CHAPTER XV

SOME STRANGE CASES IN BIRMINGHAM, HARROGATE, SUSSEX AND NEWCASTLE

Whilst I was still writing for “The Weekly Despatch,” I happened to visit an old friend of mine, a Captain Rupert Tennison, who was staying with an aged relative in the Hagley Road, Birmingham.

“This is hardly the house you would expect to see a ghost in, is it?” he remarked to me after luncheon. “And yet I can assure you I had a very remarkable psychic experience here, in this very room. I’ve often wanted to tell you about it. It happened one New Year’s Eve three and a half years ago. My aunt had a nephew, on her husband’s side, called Jack Wilmot, and he and I used to meet here regularly at the commencement of every New Year. On this occasion, however, my aunt informed me that Wilmot was unable to be present, as he was detained in Mexico, where he had a very good post as a mining engineer.

“I was much disappointed, for Wilmot and I were great pals, and the prospect of staying here alone with the old lady struck me as perfectly appalling. I resolved to make the best of it, however, for I was genuinely sorry for my aunt, whom I could see was quite as disappointed as I was. I arrived late in the afternoon of December 31st. We dined at seven, and at nine my aunt went off to bed and left me in this room by myself.

“For some time I read—no, not one of your books, O’Donnell—a Guy Maupassant; but the light being rather bad, and my eyes tired, for I had been travelling all the previous night, I was at last obliged to desist and devote myself entirely to a pipe.

“The servants went to bed at about ten. I heard them tap respectfully at my aunt’s door on their way, and wish her good-night. After that the house was absolutely silent, so silent, indeed, that the hush began to get on my nerves, and I was contemplating retiring also, when heavy footsteps suddenly crossed the hall and the door of this room was flung wide open. I looked round in amazement. Standing on the threshold was Wilmot.

“‘Why, Jack!’ I cried. ‘I am glad to see you, old fellow. Your aunt told me you could not come. How did you manage it?’

“‘Quite easily,’ he said in the light, careless manner which was one of his characteristics. ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way, you know. I’ve taken French leave.’

“‘Taken French leave!’ I ejaculated. ‘Then there’ll be the deuce to pay when you get back. Anyhow, that’s your affair, not mine. You’ll have some supper?’

“‘No,’ he said; ‘I had a very good meal a short time ago, and I’m not the least bit hungry. We will chat instead.’

“He pulled his chair up to the table, and, leaning his elbows on it, stared right into my face.

“‘You don’t look very well, Jack,’ I said. ‘Maybe this strong light has something to do with it, but you are as pale as a sheet. Is it the voyage?’

“‘Not altogether,’ he replied. ‘I’ve had a lot of trouble lately.’

“‘Tell me,’ I said.

“‘Won’t it bore you?’ he replied. ‘After all, why should I bother other people with my woes. Oh, all right, I will if you like.

“‘Some months ago there came to the town where I am working a wealthy Spaniard and his wife. Their name was Hervada. He was a tall, lean, sour-faced old curmudgeon, and she one of the most beautiful young creatures you can imagine. You can guess what happened?’

“‘You fell in love with her, of course,’ I cried.

“‘From the moment I saw her,’ Jack replied.

“‘You got introduced,’ I said.

“‘Trust me,’ he laughed. ‘I found out where she lived, and the rest was so easy that before the end of the week I had dined with them, and also had had one clandestine meeting in the Park. At first her old villain of a husband suspected nothing. But it is infernally hard to keep up a pretence for long, when one is really madly consumed with passion. Eyes are sure indicators of what the heart feels, at least mine are, and when Hervada suddenly looked up and caught me gazing at his wife as if I could devour her, the cat was completely out of the bag. I give him credit for one thing, however: he took it very calmly. Despite his unprepossessing exterior he could at times be extremely courteous and dignified.

“‘You will oblige me by settling this matter in the way customary to gentlemen in this country,’ he said. ‘You must remember you are not in England now; you are in Mexico. Have you a revolver?’

“‘I am never without one,’ I replied.

“‘Then,’ he observed, ignoring the intervention of his wife, whose apprehensions were only too plainly more on my account than on his, ‘we will step on to the verandah.’

“‘What!’ I said. ‘You don’t mean to say you actually fought a duel?’

“Jack nodded. ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘We measured off twenty paces, and then, turning round, fired.’

“‘And you killed him?’

“‘That would be your natural surmise,’ was the reply. ‘But you are mistaken. It was I who was killed.’

“The moment he had said these words, he seemed to fade away, and before I could recover from my astonishment, he had completely disappeared, and I found myself staring not at him but the blank wall. And now comes the oddest part of it. I naturally expected to hear Jack was dead. I said nothing to my aunt, but I wrote off to his address at once.

“Judge, then, of my relief when I received a letter from him by return of post to say he was absolutely fit and well, and getting on splendidly. That was in February. In the following August my aunt wrote to me saying a very tragic occurrence had taken place. Jack was dead. He had been found on the verandah of an hotel in Mexico shot through the heart. Though the identity of his murderer was generally suspected, there was no actual proof, and as the man was very rich and influential, it was thought quite useless to take up the case. Now what kind of superphysical phenomenon do you call that?” Captain Tennison concluded.

“I can’t exactly say,” I replied. “It is one of those strange prognostications of the future that happen more often on New Year’s Eve than on any other day of the year.

“I don’t think the phantasm you saw was actually Wilmot’s spirit. I don’t see how it could have been. I think it was an impersonating neutrarian, one of that order of phantasms that have never inhabited any kind of material body, and whose special function is apparently to foretell the end of certain people, and certain people only.”

* * * * *

When I had finished my articles for “The Weekly Despatch,” which I was writing in alternation with “The Reminiscences of Mrs. E. M. Ward,” I took a brief holiday, visiting for the first time Matlock and Harrogate.

Learning that there was an alleged haunted house in the latter town, I sought, and managed to obtain, permission to spend a night in it. It was a modern edifice of a great height, situated about ten minutes walk from St. James’ Hall.

I went there alone, and, on entering the premises, encountered an almost death-like air of stillness, which contrasted oddly with the world outside, where all was life and gaiety. But a moment before I had mixed with the streams of ultra-fashionable people heading for the Spa Concert, the Theatre, and the Valley Park, and, so free had they seemed from all trouble and responsibility—so full of sparkling, spontaneous fun and flippancy—and above all, so full of the flamboyant spirit of sheer life, that one could not help feeling, as one looked at them, that after all there could be no such thing as death for them—that such pronounced vitality must go on for ever.

But this house—this forsaken house, void of furniture, of everything, save the soft summer evening sunlight, the shadows, and my presence—how different! Wandering from room to room, and floor to floor, I at length completed my preliminary search, and being somewhat tired, I sat down on the floor of the hall, and, taking a newspaper from my pocket, started reading. As the hours passed by and darkness came on, I began to be afraid. No amount of experience in ghost hunting will ever enable me to overcome that awful, hideous fear that seizes me when I see the last glimmer of daylight fade, and I realise I am about to be brought into contact with the superphysical, and that I must face it—alone.

Noises in empty houses I have noticed usually commence in the basement, and I was not at all surprised when presently I heard a faint tapping proceeding from one of the kitchens. This was followed by a long spell of silence, and then one of the stairs creaked. My heart gave a big thump, and I gazed expectantly into the darkness before me, but there was nothing to be seen. Silence again, and then more tapping, and more creaking. Something then tickled my hand, and a moment later my fingers touched a blackbeetle. In an instant I was on my feet, for I dread beetles more than I dread ghosts, and, on my striking a light, I found the whole floor swarming. I wondered very much at this, because beetles do not as a rule frequent houses that have been empty for any length of time, especially in a climate like that of Harrogate. I have since, however, arrived at the conclusion that where there are hauntings, there are, more often than not, plagues of beetles, but whether attracted by the ghost, or not, I cannot say.

As I could no longer tolerate the idea of remaining in the hall in the dark, I lighted four candles, and, placing them on the floor, sat in the midst of them.

It was only eleven o’clock by my watch, and the idea of keeping up my vigil till the morning did not strike me as particularly pleasant. I took up my paper and again began to read. Half an hour or so passed, and then I received a start. A door opened and shut downstairs, and bare footsteps pattered their way along the stone passage and up the wooden stairs.

The nearer they drew, the more intolerable became my suspense. What should I see? A white-faced, glassy-eyed phantasm of the dead, or some blood-curdling, semi-human, semi-animal neutrarian. Which would it be? I confess I would have given all I possessed to be out in the road, but, as is usually the case with me when in the presence of the superphysical, I was quite powerless to speak or move. Then, to my unfeigned astonishment, instead of anything grotesque and awful, there appeared before me a little fair-haired girl, clad in a much-soiled pinafore and without either shoes or stockings.

Though not actually crying, she appeared in great distress, and feeling around on all sides, as if anxiously searching for someone, she ran past me, and commenced to ascend the stairs. Picking up a candle, I followed her, and, as the patterings of her poor, chilled feet spread their echoes far and wide through the vast deserted house, I thought I had never experienced anything half so pathetic. On and on we went, the little thin legs leading the way, till we reached the top storey, when she ran into a room facing me, and slammed the door. I immediately followed, but the room was quite empty. There were no signs of the child; there was only a particularly vivid beam of moonlight, and a virile and overwhelming atmosphere of sadness.

During the next few days I was told a story that fully accounted for the hauntings.

It appears that about thirty years before my visit to the house a little girl had lived there with her father and step-mother. Her nurse, to whom she was very much attached, being summarily dismissed by her step-mother, she became ill, and very soon died, so it was rumoured, of a broken heart.

Shortly after her death the house was to let, and no tenant, I found out, has ever occupied it since for very long.

I have often wished that I had spoken to the sad little spirit, but I was too fascinated by it, and too much engaged watching its movements, to think of anything else. And I have found that this same fascination and preoccupation have prevented me from trying to communicate with the ghost in nearly all the cases of haunting that I have ever investigated. On the few occasions that I have spoken to a phantasm, I have received no reply, no indication even that it has heard me.

In a very famous haunted house in the West of England, during my investigations which were spread over a period of nine, not uninterruptedly consecutive, nights, manifestations took place twice, and on both occasions I stood up and spoke, but in neither case was there any response whatever. This same ghost had been subjected to exorcism by a well-known ecclesiast, but, far from being exorcised, the ghost so scared his exorciser that he all but fainted. These demonstrations were visual. In a haunted house that I was asked to visit in Sussex I saw nothing, but heard knockings, and by means of them tried, though without success, to establish a code. I heard of the case in this way.

A young lady, whom I will call Miss Hemming, wrote to me. She and her mother occupied a modern and picturesquely situated house at the foot of the Downs, and were very frequently disturbed, she said, between nine and ten in the evening, by sounds, such as might be made with a muffled hammer, on the wall of her mother’s room. Simultaneously the figure of a young man moved noiselessly across the lawn, from the direction of a swing. He usually approached her window and came to a halt immediately beneath it. He had never replied when spoken to. She had fired at him several times, but the bullets had had no effect whatever. It seemed as if they had passed right through him, because he still stood there, whilst the gravel was splattered up immediately behind him. On one or two occasions he shone a bicycle lamp on his face, so that she could distinctly see his features. It was the face of no one she knew, though she fancied it bore a close resemblance to a notorious murderer, whose photos had been in the papers, and who had expiated his crime on the gallows. These were not the only manifestations. Stones had been repeatedly thrown at Mrs. Hemming, and, although the house was being closely watched by the police, the stone-throwing still went on, and so far the culprit had not even been seen, let alone caught.

I visited the house once by myself, and once with a party of men. On the former occasion I hid in a little copse at the furthest extremity of the lawn, and watched the house and swing closely, but I neither heard nor saw anything. Returning to the house, I was told by Miss Hemming that both she and her mother had heard the knockings, and that she herself had, at the same time, seen the figure on the lawn.

On the occasion of my second visit, we all heard the knockings on the wall of Mrs. Hemming’s room, and one of us, who was looking out of her daughter’s window, saw what he fancied were two shadows of human beings cross the moonlit lawn and vanish in the direction of a hedge. Trickery was practically impossible, as the garden was protected on all sides by barbed wire, and there were on the premises four or five dogs, including a young bloodhound. We had of course made a thorough search of the house and grounds previously.

One or two other incidents happened during the night. When I was in the hall alone, a light, as from a bicycle lamp, was suddenly shone in my face, apparently from a blank wall, and when we were all seated in front of the dining-room fire, we heard heavy footsteps cross the hall, and although we ran out at once we could see no one. We were shown the stones that were alleged to have been thrown, but none were thrown whilst we were there. They were a peculiar kind of flint, which certainly did not belong to the neighbourhood. Mrs. Hemming had several times narrowly escaped being hit by them, and one had crashed through the bedroom window as she was looking out of it.

I did not continue my investigation of the case, because there were certain features in connection with it of a private and family nature, which greatly added to its complexity, and which would, of necessity, have rendered any attempt at solution incomplete and unsatisfactory.

Cases of complex haunting, although, for obvious reasons, seldom admitting of any satisfactory explanation, always interest me the most. Here is one I chanced to hit upon in Newcastle.

A house in —— Street had stood empty for seven or eight years, and on my making enquiries about it, I was told to apply to a Mr. Black, the last tenant. I did so, and Mr. Black very kindly gave me a detailed account of what had taken place there during his tenancy. It was as follows:—

“A day or two after our arrival I happened to be going upstairs, and, as I passed by one of the bedrooms, the door of which was slightly open, I glanced in, and saw the figure of a lady, whom I had never seen before. She was dressed in green, and standing in front of the looking-glass, engaged apparently in putting on her hat. Wondering who on earth she could be, for I knew the room had not been slept in, I spoke to her, and receiving no reply, I was advancing towards her, when she suddenly disappeared. I did not know what to make of the affair, but, thinking that possibly it was an hallucination, I resolved to think no more of it, and to say nothing about it to any of my family or household.

“Some days later, however, when out walking with my wife, I met a friend who asked me where I was living. I told him, and he exclaimed excitedly:

“‘Good gracious, not in that house! Why, my dear fellow——’ At a sign from me he stopped. I had guessed what was coming, and as my wife is extremely nervous I thought it best she should not hear what I knew he was going to say, namely, that the house was haunted.

“That night I went round to see my friend. He made no bones about it; he told me that the house I had taken was haunted—that he knew it for a fact.

“‘Some months ago,’ he said, ‘I was thinking of taking it myself, and, obtaining the key from the agent, went to look over it. It was quite light, not more than five o’clock in the afternoon, and the house seemed bright and cheerful. Closing the front door carefully behind me, I commenced a tour of the premises. I had reached the top floor, and was standing in the centre of one of the rooms, when I heard a slight noise. I started, and, turning round in the direction from which the sound came, perceived a lady and a little girl standing in the doorway watching me. There was nothing at all remarkable about them. The lady was dressed in green, the child in white, both modern, or at least comparatively modern, costumes. I was so surprised at their being there, however, as I knew I had shut the hall door, that I simply stood and stared at them. Then something much more extraordinary happened—they vanished. It was not an hallucination—that I can swear to—and thoroughly scared, I tore downstairs and out of the house. After this I gave up all idea of taking the place, and I can’t help feeling sorry, old fellow, that you’ve taken it.’

“In spite of this warning,” Mr. Black continued, “I did not give up the house immediately. After we had been there a week or so, a cousin of mine came to stay with us; and one evening he and one of my children, who were in the drawing-room, together heard a soft, cautious whistle—as if someone were giving a signal, coming, they thought, from just behind them. The whistle was repeated, and a few minutes later they heard a loud cry, half human, half animal, and wholly ominous. My cousin pretended it was one of the servants, but my child would not be convinced, and begged to be taken to bed at once, as she dared not remain in the room any longer. After this, phenomena of all kinds happened; steps used to be heard bounding up and down the stairs at all hours of the night; one of the maids declared she saw something that was a man and yet not a man come out of the drawing-room with a run, and race up the staircase two or three steps at a time; heavy pantings and sighs were heard, and several of the household were awakened by a cold hand being laid upon their face. But I think the most remarkable thing that happened is this:—I was sitting in my study one evening, when the maid rapped at my door and said that a clergyman (whom she had shown into the drawing-room) wished to see me on some very urgent matter. I at once put down the book I was reading, and, hastening to the drawing-room, found it empty. Wondering what had become of the clergyman, I was about to ring the bell to enquire, when I suddenly caught sight of a large eye, human in shape and horribly sinister, glaring at me from behind an arm-chair. I was so frightened that I could do nothing but stare back at it, and then, to my intense relief, my wife entered the room with a friend, and the phenomenon disappeared.”

“And the parson?” I observed.

“I never heard anything more of him,” Mr. Black remarked. “The maid assured me on her honour that she had shown him into the room, but no one saw him leave the house, so he, too, might have been a ghost; but supposing him to have been a living person, his disappearance would not be unnatural. He had doubtless seen the eye and precipitated himself into the street through the open window.

“The following day, my children being badly frightened by something in one of the passages, I decided to leave the house; and, although I afterwards made every possible enquiry, I could never hear of anything particularly tragic that had ever happened there. We were the first tenants, so I was told, that had ever complained of disturbances, and it was suggested that we might have brought the ghosts with us, but as none of us had ever seen a ghost before we entered that house, and we had no old furniture, at least none that we had not always had, and not one of us had ever attended a séance or in any way dabbled with Spiritualism, I do not think that theory at all possible. How do you account for the hauntings?”

“I cannot,” I replied, “nor can anyone else. The sheer complexity of such a case renders any definite conclusion with regard to it extremely difficult, and any positive solution of it utterly out of the question.”