by Neil Spring
‘What did she see?’ I asked.
‘A woman, dressed from head to toe in black robes.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘After that, the troubles became progressively worse. As you can see, my health is not good. And there have been too many … accidents over the years.’
‘Accidents?’
‘Fires, family deaths. Everyone close to me has gone.’
‘How do you explain it?’ I asked quickly.
‘I’m not sure I can.’ He hesitated in a way that made me anxious. ‘It was said that Henry Bull, who built the Rectory, was taken in with stories of haunting, that he would study the occult, try to summon up evil. If that’s true, who knows? Perhaps he let something through from the other side which drained the life from him.’
‘You mean a curse?’
He frowned. ‘Possibly. I disapprove of that term. It diminishes the gravity of the thing.’
‘Then what would you call it?’
His lips curved downwards as he contemplated my question. ‘I would call it an execration: an attempt to inflict harm upon the living through supernatural influence. Hexes are associated with places, people, or, more commonly, objects.’
‘All right, well, if there is a curse – an execration – at work, then how do we stop it?’
‘I was hoping you might tell me.’
Marianne Foyster’s warning came back to me then.
‘I think that whatever is haunting us feeds on the lies of the living,’ I said. ‘Deception. I think a woman – a nun – was murdered in that house centuries ago by someone who deceived her, and that some fragment of the suffering he caused her remains.’
Dr Chipp was frowning. ‘You’re saying her soul is punishing the living for her murderer’s sin?’
‘I know how it sounds …’
But did I? Or had I become a woman who could no longer differentiate between what was real and what was not?
I had to know, so I asked him the only question that seemed reasonable – the question that was the reason for my visit.
‘Dr Chipp, are you guilty of some deception?’
He did not say what his sin was. He didn’t need to.
‘We all tell lies, Miss Grey. That’s what humans do. Even you, I imagine.’
He knew. And if I was in danger, it was because I had hidden too much – from Price, from everyone. The greatest and guiltiest secret. I pictured the ancient brass medallion we had found in the Rectory – octagonal, embossed with the likeness of St Ignatius – the wall writings and the fury burning in Marianne Foyster’s eyes; and beneath these memories, playing like a terrible record, the curious scraping sounds from behind the wall at home.
‘You must clear up this mystery,’ Dr Chipp said, ‘or our sins will engulf us both.’ There was a slight pause, then, ‘You know, the dogs that disappeared from my car were never found. You understand, Miss Grey? Those animals are gone. Forever.’
He stared at me and said nothing more.
* * *
Note
1 ‘Fire-walking’: The act of walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers or stones. In an attempt to elucidate the mystery, Price placed an advertisement in the personal column of The Times on 23 October 1934, inviting ‘amateur and professional fire-resisters to come forward and perform the feat’ (Confessions of a Ghost Hunter, p. 363).
The Indian rope trick has been described as the world’s greatest illusion in which a magician hurls a rope into the air which then stands erect, allowing the magician’s son or assistant to climb up it before disappearing after reaching the top. ‘Has the Rope Trick ever been witnessed in its traditional form? I do not think it has. I have carefully analysed all the accounts of the Trick which have come under my notice, and in each case there was a flaw, such as a faulty memory, incorrect sequence of events, mal-observation, ignorance of deceptive methods – or sheer lying. There was always something that would not stand up against cold analysis’ (Harry Price, Confessions of a Ghost Hunter, p. 345).
– 29 –
THE LOCKED BOOK
The Dark Woman did not relent but encroached ever further; whenever I closed my eyes she was there, her arms outstretched in a gesture of condemnation. Real or imagined – and I doubted the latter – she would not leave me. I knew that now. I carried her with me, the penalty for my deception that I had yet to confess.
And someone else had my scent.
On a cold evening in February 1939, I was working late when a noise in the corridor that led to my office caused me to start.
I looked up, focusing my gaze on the glass partition wall that ran the length of my room, but I saw no one. Soon the sound came again, and when I looked up for a second time I was alarmed to see the silhouette of a man standing at my open door.
I leapt up but his words prevented me from crying out. ‘Miss Grey, I presume?’ He held out his hands. ‘Please, don’t be alarmed. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
My visitor had an air of authority about him and in his right hand he carried a black briefcase. In the dim evening light he seemed to resemble Price himself. In fact, for a moment I thought it might actually be Price.
‘My name is Glanville – Sidney Glanville,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve come with a message for you, Miss Grey, and to make a request. Excuse my interruption, but may I come in?’
I motioned him forward, saying nothing, and sat down at my desk again.
‘Thank you,’ he said, taking the chair opposite me. ‘I am relieved to have found you here at this hour. I would have called in the morning, but I was passing and saw the door downstairs was open, and—’
‘Will this take long?’ I interrupted, my voice firm. ‘Because I’m a busy woman, Mr Glanville. If you’re here on business then come back during business hours.’
‘I was worried you would react in this way.’ He smiled awkwardly, apologetically. ‘I am a close friend of Mr Harry Price – his closest friend. And I’ve come at his request.’
My stomach knotted. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said briskly. ‘If you would excuse me …’ and I rose from my chair to make for the door.
But as I rounded the desk he also stood and reached out to me. ‘Miss Grey, please, just five minutes of your time, and then I will go.’
My visitor’s face was fresh and tinged with pink from the evening chill, his hair silver and neatly combed in a side parting, and he wore a pair of spectacles which gave him the gravitas of a schoolmaster. He seemed reasonable enough, but what did I owe him, this stranger? And yet, I reasoned, he must have good reason to be here in my office at such a late hour. The thought tempered my impulse to ask him to leave and I returned to my seat. ‘Five minutes, that’s all.’
Nodding, Glanville reached for his briefcase, opened it and removed a black book that was bound with leather and fitted with a Bramah-lock. ‘Harry wanted you to see this.’
‘Who are you?’ I asked sharply.
‘I am your replacement, Miss Grey. Harry’s principal investigator.’ He laid the leather book carefully on the desk in front of me. ‘This private and confidential report chronicles every aspect of my investigation of the events at Borley Rectory.’
‘Your investigation!’
‘Please, don’t be offended. I know you take an interest. I had a meeting recently with Dr Chipp. He told me you had visited him. Since you left Harry’s employment there have been many exciting developments, Miss Grey. With Harry’s support, I’ve spent almost two years at the Rectory, re-examining the old evidence and exploring that which has only recently come to light.’
‘What new evidence?’ I asked. These comments made little sense to me for I knew that Price did not believe in the Borley manifestations and never had.
‘As I said, Miss Grey, the situation has changed dramatically. Harry is writing a book on the Borley affair, chronicling his involvement with the case all the way back to 1929, when the two of you first visited the house.’
That surprised me.
‘It’s to be published next s
ummer. I’ve read an early draft, and I have to say a most convincing case has been put forward. I believe it will be found totally absorbing. It’s all in there: Lionel Foyster’s diary, the wall writings, the prophecy – everything.’
I heard his words but still didn’t understand. I knew that Price had debunked the Borley phenomena, albeit in a very understated fashion. What had happened to change his mind? And what was this prophecy Glanville had mentioned?
‘I will explain everything; it’s all here in this report.’ He patted the item lightly. ‘All that I ask is that you listen with an open mind, and only after you have heard the evidence we have gathered do you make your decision.’
‘What decision?’ I asked.
He smiled as he produced a small key from his pocket and unlocked the book. ‘Whether to return to the Laboratory. Harry would like your assistance to help him complete the investigation. He knows how important it is to you. And he sees, I think, that he made a profound mistake in allowing you to leave.’
‘He didn’t allow me,’ I cried, rising abruptly. ‘I decided to leave, and for my own sake, not for his!’
And why should I return? I asked myself. I had a life now; all this was in my past.
It was as if my visitor heard my unspoken question. ‘Miss Grey, I firmly believe that when Harry’s manuscript is published it will send shock waves far and wide. It could very well shake the foundations of the scientific materialist world view. And when you see what I have come to show you, I think you’ll understand why.’
*
He handed me the book. I drew the lamp closer and examined it intently. The room and the noises of Soho beyond receded as I silently leafed through the pages. I was amazed at the quantity of work before me. There was masses of correspondence between Glanville and Price, Glanville and the Smiths, Glanville and the Foysters; pages and pages of photographs depicting Borley Rectory from every angle imaginable; detailed observation reports; tracings of the wall writings and what appeared to be transcriptions of table-tipping and planchette seances.1
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you have been busy.’
‘We,’ he said evenly. ‘We have all been busy.’
‘All?’
‘Myself and the other observers.’
I was about to ask, ‘What other observers?’ when my eyes settled on a copy of the advertisement which had appeared in the classified column of The Times, inviting men of leisure to join a year-long vigil in a haunted house.
‘I think you already know that it was Harry who placed the advert,’ said Glanville. ‘I knew the moment I saw it that I had to reply. You see, Miss Grey, I’m an engineer by trade but retired now, with far too few activities to occupy my day. But this’ – he gestured towards the book – ‘this was thrilling. Perfect, in fact.’
‘Mr Glanville, there is nothing even remotely “perfect” about that house.’
‘It is indeed a most unsettling place, unlike anywhere else on earth. Every time I visited the Rectory I came away in lower spirits.’
His words brought gooseflesh to my arms, yet I was intrigued. ‘Tell me what precipitated the recent investigations.’
‘Four years ago, when the Foysters vacated the Rectory, the place was locked up and it remained empty for a year. Even then people who passed the house at night swore they saw figures at its windows, shadowy silhouettes staring out, and because of these rumours the ecclesiastical authority decided that the Rectory was to be closed permanently. The place was just too much work, too run-down. So the parish of Liston was combined with Borley, and in due course the Reverend Alfred Henning was made responsible for both.’
‘Why didn’t they just sell the place on?’ I asked.
‘Oh, they tried, many times. But who wants to live in a house with a reputation like that? Harry himself was offered the building for a song.’
‘He didn’t buy it?’ I asked. The idea startled me.
‘No. The Rectory is some one hundred and fifty miles away from his home. It would have been quite impractical for him to take care of the building.’ Glanville hesitated. ‘He’s not in the best of health now, Miss Grey; he suffers regularly with angina. I’m forever telling him to slow down.’
‘Good luck with that! Harry Price doesn’t do anything slowly.’
My visitor smiled at me with thoughtful deliberation. ‘I think I understand. His world does sometimes feel like a whirlwind of chaos.’
‘So if he didn’t buy the Rectory, what did he do?’
‘Ah, well now, that was the clever part. He rented it. For twelve months. His tenancy began in May 1937. Such wonderful foresight on his part.’
I couldn’t believe this. He had rented a property he had already debunked as being subject to fraud! Why?
‘Don’t you see?’ Glanville continued. ‘It was quite the perfect experiment! He wanted to examine the place methodically over a sustained period, discover whether the manifestations were still ongoing, and then—’
‘Attempt to discover the cause,’ I said flatly, understanding. ‘As he has always done – to explain it all away. Am I right?’
Glanville nodded. ‘Precisely.’
‘Some things never change.’
‘But therein lay the most surprising part of it.’
‘You’re going to tell me he has discovered some ingeniously clever explanation for all the queer events at that house, aren’t you? That it was some local children all the time, playing tricks on people? Or some other explanation’ – I listed them on my fingers – ‘malobservation, exaggeration or natural causes? Really, Mr Glanville, it’s all so predictable. What’s the real reason he has sent you? Come on, out with it! He’s jealous, isn’t he? Of that piece I wrote for The Times. He’s afraid I’m setting myself up against him.’
‘Harry has enough enemies. He doesn’t want to make one of you too.’ My visitor sat back slowly, his eyes narrowing as he inhaled. ‘But you have quite misunderstood. Let me put this as clearly as I can. Harry has reached a profound conclusion. He believes that the evidence for paranormality if you want to call it that – evidence for the events at the Rectory – is as conclusive as human testimony can ever be. He is convinced. He is willing at last to state, on the record, that the events in question are entirely supernormal.’
‘But why?’ I cried. ‘I told Harry long ago that the case had substance. I explained to him I believed there was something sinister about the house that couldn’t simply be waved away as trickery, and he rejected the idea out of hand. He told me I was wrong!’
I neglected to mention the dreams that had plagued me. Nor did I mention Marianne Foyster’s prophetic warning to me about the Dark Woman of Borley and her alleged curse upon those who deceive. It was not a statement I had any hope of substantiating; I had only a vague sense that the legendary apparition of a nun witnessed at the Rectory had been a woman deceived by someone during her life and then cruelly murdered. But how and by whom?
These were questions I had long since abandoned hope of answering. Until now.
‘Perhaps Harry’s mind was on other matters, the Schneider seances, for example, or maybe he suspected you were drawn to the house for other, more personal reasons,’ Glanville suggested.
‘Is that what he said?’ I asked sharply. Price had never been strong enough to acknowledge the truth about our relationship even to me; the idea that he had discussed his feelings with another person was outrageous.
‘No,’ said Glanville. ‘He has not said as much. But whenever I mention your name, or question him on the circumstances of your parting, I observe on his face an expression of the deepest melancholy. And from that, well’ – he shrugged – ‘I draw my own conclusions.’
‘You would be unwise to draw too many assumptions about the internal machinations of Harry’s mind,’ I said.
‘Perhaps. But to understand how we have come to the situation we are now in, the change in Harry’s beliefs, you must hear what has happened recently at the Rectory and during his tenancy.’
<
br /> As he spoke I found my curiosity piqued by his words. ‘Go on then.’
‘The advertisement in The Times produced a wealth of applications, some from mediums and Spiritualists. These were discounted. You see, Harry wanted impartial observers – educated and honest men, with no prior interest in matters of the occult or psychical research. There were forty-eight observers in all, myself included. We were strangers to one another, united by our common curiosity. Between us, in separate teams and at different intervals, we spent many nights and days around the Rectory, watching and waiting for specific phenomena. If we saw anything unusual, we were to report it.’
‘So he didn’t visit the house himself?’
‘Only very occasionally. Mostly he conducted and managed the affair from his Laboratory.’
‘But how did you know what to do? Where to look, what precautions to take?’ Ghost hunting, I remembered well, was a rigorous exercise.
‘We were furnished with a helpful document – Harry called it a Blue Book – containing detailed instructions as well as a history of the Rectory and advice as to what sort of phenomena we could expect to see, and where. Actually, I have a copy with me. Would you care to see it?’
Against my inner will I found myself nodding yes to his question, and seconds later I was handed a slim document which Glanville produced from inside his coat. Flicking through it, one passage – on the subject of apparitions – stood out. It advised:
If seen, do not move and on no account approach the figure. Note exact method of appearance. Observe figure carefully, watch all movements, rate and manner of progression etc. Note duration of appearance, colour, form, size, how dressed and whether solid or transparent … If figure speaks, do not approach … Enquire whether it is a spirit. Ask figure to return, suggesting exact time and place … Note exact method of vanishing. If through an open door, quietly follow … Make the very fullest notes of the incident. The nun is alleged to walk regularly along the Nun’s Walk in grounds.2