Dark Encounters: Ghost Stories

by William Croft Dickinson

  Moving about the room with the bone in his hand, Rowandson finally stopped in front of an old-fashioned knick-knack stand which bore on its shelves a medley of flints, cylindrical seals, Roman nails, and other small archæological objects of varying periods and kinds. ‘The very place,’ he muttered. ‘Not so much Poe’s idea in The Purloined Letter as Chesterton’s idea of hiding a leaf in a forest.’

  By moving some of the specimens closer to one another he cleared a small space on one of the shelves and placed the bone there. Stepping back, he surveyed the result and found it good.

  Two days later, as Sir Stephen Rowandson entered his study after a frugal breakfast, he was feeling thoroughly disgruntled. His housekeeper, summoned yesterday afternoon to nurse a sister who had suddenly been taken ill, had left him to fend for himself; and Sir Stephen Rowandson was not accustomed to domestic work. He had managed to prepare his coffee, toast and marmalade for breakfast; but now the dead ashes in his study fire-place mocked him. He would have to rake out those ashes and lay the fire himself. Unwillingly he began his task. As he busied himself with paper and firewood, his mind turned to the Museum and to his forthcoming exhibition. And his thoughts made him more disgruntled still. Why should everything go wrong at one and the same time? For, yesterday morning, when one or two members of the Society had come to the Museum to help with the final preparations, and when, in accordance with his promise, he had arranged for a place in one of the two locked cases to be reserved for Michael Elliott’s witch’s bone, the interfering and officious Colonel Hogan had actually presumed to give contrary orders, even asserting that the bone wasn’t worth a place in the exhibition anywhere. He had had trouble with the Colonel before. The man seemed to think he was in command of everything. But this time there had followed an unseemly wrangle in which he had completely lost his temper. More than that, in defending his promise to Elliott, be had hotly argued that the bone might be more dangerous than any of them realized. That heated altercation had made him look foolish; and he remembered, to his annoyance, the glances that had been exchanged. The word would now go round that he was becoming as credulous as Elliott himself. But if Elliott hadn’t been so fussy, the argument would never have started at all.

  ‘I could curse the old fool,’ he muttered angrily, as he thrust the sticks of firewood among the paper which he had crushed up and laid in the hearth. ‘Damn Michael Elliott, and damn his bone.’

  He finished laying the fire and rose up from his task when, as he did so, he heard a strange rattle which seemed to come from somewhere within the room. Startled he looked round. But nothing had fallen; nothing seemed to be out of place. ‘Probably a bird fluttered against the window,’ he said, dubiously. ‘But it didn’t sound like it. It was a queer sound. Never heard anything like it before.’

  Well, what now? He could go to the Museum and work there; then he could lunch at his Club; back to the Museum again; dinner at the Club; and perhaps he could even collect together a bridge-four for the evening. Yes, he could manage without his housekeeper for a day or two. But he hoped it wouldn’t be longer than that.

  Everything had worked according to plan, and Sir Stephen Rowandson was feeling much happier. He had put in a good morning’s work; he had had an excellent lunch at his Club — and had even arranged a bridge-four; he had carried on with his exhibition in the afternoon; and, to his great relief, the members who had dropped in to help had given no indication that yesterday’s wrangle had affected them in any way at all. It was nearly five o’clock, and he was thinking of giving up for the day, when he heard the bell ring. That was unusual. Who could be ringing the bell? The door was open, and people just walked in. Somewhat puzzled, he went to the door and found there a young man.

  ‘Sir Stephen Rowandson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Robert Reid, sir. You won’t know me, but I’m the local representative of the Scotsman and I was told you might be able to help me.’

  Sir Stephen Rowandson led his visitor into the main room of the Museum.

  ‘And what can I do to help you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m anxious to trace a photograph of Dr Michael Elliott. The paper wishes to carry one tomorrow. I do not like to call at his house, and it, was suggested to me that probably you would have one here since, or so I gather, Dr Elliott was a prominent member of your Society.’

  ‘But why can’t you call at his house?’

  The young man looked up quickly.

  ‘But of course, how stupid of me. You cannot have heard.’ Then, in a slightly lower voice, he continued: ‘I’m very sorry to tell you, sir, that Dr Michael Elliott is dead. He was killed in a bad accident in Edinburgh, about half-past eleven this morning. And, as you will understand, we must carry a fairly long obituary notice. We would also like a photograph, if possible.’

  ‘Michael Elliott dead,’ repeated Rowandson, dully.

  ‘Yes, sir. Apparently he was walking along the pavement by a site where a new building is going up when, for some unknown reason, a steel girder that was being lifted by a crane slipped from the chains which were holding it. Hitting the side of the building, it slewed round and, by sheer bad luck, fell on Dr Elliott and crushed him to death.’

  ‘How horrible!’

  ‘Yes, sir. But we are told that death must have been instantaneous. For not only was Dr Elliott badly crushed but also the girder, in falling, broke down a wooden screen which was shielding the site and, according to the doctors, drove a wedge of broken wood from the screen straight through Dr Elliott’s heart.’

  For a brief space Sir Stephen Rowandson remained silent.

  ‘It comes to all of us, sooner or later,’ he said at last. ‘But I wish it could have come in a way different from this. A photograph? Yes, I think I can help. There was a photograph of Dr Elliott in our local paper, the Standard, only the other day. Come up to my house and I’ll show it to you. Then, if you think it suitable, I’m sure the Standard people will be only too glad to lend you the block.’

  Sir Stephen Rowandson led the newspaper-man into his study, where, almost at once, he apologised for the coldness of the room.

  ‘I’m sorry to offer you such a chilly reception,’ he said. ‘But my housekeeper is away and I am looking after myself. However, we’ll soon have a fire, and then I’ll hunt for that photograph.’

  Although the young man held out a restraining hand, Rowandson struck a match, and lit the fire. Then, crossing to a pile of newspapers on a small table by his desk, he began to turn over the papers one by one. But the Standard which he wanted was not there.

  ‘Queer,’ he said, ‘I could have sworn it was in this pile. But warm yourself at what fire there is while I have a look in the dining-room. I sometimes leave the paper there.’

  He went out of the room, and the young man looked ruefully at the fire. The edges of the paper had burned, but nothing more. As one last wisp of smoke curled up towards the chimney, the fire was out.

  ‘I can’t find it anywhere,’ growled Rowandson, coming back into the room. Once more he went through the pile of papers on the table, and still without success. Then he saw the dead hearth.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ he cried. ‘The fire has gone out. I must have packed it too tightly. Stupid of me. But it’s years since I laid a fire.’

  Then a new thought came to him.

  ‘And I’m willing to bet that the Standard I’m looking for is there, at the bottom of my wretched fire. I just took the first paper that came to hand. I really am sorry. But look! If you go to the offices of the Standard, in the High Street, they’ll willingly show you the issue, and then you can ask about the block. Say I sent you. Really, I should have taken you there in the first place.’

  With many apologies for troubling the Honorary Curator of the Museum, the young newspaper-man left. Sir Stephen Rowandson returned to his study and there looked balefully at the dead fire.

  ‘I suppose I shall have to re-lay the damned thing,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’d better do it
now, and have done with it.’

  Kneeling down in front of the hearth, he removed the coal, then the firewood, and finally the paper. Yes, he had packed it too tightly. But he had learned his lesson. Straightening out a piece of the crushed-up paper, he saw it was the Standard for which he had been looking. He might have guessed he would use the one newspaper that was wanted. Ah! here was the page that bore poor Elliott’s photograph. He straightened the page. It was still a good likeness, even though the photograph was badly crushed, and a splinter from the rough firewood had pierced it in the very heart.

  But all that held no significance for Sir Stephen Rowandson. He re-laid the fire, went to his bathroom, and there — washed his hands.

  THE SWEET SINGERS

  ALTHOUGH our Scottish universities are strangely lacking in those facilities for social intercourse which form part and parcel of the life in an Oxford or Cambridge college, it may be questioned whether even those more ancient, and in some ways more fortunate, foundations have anything to equal our annual inter-university competition for the Professors’ Challenge Cup at golf. Who first devised this golfing event is now unknown; and the ‘Cup’ itself exists only in the name. But of the popularity of the gathering there can be no doubt — save, perhaps, to the caddies of the chosen course who, though they may find our bags are light, are usually more concerned with finding our errant balls. For our enjoyment of the competition is not solely one of meeting old friends in pleasant places. There is also the game itself. And since the competition is played by handicap, with the handicaps assessed by old McIlwain of St Andrews, under some ‘stone age’ system of his own in which the average of previous scores is reconciled with age and weight and girth, even the very worst of us can still play his round in the hope that the final figures will show his own name at the head of all. Had it been otherwise, this tale would never have been told. Under McIlwain’s assessment my handicap was 24.

  Upon this particular occasion our meeting had been held at North Berwick; we had been favoured with a lovely day; and the luck of the draw had partnered me with my old friend Andrew Lomas, who then held the Chair of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen. Not that the two of us said much during the round. Lomas played his golf with a precision and concentration equal to that with which he delivered a lecture or conducted an experiment; and I have a shrewd suspicion that in his secret heart he longed to reduce even golf to the neatness and efficiency of a mathematical equation. Over our eighteen holes practically his only comment was a dry remark about the importance of the ‘approach’ to any problem, and that came from him only when, after a masterly chip to the flag, he sank his putt on the last green to hand in a score of 73. But his handicap (McIlwain) was plus 10.

  As it happened, however, both of us had decided to stay the night at North Berwick — I, in order to examine on the morrow a reputed short cist which had been discovered on a nearby farm; Lomas, because of the long journey to Aberdeen. And naturally both of us had booked at the old ‘Royal’, where we found that we had been given adjacent rooms, each facing the sea and each with a marvellous view of the massive Bass.

  At first we had thought of an after-dinner walk to Tantallon and back again, but, with a cold east wind suddenly blowing in from the sea, we concluded that one round of golf was walking enough for one day. Instead we adjourned to the smoking-room, where the only other occupant was a somewhat stern-looking minister with a patriarchal beard and an undoubted gift of concentration — or, to put it another way, our ministerial fellow-guest gave no sign that our conversation in any way disturbed his engrossment in his book. What we talked about I cannot now remember, nor is it of consequence to my story; but about eleven o’clock we were both yawning and ready for our beds. And once abed I was soon fast asleep.

  I had not been long asleep — or perhaps I should say that that was my impression, and it is a common impression and often a common fallacy in similar circumstances — when I was awakened by a gentle but persistent knocking on my bedroom door. Lighting the bedside lamp, I slipped out of bed and into my dressing-gown, and opened the door. To my surprise Lomas, also in pyjamas and dressing-gown, at once stepped into my room from the ill-lit corridor outside.

  ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you,’ he said, quietly closing the door. Then, without waiting for an answer, he walked over to my window, drew aside the curtains, and stood there, alert and assured, with his head turned slightly sideways, as though listening intently.

  I moved over to join him.

  ‘Strange,’ he whispered, ‘I can’t hear it now.’

  Not knowing what it was that was now inaudible, I strove to catch what sound I could. But all that I could hear was the light sough of the wind round the house and the steady beat of the waves on the sand.

  ‘What was it?’ I asked in a low voice.

  But Lomas only motioned me to be silent; and so, side by side, we stood tense and expectant before an inn window overlooking the grey North Sea and the shadowy outline of the inhospitable Bass.

  Suddenly I sensed that Lomas had stiffened; and at that same moment my ears caught the strange sound of a distant singing. The singing seemed to be that of many voices joined in harmony; but although there was this impression of many voices, the sound itself was little louder than the whisper of the wind and so faint that it came and went between the rhythmic crash of the breaking waves. Yet there was this also — with the singing I seemed to be no longer within the confines of the room but out in the open air and in the spaces of the night.

  For some time we listened to the rise and fall of that strange singing. Then it ceased, and all was silence again.

  ‘You heard it?’ whispered Lomas.

  I nodded.

  ‘I knew it couldn’t be my imagination,’ he returned. ‘And it doesn’t synchronize with the wind, so it cannot be anything similar to the moaning of the statues in Butler’s Erewhon. Shall we open the window? It is coming from somewhere outside and it may start again. But who are they, and why are they singing at this unearthly hour of night?’

  I pushed up the window and we stood waiting, drawing our dressing-gowns closer as the chill night air came into the room. But we had not long to wait. Almost at once there again came the sound of singing, this time somewhat louder because of the open window, though also the crash of the breaking waves was likewise louder, so that again the sound came and went with the noise of the sea. But this time, with a start, I suddenly found that here and there I recognized a word, and with that I found that I was hearing (or mentally supplying) whole lines:

  Yet, Lord, hear me crying,

  To Thy mercy with Thee will I go.

  But who could be singing that old metrical version of the 51st Psalm? Three more verses followed, and to the best of my recollection the arrangement was that given in the well-known collection by the brothers Wedderburn.

  With the end of the sixth verse the singing ceased. Lomas looked at me with a query in his eyes as we still stood in silence, still listening and still waiting. But now only the sea disturbed the silence. The singing had come to an end.

  Lomas pulled down the window and turned to sit on the edge of my bed.

  ‘And what do you make of that?’ he asked.

  ‘Well,’ I replied slowly, ‘all I can tell you is that whoever they were they were singing the 51st Psalm and they were using the version in the Gude and Godlie Ballates.’ And I gave Lomas a brief account of that interesting work.

  ‘Humph,’ was all his answer. ‘We’ll need to sleep on it. And that means we’d better get back to bed.’

  He strode from the room. Slowly I slipped off my dressing-gown and settled back once more into my bed. For a time the singing echoed in my ears, and I still puzzled over, the strangeness of it; but sleep soon intervened.

  With the knocking of the chambermaid in the morning my mind at once flashed back to the singing in the night. Jumping out of bed, I hastened to the window and looked out. But the light of the morning offered no clue to the mystery of the night
. And still wondering, I shaved and dressed.

  There were only three of us at breakfast — the minister, Lomas, and myself — and at first neither Lomas nor I mentioned the strange singing. But when our landlord came in and asked, as a matter of routine or with a genuine regard for the welfare of his guests, whether we had slept comfortably and well, Lomas gave me a quick glance.

  ‘You haven’t a mission-hall near the hotel, have you?’ he inquired casually.

  ‘No, sir,’ replied our host promptly, but with a sudden look of surprise.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ replied Lomas, reaching out for the marmalade. ‘We heard some singing in the night, that’s all.’

  ‘Singing?’

  ‘Yes. The 51st Psalm. Six verses of it, I believe.’

  But our landlord only shook his head. ‘Can’t make anything of that, sir,’ he answered slowly. ‘And there’s no guest ever spoken of the like before. It wouldn’t be a ship, perhaps? Though a ship would be well out beyond the Bass and it would be nigh impossible to be hearing her crew. And why should a ship’s crew be singing psalms in the middle of the night? No, sir. It sounds strange to me. But I’ll make inquiries.’ And nodding his head as if he doubted the result of his inquiries (or more likely doubted Lomas’s questionings), the good fellow took his departure.

  ‘Pardon me.’

  It was the voice of our fellow guest, the minister, and we both turned.

  ‘You have received a singular favour,’ he continued, and his keen eyes, under bushy eyebrows, seemed to cover both of us. ‘A singular favour. You have been privileged to hear “The Sweet Singers”.’

  ‘”The Sweet Singers?”’ we asked in one voice.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the minister. ‘And though I have long known the story of their singing, never have I had the assurance that their singing can still be heard.’