to collect the trophies by frequent sorties with my forces against small bodies of Turks that were constantly hovering along our frontiers and making sudden forays into our territory.

“After King Mathias defeated Frederick of Austria, who had had the impudence to proclaim himself King of Hungary, and who intended to exterminate all of us if he was successful, Mathias moved his army against the Turks. This war was successful, and after the capture of Jaicza in Bosnia by assault, I was placed in charge of the conquered districts and made a duke. After this we had another war with Frederick and I was one of the generals commanding the army that captured Vienna after a short siege in 1487.

“The Magyars were a wonderful people. There was a man named Kinisi in our army when we were attacked by the Turks under Ali Bey. In the heat of the battle he rushed among the enemy and rescued a fallen friend. We were getting badly worsted in this battle, but this signal act of bravery inspired the Magyars and the Turks were almost annihilated. In the midst of the rejoicing over the victory, Kinisi was seen holding the body of a Turk by his teeth, and two others in his arms, and executing the Hungarian national dance. I mention this as a sample of his hardihood and originality for the reason that I have asked his shade to visit me in this tower, and it may happen that he will appear to you if conditions permit. Kinisi was what the world calls an honest man--that is to say he would never pick up anything that was too hot to hold, or take anything that was out of his reach. My reason for inviting my spiritual confrère here may seem a little queer to you.

“Although our mutual friend Henry Jacobs, who owns this tower, does not know me at all, and I have never appeared to him, I have had a great liking for him, and have much appreciated his unconscious hospitality. All unbeknown I have accompanied him on many of his business trips to various places, particularly to the Island of Manhattan that I happen to know a great deal about, as will appear later, and am quite familiar with his affairs. While he is perfectly able to take care of himself, I feel that under the circumstances I have a sort of spiritual responsibility, so to speak.

“I confess that, although I am a ghost, and loneliness might naturally be considered my specialty, I am at times a little too lonely and it would be nice and sociable to have an old ghostly friend with me. We might think it best for Kinisi to go out after somebody we didn’t like sometime, and you may depend upon it, that if he starts, he will not come back alone. There will be other shades with him. He is one of the best terrifiers I ever knew. I have known him to frighten people so that they have jumped off the tops of high buildings, and he has caused many sudden exits from the material world.

“I have been sensible of this moral obligation and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk with you tonight. I am sorry that our friend Jacobs has never happened to be up here at an opportune time. I always make it a point to be somewhere up stairs in the tower during the night before Christmas. Perhaps you might mention this to him and I may have the pleasure of talking with him next year, unless for some reason I should be called away.”

“But what happened after the victory over the Turks?” I asked, seeing that my pale friend was somewhat inclined to wander in his narrative.

“Oh yes, excuse me. After our triumph over Ali Bey we had no serious trouble with the Turks for some time, but one night when I was asleep in my tower a bloody gang of these dogs came and I was hacked into pieces with a dozen scimitars. It is the custom of spirits to wear a semblance of their earthly apparel at the time of passing into the immaterial sphere--merely as a recognition of absurd human conventions--and that accounts for what appears to you to be a night cap on my head. The light, wavy lines leading away from my face suggest the gown I was wearing when my mortal remains were tossed into the depression back of my tower. All this happened on Christmas eve. It is a rule with many of the spiritual fraternity to visualize but once a year. I usually select this anniversary for such few appearances as I care to make, unless the occasion is something very special.