by Mike Ashley
“I haven’t—yet,” I replied. “I think I have seen the haunting—or rather hauntings—complete, so to speak, because that is the work I’ve been trained to do. To see the whole where less highly-trained sensitives only see, as you say, in scraps. But precisely what these two poor souls have to do with each other—if anything!—I don’t know yet. Nor do I know the meaning of that whirlpool of terrible emotions that comes with them—whether that again belongs to those two, or does it perhaps mean a third and quite separate sort of haunting? Though I feel the three belong together in some way. As regards the more mature elements in the vibration wave, I think most of them emanate from the man. Somehow, some of them . . .” I hesitated . . . “the overwhelming feeling of shame, for instance, and the sense of violent anger and desire to destroy . . . these seem to me too mature, if you know what I mean, for a child. The child-element comes through, I fancy, on the fear-vibration . . . but what had she to fear, and what has that to do with the man, if anything?’
“‘If it was an older building’ said the Dean, ‘I would have thought one or other of the hauntings dated back to ancient times. But that can’t be. The Cathedral has only been finished and open for worship six months.’
“It hasn’t been built on the site of an older church by any chance, has it?” I said. “Because in that case it might have ‘inherited’ a ghost from the earlier building.”
“The Dean shook his head.
“‘No,’ he said decidedly. ‘It was built on virgin ground—the land was part of a park owned by Sir William Nant, who gave it over to the Church as a thanksgiving for the recovery of his only son from a long illness.’
“There was evidently no solution there, and I brooded over the problem all day, but without much success. I examined the altar and all about it as a matter of routine, but without finding anything whatever out of the ordinary; so I decided to go once more to the Cathedral that night to see if anything more enlightening took place.
“The night was darkish, and it was only occasionally that a chance shaft of moonlight managed to pierce the high windows and help the dim red glow of the high-hung Sanctuary lamps . . . but it all happened again, just as before. Again the tide of warring emotions rose about me, shaking and horrifying me with sheer pity and terror both and longing to help—and as the tide rose to its climax, came the man standing on the altar steps, and then the child.
“I sat through the same painful experience, and all happened as before until the little figure of the child came down the steps and darted away into the dusk through the choir-stalls—and on her disappearance immediately the atmosphere lightened, the sense of oppression vanished, and within a few moments I could sit back, breathe, and wipe my sweating brow and wonder how much more of this I must endure before beginning to find some solution of the problem. If I could find out where the child disappeared to it might help. So shaking off my rug, I followed in the direction where the figure of the child seemed to have gone, and found myself in the Dean’s vestry, from which an outer door, now locked, led out upon the green platform of turf that surrounded the Cathedral. The vestry was open and empty but for various surplices hanging ghost-like from their hooks, and as I peered from the little window I saw, with the aid of the moon, that had for a moment floated clear of the clouds, that the smooth green turf lay quiet, untroubled by a shadowy little figure flitting across it. The child had disappeared again, leaving no trace, and again, disappointed, I returned to the Dean’s house and to bed.
“Well, for about a week, night after night, I kept this tedious vigil, without any sort of result, except considerable exhaustion on my part, and I was really beginning to wonder whether I might have to write this case off as one of my failures—which I should have very much disliked doing!—when by sheer chance one night I forgot the latchkey with which the Dean had provided me so that I could let myself in on my return without waking the household.
“I had been through the selfsame experience that night as all the other nights—the two figures, the awful sense of despair, of fury, or mortal fear, and it had ended as it always did, with the disappearance of the child’s figure into the shadow-filled choir-stalls—and again I had followed her and tried to see where she went, but without success. Either I was never quick enough to catch her leaving the Church, or else she simply did not exist—or appear, however one might describe it—anywhere except in the Church itself. If this were true, indeed, as far as I saw, I stood little chance of solving the problem!
“The grim and pitiful scene looked like going on indefinitely, like some ill-omened film shown every night in the heart of the new Cathedral to anyone who dared to watch, and I was definitely feeling rather cast down about it as I left the Cathedral and crossed the close-cut grass and approached the Dean’s house—and finding I had left the latchkey in my bedroom, cursed my folly roundly! It was barely one o’clock in the morning. I was tired and depressed, and the prospect of either having to walk about all night, sleep in the Cathedral, or else rouse the little man’s household to let me in, did not please me at all.
“I tried the front door, but it was securely locked, of course. I went round the neat little garden to the back door, to find that also locked, and there remained only one hope—the Dean’s study at the back of the house. If he had forgotten to shut and latch the window, as in his absent-minded way he might have done, I might succeed in getting in that way. I thought I spied a faint light between the folds of the halfdrawn curtains and wondered whether he might possibly be sitting up reading late, as occasionally, defying the disapproval of his sister, he did.
“I stepped as lightly as I could between the plants below the window and peered in—and got the shock of my life. The thick velvet curtains hung well apart, and I could see most of the room—and the light within came from no earthly lamp or candle! It came from the shape of a child that stood in a far corner of the room, beside a large closed desk. Yes, it was the child—my little ghost!
“Here, seen at closer quarters, she was more distinct, and indeed the faint light that seemed to hang about her shone out in the darkness of the room as though she was surrounded with a queer kind of phosphorescence. Yes, there she was, that red-frocked, ragged little shadow with bare feet and tangled dark hair falling shaggily over its eyes, like that of a little wild thing of the woods rather than a child of human parentage. For a moment I stood transfixed, staring, as she stood by the desk, stroking its surface, passing her hand over it with that absorbed attention, almost wondering, that a child gives to something that holds some peculiar interest for it . . . then in the blink of an eye she was gone, and with my heart thumping with excitement I managed to push the window open (which was, as I had hoped, ajar), and scrambling into the room, went to examine the desk where she had been standing.
“I was disappointed at first. It was a handsome but perfectly ordinary modern rolltop desk, with nothing notable about it in any way. If it had been an antique piece, I felt it would have held out more promise. . . . But anyway, this was getting somewhere at least outside the Cathedral, and directly after breakfast that morning I tackled the Dean.
“He was most excited at my tale, and when I told him where the child had been standing, his cherubic pinkness deepened almost to crimson in his excitement.
“‘My dear sir—my dear sir! But that is a desk that I bought at the sale of poor Gregg Hart’s belongings! It belonged to him!’
“I bounded out of my chair.
“That was Gregg Hart’s? My God, then we’ve found out at least something. There is a connection between him and the child, though what, it remains to be seen . . . at least we’ve solved that much. They are not two independent hauntings, but one—connected by some link that we’ve still got to find. Perhaps that link is hidden in that desk. . . .”
“By this time we were both out of the breakfast-room and in the study, and the Dean was fumbling with the key of the desk. It was, he explained, not used very much as a rule. He had bought it for the use of his si
ster, to keep her account and housekeeping books in, the notes and records of her various activities connected with the Church, the Dorcas Society, Mothers’ Meetings, Y.W.C.A., Girl Guides, and all the rest—but the little lady had been disappointed in it. It was too large and masculine in type for her taste—more suitable for her brother’s study, she had acidly declared, than for her pretty drawing-room! So it had remained in a corner of the Dean’s own study, though, devoted to his own desk, he did not use it—he had, indeed, intended to sell it again and buy his sister another desk that would tune in more effectively with the Chippendale furniture that was her passion. Meanwhile she was using the pigeon-holes at the top to store a few odd papers in, but the drawers were all empty, as far as he knew. . . .
“Without waiting for Miss Conover’s permission—another sin for which I fear the little Dean subsequently got into trouble!—we turned out the desk thoroughly, finding, as the Dean had predicted, that all the drawers were empty, though the pigeon-holes were fairly full of odd papers, bills, recipes, lists, letters, account-books, notes, brown-paper and string, a varied collection of small boxes, labels, and similar small things. We sorted all these out with meticulous care, but found nothing at all relevant to the matter we had in hand. We pulled out the drawers and looked behind them, but even when the whole thing stood gaping, empty, I still had the feeling that there was something there to be found, if only we could find it . . . and sure enough, there was!
“I have made something of a study of secret drawers and the like, as you know. Many of these modern desks have a secret drawer somewhere, and this one had—cleverly concealed behind the pigeonholes that filled in the back of the desk. I fumbled about for a while, but at last I found the tiny catch for which I was looking—four pigeon-holes came forward in a solid block. I lifted them out, and behind them was a tiny door! It was locked, but I easily forced the lock with the tiny pocket-jemmy that I always carry—which made the Dean’s eyes bulge somewhat!—and a crumpled litter of papers tumbled out, and with them a little red-leather-covered pocket book.
“As I pounced on it the Dean gave an exclamation.
“‘A diary . . . Gregg Hart’s! I’ve often seen him use it.’ A faint qualm seized him. ‘A dead man’s secrets . . . my dear sir, do you think we ought . . . ?’
“‘I don’t know what you feel you ought to do,’ I said with firmness, ‘but I’ve been called in to get rid of this haunting that is ruining your lovely Cathedral, my dear Dean! And with your leave—or without it—I intend to leave no stone unturned until I do. This diary—all these papers—may be of untold value. I am going to my room now to study them from beginning to end.’
“I spent an absorbing two hours. The loose papers were of no value, though I examined them with care; there were drafts of letters—mostly of a rather acrimonious sort, showing that the rumours anent poor Hart’s bad temper had by no means been exaggerated!—bills, notes, a few odd sketches, and so on. But the diary. . . . As I read it I shuddered, and yet all the time I felt, beside my horror, that sense of overwhelming pity rising within me again. . . .
“The diary started about a year before the finishing of the Cathedral—started, it seemed, almost at random. Something like this.
“‘. . . a positive hoodoo on this building! Another man ill—this means those murals held up again, for God knows how long. Why must it be my key-men who always fall ill?’
“A few days later . . .
“‘Driving me mad, these continual hitches. The very weather against us. Would have thought that spire proof against any storm . . . and now they say there must have been some weakness in the construction, to bring it down! I lost my temper . . . said what I suppose I ought not. Do they think me an amateur not to know how to choose sound stuff, or how to construct. Stupid . . . but one’s tempted to wonder if there isn’t something in the old idea that the Devil hates the building of a church and tries his best to stop it. . . . Something positively uncanny about these continual hindrances . . .’
“Later again it went on:
“‘Yes, it would happen to me! The only earthquake for fifty years—and only a tiny one, they say, but enough to crack my marble flooring . . . simply isn’t natural for these misfortunes to come one after another. And yet I swear I will finish it, my magnum opus, the loveliest thing I ever built! These things are maddening . . . can’t sleep, can’t eat, and my nerves are getting frightful. . . .’
“I read on slowly and carefully, page after page, seeing with a mixture of pity and fear the man’s storm-torn mind as the feeling gradually grew upon him that there was something uncanny, inimical, fighting against the completion of the glorious creation upon which he had set his heart. . . .
“The luncheon bell rang before I had got more than halfway through the diary, and slipping the book into my pocket I went down to join the Dean and his sister.
“The little lady had already got over her annoyance at our ruthless rifling of her papers, and smiled upon me as she doled out plentiful portions of roast duck and green peas, with apple-charlotte to follow.
“Over coffee with the Dean in his study afterwards, I told him something of what I had already found in the diary. The Dean’s face lengthened with pity.
“‘Poor fellow!’ he muttered. ‘Poor fellow! Oh, yes, I know that towards the end, in spite of all that I could say, I fear he really began to believe that something that was not of our world was deliberately thwarting him—holding the work up, trying to prevent its completion.’
“‘Was there really an undue amount of difficulty in getting the Cathedral finished?’ I asked.
“The Dean wrinkled his brows.
“‘Well’ he said, ‘there were a great many hindrances, I’ll admit, of one sort and another, especially during the last year, when that diary was written—though I think to Hart, with his excitable, hysterical temperament, they loomed larger and more sinister than they would have done to a more steadily balanced man. After all, there are hitches, delays, disasters in the building of any place, great or small! There was a strike amongst the masons at one time, and then I remember two Italian expert workmen engaged on the mosaics behind the altar fell ill and were in hospital for several weeks so that work was held up, as nobody could touch that sort of work. Then the first spire blew down in a storm, and then a transport ship bringing a cargo of special Sicilian marble sank—and again, there was an epidemic of influenza that kept three-quarters of his men away for weeks. And, of course, towards the end, men began dropping off because of this story about the ghost-child that appeared directly it grew dark. . . . Oh, I can’t remember everything in detail, but really, one could scarcely blame the man for getting almost crazy with worry and anxiety as to whether he would ever get the thing really finished. But to blame it on deliberate action by the Devil . . . well!’ The Dean laughed deprecatingly as he stirred his coffee. ‘Of course, that was frankly childish, as I told him . . . and he didn’t like that at all, poor man; he lost his temper and said most regrettable things. In these days one doesn’t accept the medieval Devil, horns and hoofs and tail, who deliberately sets out to prevent the building of a church.’
“I suppressed the answer I had in mind to make—that if the Dean had had the personal experiences of Evil that I had had, he might not talk quite so confidently!
“‘Quite,’ I said. ‘But don’t you see that that idea, in the mind of a man already anxious, worried, highly strung—on the verge, if you like, of losing his balance—that idea might well become in time a positive obsession? In a word, even if untrue, it might well in time become a very dreadful truth—to him? And the less people believed him, the more he would feel it incumbent upon him, the only person who really knew the truth, to cope with it and vanquish it himself, at no matter what cost . . .’
“The Dean looked at me attentively.
“‘I don’t quite know what you’re leading up to,’ he began . . . but I interrupted as I rose from my chair.
“‘I don’t either,’ I sa
id, slapping my pocket. ‘But I’ve an uneasy suspicion that I shan’t voice until I’ve read the rest of this. I hope it isn’t true, this suspicion. But I’ve an unpleasant feeling that it is . . . .’
“That unpleasant feeling was justified! I spent the afternoon reading the rest of the diary, and then, feeling unwontedly sober, sent a message by one of the maids to ask whether the Dean would see me after tea, alone, in his study. I had a request to make. When I put it he stared at me in silence for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was incredulous.
“‘Impossible, my dear sir! It’s impossible. Both what you say—and the request you make!’ His scared blue eyes were on mine as he repeated, ‘Impossible!’ and I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well, there it is. I’ve solved your problem—or rather, I’ve got to the root of the problem and put you in the way of solving it. I can’t solve it myself. Only an ordained priest can do that. If you don’t take my advice, frankly, I see nothing for Nant Cathedral but to endure these hauntings indefinitely.’
He stared at me afresh.
“You think—that? Oh, but no! It would be awful . . . we have lost already more than half our workers, to say nothing of our congregations. People are getting terrified . . . .’ He wrung his hands. ‘Of what use is a church where none come to worship?’
‘“Precisely!’ I said. ‘And it is because I think you are a man really strong enough to work with me in the releasing of this lovely place from the curse that has come to rest upon it that I have asked you—what I have.’
“I stared at him straight in the eyes as he murmured something distractedly about the Bishop and twisted his fat little hands together again—but I sensed a yielding in his attitude and went on more emphatically.
“‘Come, come, sir—what, after all, do I ask you to do? Help me to release a suffering soul—to lift the shadow away from this holy place. Surely doing that is God’s work, even if I ask you to do it in a rather unconventional way?’