The Ghost Hunters

by Neil Spring

‘Your understanding of possibilities in this world is governed by the totality of your experiences, Sarah. You hold certain principles sacred about what is physically possible and physically impossible, and it is from these that you construct a world view – a consistent theory of all phenomena observed within nature. A law of nature, if you will.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘A paranormal event is one which, by definition, would contravene any or all of these basic principles whether it’s the sighting of a ghost, the imparting of information from a spiritual source, or even the ability to read someone’s mind. Experience tells us such an event is hugely unlikely, totally outside the basic principles of common sense, in the same way as it would be contrary to common sense for this pencil you see here to rise from my desk, float into the air and write on my office wall.’

  ‘So that would mean …’

  He anticipated my thought and nodded. ‘That if one – just one – genuine paranormal event is proven, everything that modern science believes would be wrong! And so it follows that we would need an overwhelming quantity of evidence to show that such events are possible – to show that the sun, in my example, really had not set at twenty-one hundred hours; we would need, Miss Grey, repeatable, successful scientific experiments.’ He leaned forward, his face projecting intent seriousness. ‘And that is why our work here is vital; that is why we must never give up. You and I, Sarah, we are the guardians of the modern world view.’

  The harmony and logic of his argument flowed into me. And his passion, his piercing conviction, sent an instant thrill down my spine. But something about the way his eyes flittered from side to side told me there was an inner torment working away at him. A deep longing, perhaps, that it could all be true. I wanted to know.

  ‘You said before that there was a time when you believed in Spiritualism. Tell me why you changed your mind. Why is all this so important to you?’

  He saw in my face enough determination, I think, to be convinced that I was not going to drop the matter. His expression became sullen, clouded with a memory.

  ‘There was a man, a spirit photographer called William Hope. The Society of Psychical Research suspected a hoax, but had no proof.’

  ‘So they sent you to investigate?’

  Price nodded. ‘They wanted someone new, someone fresh on the case. And I went with my mind fully open. More than that, actually. I went wanting to believe, for personal reasons.’ He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the photograph on his desk of the man with the dark hair, sideburns and moustache. ‘But William Hope was a fraud. I proved that he had switched the photographic plates. And from that day, I became the enemy of every medium with skeletons in their closets.’

  We hadn’t yet come to the original source of his interest. This man had his secrets, his boundaries, and I already sensed that we breached one too many for his comfort. After a long moment he found his voice again. ‘Do you know how it feels, Miss Grey, to have your wildest hopes, your deepest beliefs shredded?’

  Without waiting for my answer he eased himself out of his chair and came around the desk to stand beside me with seductive authority. Although he wasn’t a conventionally handsome man, his words and mannerisms exuded a magnetic curiosity. His eyes floated down to meet mine.

  ‘The day I exposed Hope, I learned that if you break a man’s beliefs you can break his spirit. I’m still hurting, Miss Grey. My mission is to stop these charlatans, to bring the deceivers to justice. Every case will stand or fall on its own merits. We owe that much to the fallen.’

  He extended his right hand, curling his fingers. ‘Are you with me?’

  Suddenly everything about his curious world had assumed a greater relevance than the fact that this was a good, stable job, and I realised that my decision to return to the Laboratory now went far beyond my personal motivations – a desire to answer questions about my family or a need to prove my ability. This was bigger than my personal doubt, bigger than everything.

  ‘Yes!’ The word almost flew out of my mouth. ‘Yes, I am with you.’

  The rough warmth of his touch as he took my hand hinted at unimagined possibilities.

  ‘Then, Sarah, let us begin!’

  – 7 –

  A HINT OF MENACE

  ‘You said you wanted to help. You can start in here.’

  ‘Now? Today?’

  He nodded. ‘No time like the present. I want you to catalogue and cross-reference all the books in the collection.’ He saw my jaw drop, and laughed. ‘Don’t worry. It’s not an exercise I expect you to complete any time soon, not with all your other duties to attend to.’ He gestured to the large desk in the corner of the room and the pile of unopened letters that had been left to build up on top of it. ‘But it must be done. I wish to compile a short-title catalogue to assist the serious investigator in detecting psychical imposters, but at the same time enable him to recognise a genuine phenomenon if and when he sees it,’ he explained. ‘It is crucial that I don’t alienate the Spiritualists. My supporters – like your own mother, Sarah – won’t tolerate that. A good many of them have put up money for this establishment, and although I may not agree with all of their methods and beliefs, it is important now that I am seen to be working in their best interests wherever possible. Every one of my investors expects answers and it’s up to us to see that they get them, all right? Otherwise, all this could be gone.’ A thought struck him. ‘You’re available to work late this evening?’

  I remembered I was supposed to be seeing Amy at the Café de Paris. ‘Actually—’

  ‘Good,’ he cut me off. ‘We may have one or two further experiments to run.’

  ‘All right, Mr Price,’ I said. It was the only answer I could give, really. Having changed my mind once about the job I would have to show him now that I was committed.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ he said curtly. ‘This isn’t the stuffy, stiff-collared Society for Psychical Research. We’re a lot less formal here. From now on, call me Harry. All right?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, nodding politely. ‘I understand.’

  Satisfied, he declared he would return in an hour or so to see how I was coping. ‘I’m sure by then you’ll be full of questions for me.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said confidently, ‘I am quite certain that I will.’

  When he had gone, my eyes fell on the alarming tower of letters. There must have been a hundred or more. They looked far more interesting than working on a library catalogue! All would need to be opened and answered, so I did that instead.

  The notes – some handwritten, some typed – ranged from the vague and theoretical to the very strangest practical problems. It baffled me how Price was able to move through the world contending with so many absurd claims. I wondered where he found the energy, and was about to tackle another stack of untidy papers when the open letter I had glimpsed earlier caught my eye.

  I picked it up and read it:

  Dear Mr Price,

  I was surprised and disappointed to attend your lecture, two weeks ago, at the gala opening of your National Laboratory. Truthfully, I found what you had to say somewhat at odds with my own experiences; and it is for this reason that I am writing to you.

  I am the Headmaster of Winchester Grammar School, and soon to retire; but between the years of 1879 and 1881 I was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford. My subject was History, and one of my tutorial partners – a most studious fellow – was a puckish, amiable man by the name of Harry Bull, whose father was at that time the rector of a small hamlet near Sudbury.

  Harry and I soon became friends and he would sometimes regale me and the other men with dark tales and eerie legends of mystery, murder and passion which were common in his part of the world. One night, after we had listened to the college choir, we retired to Harry’s wood-panelled rooms and, with brandies in hand, planted ourselves in comfortable armchairs beneath mullioned windows. We all knew it was a night for one of Harry’s tales. One of the men asked him what it was like living
in a rambling country house – and were there ghosts? My old friend became rather quiet, and sat gazing for some time into the crackling fire. ‘You know,’ he said eventually, nodding to himself, ‘I do believe there might be such things as ghosts.’

  He offered no elaboration and nor was any sought by the rest of us, for he was clearly troubled and so we quickly dropped the matter.

  I thought little else of the exchange until a few days later when Harry asked me if I should care to visit him that weekend at the family home, in order to celebrate the end of our first term. I said I would be delighted, and I was. The village – it was hardly that, just a scattering of houses – lay at the end of a long lane at the top of a hill commanding some spectacular views. As for the house – my goodness, it was fine indeed, with two wings and high turrets. Cedars of Lebanon and thick hedges screened it from the world.

  The weekend passed carelessly in the delightful company of the Misses Bull, Harry’s four sisters, with many hours laughed away over light refreshments and games of cards which we enjoyed in the library. The servants of the house kept themselves to themselves and at night many of them left the house altogether. I thought nothing of this then. On reflection, however, their unwillingness to remain during the hours after dark makes a great deal of sense.

  It was on the last day of my stay, after Evensong in the ancient small church across the road, when I detected a subtle – but unsettling – change in the mood of the place. A certain stillness seemed to inhabit it, and as we crossed the narrow lane which separated the grounds of the house from the church, and entered the wide driveway, I felt the first chills of the evening and couldn’t help noticing that Harry’s mood had become uneasy, his eyes darting furtively this way and that until they settled and fixed upon a narrow, overgrown path on the opposite side of the lawn. ‘Shall we head on inside?’ he ventured, with a distinct edge to his voice. And so we did, his sisters, who were normally so light-hearted, lifting their skirts and leading the retreat.

  Then came the second surprising element of the evening. Dinner was not to be taken in the dining room but in the library. No explanation was forthcoming, and as we waited for the servants to bring the food and wine the atmosphere grew strained, as though the entire family was afraid that our meals would arrive cold or that the glasses we were passed might, at any moment, shatter in our hands. In such circumstances, I confess, it was difficult to relax, but my curiosity was awakened and, try as I might to dispel it and to enjoy what little remained of my stay, it did not leave me.

  After dinner, I chanced a discreet peek around the dining-room door. The only remarkable sight was the great Italian fireplace which featured the prominent marble heads of two monks, one cowled the other not, leaning out, their faces glowing eerily in the moonlight which shone through a large Gothic window opposite.

  ‘Come away,’ urged a sharp voice from behind me, and I turned to see one of the Misses Bull who was already closing the door on the room. Her gaze – I will never forget it – was wide-eyed, fearful, and fixed on the window. ‘It’s to be bricked up,’ she whispered, leading me back towards the library where my host was waiting. ‘Father insists.’

  The family kept a dog – a retriever, Juvenal – who was normally, I was told, impeccably behaved. On that last night, however, the creature refused to settle. Eventually, after padding the corridors, it lay down with its head between its paws just over the entrance to the basement, periodically whining.

  When the others had retired to bed and we were sitting next to the spitting fire, I asked Harry to tell me whatever was troubling him. He seemed to sink back into his chair, the shadows enveloping him, and for a time remained silent, until gradually he raised his glass, examining it wistfully by the warm glow of the fire, before muttering something under his breath.

  ‘Say that again?’ I asked.

  ‘I said, you hear of things going bump in the night. Well, let me tell you, David, they don’t bump, they scream …’

  We spoke for perhaps an hour about matters concerning the unexplained, and I could tell that my friend was in awe of the subject of spiritualism. ‘The problem,’ he proclaimed, ‘is that when communing with spirits through ambiguous rappings, one can never be sure of the identity of the entities speaking. When I die I will come back by doing something distinctive, so people will know it is me. I will throw mothballs.’

  It was long after midnight when I retired to bed. I locked my door, from the inside, and removed my shirt, which I dropped on the floor beneath the window. But in the morning, to my puzzlement, I found the shirt pinned up by its sleeves, with some drawing pins, on my bedroom door!

  And that wasn’t all.

  I had with me, on this visit, a French dictionary, which I had misplaced. During the night I was awaked by a loud ‘thump’, which came from the floor of my bedroom. You can quite imagine my surprise when, turning up my oil lamp, I saw it there on the floor, returned to me.

  I heard afterwards, from one of the servants of the house, that the room allocated to me was haunted.

  Some years later, after we graduated, Harry confessed that one after noon he had looked out of his study window to see a darkly clad figure go by and disappear into the shrubbery next to the house. His description of the apparition was vivid: it began, he said, as a vague shape which solidified as he kept his eyes on it until it had formed the appearance of a woman in black robes. A nun. He went out quickly with his spaniel, and the dog stood on the spot where the figure had disappeared, howling.

  Another time, he told me, one summer afternoon, he had heard knocking and scratching noises coming from inside the church, though the building was locked up and empty.

  I know you will be highly sceptical of my account. I am a rational man, Mr Price, much like yourself; so whenever I experience an odd or ‘unnatural’ experience I always seek, and usually locate, a satisfactory explanation. However, in all my years I have been unable to explain these disquieting events.

  I leave the tale for your consideration anyway, in the hope that it might prove to be of some use to your ongoing investigations.

  Of my visit to this old house, there is little else to tell. Only its name, which even now makes me uneasy:

  Borley Rectory.

  Perhaps you should visit the place.

  Yours sincerely,

  David Chipp

  Winchester Grammar School, January 1926

  To my bemusement, Price was distinctly uninterested in the content of this letter, saying it was ‘no different’ to the plethora of other rantings he received. ‘Our work here with the mediums is far more important than trekking out to some remote house on some wild goose chase.’

  I thought this a peculiar reaction from a man who presented himself as a ghost hunter, and pressed him on the point.

  ‘Do you think I haven’t been seduced by such stories before now?’ he protested, still facing away from me. ‘I’ve been investigating so-called haunted houses for nigh on twenty years. All of them nonsense!’

  I myself, however, felt certain that this story was different – the witness sounded reliable, well-educated. At the very least he deserved a respectful reply.

  This is the letter I wrote:

  Dear Mr Chipp,

  I am afraid that, owing to significant restraints upon his time, Mr Price is presently unable to take up an investigation of the house you mention. However, he has asked me to thank you for writing. I found your tale intriguing, not least because of the objects you mention – the French dictionary and shirt – that were found moved, without any obvious explanation. Mr Price has asked me to tell you that such events, although rare, are usually explained through the interference of mischievous pranksters, in this case possibly a maid employed at the old house. He has also enquired whether the house is located in a district known for interesting legends …

  I should like to remain in contact and will write to you should the need arise.

  Yours sincerely,

  Sarah Grey

/>   From the windows of my office on the top floor I had a perfect view over the rooftops of South Kensington to the spires of the Natural History Museum, but it wasn’t a view I ever had much time to enjoy. When we weren’t out on field investigations, my mornings were preoccupied mostly with librarian duties, which I carried out on the ground floor in a large, comfortable reading room located to the left of the main hallway. The lofty walls of this carpeted room were lined with grand portraits of famous psychologists, philosophers and scientists, each splendidly showcased with ornate frames.

  After two months working with Price, he still possessed a frustrating ability to defy my expectations and to keep me guessing at every turn. Like the dreary afternoon in February – Valen -tine’s Day – when I made the mistake of asking him whether he had any arrangements for that evening. He looked awkward.

  ‘Arrangements?’

  ‘Yes … umm, you know, dinner arrangements perhaps.’

  ‘Why would you ask that?’

  ‘Why?’ My mind started racing. ‘I … well, I don’t know why … I suppose I was just interested, that’s all.’

  He stared. ‘Interested?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This evening I have a meeting,’ he said somewhat petulantly.

  ‘With whom?’ I wasn’t aware of any meetings. I certainly hadn’t cleared any space in his diary for meetings that day.

  ‘A meeting. With my wife, if you must know.’

  ‘Your wife!’ I exclaimed. ‘But – I mean, you never said.’

  ‘Am I obliged to tell you everything about my personal life?’

  ‘Well, no, obviously not. But—’

  ‘Then kindly rein in your indignation every time you see or hear something about me that you didn’t know already.’

  I felt my face flush with embarrassment, but of course I couldn’t stop myself asking the obvious question: ‘How long have you been married?’

  The question was met with an immediate glower of resentment. ‘Twenty-one years.’

  ‘Oh.’