Ghosts I Have Seen Part 28

Silence, utter silence! Absolutely nothing to be seen or heard. He thinks of going to bed. He always said the whole thing was "tommy rot."

The deathly silence is suddenly rent by a piercing scream at his very elbow, and he leaps to his feet, growling out an oath below his breath.

He looks wildly round on every side of him. Nothing! Something strange is happening to his head. He pa.s.ses his hand over his hair. It seems to be creeping along his scalp, and he thinks of the quills of a porcupine.

"What the devil is he to do?" "Go to bed," answers inclination, "you're doing no good here. Yes! Go to bed; that's the sensible thing to do."

The next morning every one asks him if he heard "it." He acknowledges to himself that his temper is becoming vile.

The day comes when he is left alone with his family. The staff has fled and he feels rather broken.

At last he gives in, and agrees to seek another home, but it is not to the ghosts he gives in, but to the nervous fancies of a pack of silly women. He feels wonderfully light-hearted, however, now that his mind is made up, and a glow of magnanimity pervades him. "If you do a thing at all do it well and _at once_," he tells himself, and promptly hires another house in another neighborhood.

When questioned by his men friends he laughs. The man in the street might understand certain things that he could tell, but the man in the club, never! "All tommy rot, my dear chap, but my wife got nervous, and the servants! You know what they are. Scared by the scratch of a mouse.

For the women's sake I thought it best to quit. You know what women are, when they once get an idea into their heads!"

CHAPTER XXI

THE SEQUEL

In 1917 a friend rang me up and asked me if I would form one of a party of investigation at "Castel a Mare." The services of a medium had been secured, and a soldier on leave, who was deeply immersed in psychic research, was in high hopes of getting some genuine results.

I accepted the invitation because a certain incident had once more roused my curiosity in the haunted house.

During our investigations I had been disappointed at not hearing the much-talked-of scream, the more so after learning from the former tenants how very often they had heard it. When I did at last hear it I was walking past the house on a very hot summer morning, about eleven o'clock. I was not thinking of the house, and had just pa.s.sed it on my way home, when a piercing scream arrested my attention. I wheeled round instantly; there was not a doubt as to where the scream came from, but unfortunately, though there were people on the road, there was no one near enough to bear witness. The scream appeared to come from some one in abject terror, and would have arrested the attention of any one who happened to be pa.s.sing. I mean that had no haunted house stood there, had the scream proceeded from any other villa, I am sure that any pa.s.ser-by would have halted wonderingly, and awaited further developments.

"Castel a Mare" lay in absolute silence, under the blazing suns.h.i.+ne, and in a minute or two I walked on. I could now understand what it must have meant to live in that house, in constant dread of that weird and hideous sound resounding through the rooms or garden.

This incident made me eager to join my friend's party, and on reaching the house I found a small crowd a.s.sembled.

The medium, myself, and four other women. The soldier, and an elderly and burly builder belonging to the neighborhood, who was interested in psychic research. Eight persons in all.

As there was no chair or furniture of any description in the house, we carried in a small empty box from a rubbish heap outside, and followed the medium through the rooms. She elected to remain in the large bedroom, on the first floor, out of which opened the bathroom, and she sat down on the box and leaned her back against the wall, whilst we lounged about the room and awaited events. It was a sunny summer afternoon, and the many broken panes of gla.s.s throughout the house admitted plenty of air.

After some minutes it was plain to see that the medium had fallen into a trance. Her eyes were closed, and she lay back as if in sound sleep.

Time pa.s.sed, nothing happened, we were all rather silent, as I had warned the party that though we were in a room at the side of the house farthest from the road, our voices could plainly be heard by pa.s.sers-by, and we wanted no interference.

Just as we were all beginning to feel rather bored and tired of standing, the medium sprang to her feet with surprising agility, pouring out a volume of violent language. Her voice had taken on the deep growling tones of an infuriated man, who advanced menacingly towards those of us who were nearest to him. In harsh, threatening voice he demanded to know what right we had to intrude on his privacy.

There was a general scattering of the scared party before this unlooked-for attack, and the soldier gave it as his opinion that the medium was now controlled by the spirit of a very violent male ent.i.ty. I had no doubt upon the point.

Then commenced so very unpleasant a scene that I had no doubt also of the medium's genuineness. No charlatan, dependent upon fraudulent mediums.h.i.+p for her daily bread, would have made herself so intensely obnoxious as did this frail little woman. I found myself saying, "Never again. This isn't good enough."

The ent.i.ty that controlled her possessed superhuman strength. His voice was like the bellow of a bull, as he told us to be gone, or he would throw us out himself, and his language was shocking.

I had warned the medium on entering the house that we must be as quiet as possible, or we would have the police walking in on us. Now I expected any moment to see a policeman, or some male stranger arrive on the scene, and demand to know what was the matter.

The majority of our party were keeping at a safe distance, but suddenly the control rushed full tilt at the soldier, who had stood his ground, and attacking him with a tigerish fury drew blood at once. The big builder and I rushed forward to his aid. The rest of the party forsook us and fled, pell-mell, out of the house and into the garden. Glancing through a window, near which we fought, I saw below a row of scared faces staring up in awed wonder.

The scene being enacted was really amazing. This frail little creature threw us off like feathers, and drove us foot by foot before her, always heading us off the bathroom. We tried to stand our ground, and dodge her furious lunges, but she was too much for us. After a desperate scuffle, which lasted quite seven or eight minutes, and resulted in much torn clothing, she drove us out of the room and on to the landing. Then suddenly, without warning, the ent.i.ty seemed to evacuate the body he had controlled, and the medium went down with a crash and lay at our feet, just a little crumpled disheveled heap.

For some considerable time I thought that she was dead. Her lips were blue, and I could feel no pulse. We had neither water nor brandy with which to revive her, and we decided to carry her down into the garden and see what fresh air would do. Though villas stood all round us, the foliage of the trees gave us absolute privacy, and we laid her flat on the lawn. There, after about ten minutes, she gradually regained her consciousness, and seemingly none the worse for her experiences she sat up and asked what had happened.

We did not give her the truth in its entirety, and contrived to account for the blood-stained soldier and the torn clothing, without unduly shocking and distressing her. We then dispersed; the medium walking off as if nothing whatever had occurred to deplete her strength.

Some days after this the soldier begged for another experiment with the medium. He had no doubts as to her genuineness, and he was sure that if we tried again we would get further developments. She was willing to try again, and so was the builder, but with one exception the rest of the party refused to have anything more to do with the unpleasant affair, and the one exception stipulated to remain in the garden. She very wisely remarked that if she came into the house there was no knowing what ent.i.ty might not attach itself to her, and return home with her, and she was not going to risk it. Of course this real danger always had to be counted upon in such investigations, but as the men of the party desired a woman to accompany the medium, I consented, and we entered the house once more, a reduced party of four.

After the medium had remained entranced for some minutes, the same male ent.i.ty again controlled her. The same violence, the same attacks began once more, but this time we were better prepared to defend ourselves.

The soldier and the stalwart builder warded off the attacks, and tried conciliatory expostulations, but all to no purpose. Then the soldier, who seemed to have considerable experience in such matters, tried a system of exorcising, sternly bidding the malignant ent.i.ty depart. There ensued a very curious spiritual conflict between the exorcist and the ent.i.ty, in which sometimes it seemed as if one, then the other, was about to triumph.

Those wavering moments were useful in giving us breathing s.p.a.ce from the a.s.saults, and at length having failed, as we desired, to get into the bathroom, we drove him back against the wall at the far end of the room.

Finally the exorcist triumphed, and the medium collapsed on the floor, as the strength of the control left her.

For a few moments we allowed the crumpled up little heap to remain where she lay, whilst we mopped our brows and regained our breath. The soldier had brought a flask of brandy which we proposed to administer to the unconscious medium, but quite suddenly a new development began.

She raised her head, and still crouching on the floor with closed eyes she began to cry bitterly. Wailing, and moaning, and uttering inarticulate words, she had become the picture of absolute woe.

"Another ent.i.ty has got hold of her," announced the soldier. It certainly appeared to be so.

All signs of violence had gone. The medium had become a heart-broken woman.

We raised her to her feet, her condition was pitiable, but her words became more coherent.

"Poor master! On the bed. Help him! Help him!" she moaned, and pointed to one side of the room. Again and again she indicated, by clenching her hands on her throat, that death by strangulation was the culmination of some terrible tragedy that had been enacted in that room.

She wandered, in a desolate manner, about the floor, wringing her hands, the tears pouring down her cheeks, whilst she pointed to the bed, then towards the bathroom with shuddering horror.

Suddenly we were startled out of our compa.s.sionate sympathy by a piercing scream, and my thoughts flew instantly to the experiences of the former tenants, and what I myself had heard in pa.s.sing on that June morning of the former year.

The medium had turned at bay, and began a frantic encounter with some ent.i.ty unseen by us. Wildly she wrestled and fought, as if for her life, whilst she emitted piercing shrieks for "help." We rushed to the rescue, dragging her away from her invisible a.s.sailant, but a disembodied fighter has a considerable pull over a fighter in the flesh, who possesses something tangible that can be seized. I placed the medium behind me, with her back to the wall, but though I pressed her close she continued to fight, and I had to defend myself as well as defend her.

Her a.s.sailant was undoubtedly the first terrible ent.i.ty which had controlled her. At intervals she gasped out, "Terrible doctor--will kill me--he's killed master--help! help!"

Gradually she ceased to fight. The soldier was exorcising with all his force, and was gaining power; finally he triumphed, inasmuch as he banished the "terrible doctor."

The medium was, however, still under the control of the broken-hearted ent.i.ty, and began again to wander about the room. We extracted from her further details. An approximate date of the tragedy. Her master's name, that he was mentally deficient when the murder took place. She was a maidservant in the house, and after witnessing the crime she appeared to have shared her master's fate, though by what means we could not determine. The doctor was a resident physician of foreign origin.

At last we induced her to enter the bathroom, which she seemed to dread, and there she fell to lamenting over the dead body of her master, which had lain hidden there when the room was used as a large cupboard. It was a very painful scene, which was ended abruptly by her falling down insensible.

She had collapsed in an awkward corner, but at last we lifted her out, and carried her downstairs to the garden. When I tried to revive her with brandy I found that her teeth were tightly clenched. I then tried artificial respiration, as I could feel no pulse. Gradually she came back to life, quietly, calmly, and in total ignorance of what had occurred. The most amazing thing was that she showed no signs whatever of exhaustion or mental fatigue. We were all dead beat, but not so the fragile-looking little medium, though externally she looked terribly disheveled and draggled.

This was the last time I set foot in the haunted house, which is now being demolished, but I still had to experience more of its odd phenomena.

The date and names the medium had given us were later on verified by means of a record of villa residents, which for many years had been kept in the town of Torquay.

There is no one left now who has any interest in verifying a tragic story supposed to have been enacted about fifty years ago. It must be left in the realms of psychic research, by which means it was dragged to light. Certain it is that no such murder came to the knowledge of those who were alive then, and live still in Torquay.

If there is any truth in the story it falls under the category of undiscovered crimes. The murderer was able somehow to hide his iniquities, and escape suspicion and punishment. I do not know if it is intended to build another house on the same site. I hope not, for it is very probable that a new residence would share the fate of the old.