Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  On checking out all her family, she found them safely asleep in their respective rooms. Nobody owned an outfit similar to the one she had seen the vanished girl wear.

  But the phenomena did not restrict themselves to the wraith of beautiful Nell. Christopher, the young son of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Goldsmith, the present owners of the Hall, reports an experience he will never forget. One night when he occupied his brother Robin’s room upstairs, just for that one night, he had a terrifying dream, or perhaps a kind of vision: Two men were fighting with swords—two men locked in mortal combat, and somehow connected with this house.

  Nell Gwyn in her prime

  Christopher was not the only one who had experienced such a fight in that room. Some years before a girl also reported disturbed sleep whenever she used that particular room, which was then a guest room. Two men would “burst out” of the wall and engage in close combat.

  There is an earlier specter authenticated for the Hall, dating back to the Cromwellian period. It is the unhappy ghost of a cavalier who was trapped in the Hall by roundheads outside, and, having important documents and knowledge, decided to commit suicide rather than brave capture and torture. The two fighting men might well have reference to that story, but then again they might be part of Nell’s—as I was to find out much later.

  * * *

  The mystery of Nell Gwyn remained: I knew she had died almost forgotten, yet for many years she had been the King’s favorite. Even if she had become less attractive with her advancing years, the King would not have withdrawn his favors unless there was another reason. Had something happened to break up that deep-seated love between Charles II and Nell? History is vague about her later years. She had not been murdered nor had she committed suicide, so we cannot ascribe her “continuous presence” in what were once her homes to a tragic death through violence. What other secret was Nell Gwyn hiding from the world?

  * * *

  In September of 1966, I finally managed to take up the leads again and visit the house at 69 Deane Street. This time I had brought with me a psychic by the name of Ronald Hearn, who had been recommended to me by the officers of the College of Psychic Science, of which I am a member. I had never met Mr. Hearn, nor he me, nor did he seem to recognize my name when I telephoned him. At any rate, I told him only that we would need his services for about an hour or so in London, and to come to my hotel, the Royal Garden, where we would start.

  Promptly at 9 P.M. Mr. Hearn presented himself. He is a dark-haired, soft-spoken young man in his early thirties, and he did not ask any questions whatever. With me were two New Yorkers, who had come along because of an interest in producing a documentary motion picture with me. Both men were and are, I believe, skeptics, and knew almost nothing about the case or the reasons for our visit to 69 Deane Street, Soho.

  It was just a few minutes before ten when we jumped out of a taxi at a corner a block away from the Gargoyle Club. We wanted to avoid Mr. Hearn seeing the entrance sign, and he was so dazzled by the multitude of other signs and the heavy nightclub traffic in the street that he paid no attention to the dark alleyway into which I quickly guided him. Before he had a chance to look around, I had dragged him inside the Gargoyle entrance. All he could see were photographs of naked girls, but then the whole area is rich in this commodity. Nothing in these particular photographs was capable of providing clues to the historical background of the building we had just entered.

  I immediately took Hearn up the back stairs toward the dressing rooms to see if it meant anything to him. It did.

  “I’ve got a ghastly feeling,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want to come up the stairs…almost as if I am afraid to come up and come out here….”

  We were standing on the roof now. Jimmy Jacobs had joined us and was watching the medium with fascination. He, too, was eager to find out who was haunting his place.

  “My legs are feeling leaden as if something wants to stop me coming out onto this rooftop,” Hearn explained. “I feel terribly dizzy. I didn’t want to come but something kept pushing me; I’ve got to come up!”

  I inquired if he felt a “living” presence in the area. Hearn shook his head in deep thought.

  “More than one person,” he finally said. “There’s a fight going on…someone’s trying to get hold of a man, but someone else doesn’t want him to…two people battling…I feel so dizzy…more on the staircase….”

  We left the chilly roof and repaired to the staircase, carefully bolting the “haunted door” behind us. We were now standing just inside the door, at the entrance to the dressing room where Cherry Phoenix had encountered the various phenomena described earlier. Unfortunately, music from the show going on below kept intruding, and Hearn found it difficult to let go. I decided to wait until the show was over. We went down one flight and sat down in Jimmy Jacobs’ office.

  Hearn took this opportunity to report a strange occurrence that had happened to him that afternoon.

  “I had no idea where I was going tonight,” he explained, “but I was with some friends earlier this evening and out of the blue I heard myself say, ‘I don’t know where I’m going tonight, but wherever it is, it is associated with Nell Gwyn.’ My friend’s name is Carpenter and he lives at 13, Linton Road, Kilburn, N.W. 6. His telephone is Maida Vale 1871. This took place at 7:30 P.M.”

  My skeptic friend from New York thereupon grabbed the telephone and dialed. The person answering the call confirmed everything Hearn had reported. Was it a putup job? I don’t think so. Not after what followed.

  We went down into the third-floor theater, which was now completely dark and empty. Clouds of stale smoke hanging on in the atmosphere gave the place a feeling of constant human presences. Two shows a night, six days a week, and nothing really changes, although the women do now and then. It is all done with a certain amount of artistic finesse, this undressing and prancing around under the hot lights, but when you add it up it spells the same thing: voyeurism. Still, compared to smaller establishments down the street, Jimmy Jacobs’ emporium was high-class indeed.

  We sat down at a table to the right hand of the stage, with the glaring night light onstage providing the only illumination. Against this background Ronald’s sharp profile stood out with eerie flair. The rest of us were watching him in the dim light, waiting for what might transpire.

  “Strange,” the psychic said, and pointed at the rotund form of proprietor Jimmy Jacobs looming in the semidarkness, “but I feel some sort of psychic force floating round him, something peculiar, something I haven’t met up with before. There’s something about you, sir.”

  Jimmy chuckled.

  “You might say there is,” he agreed, “you see, I’m psychic myself.”

  The two psychics then started to compare feelings.

  “I feel very, very cold at the spine,” Jimmy said, and his usual joviality seemed gone.

  He felt apprehensive, he added, rather unhappy, and his eyes felt hot.

  “I want to laugh,” Hearn said slowly, “but it’s not a happy laugh. It’s a forced laugh. Covering up something. I feel I want to get out of here, actually. I feel as though in coming here I’m trapped. It’s in this room. Someone used to sit here with these feelings, I’ve been brought here, but I’m trapped, I want to get out! It’s a woman. Voluptuous. Hair’s red. Long and curled red hair.”

  We sat there in silent fascination. Hearn was describing the spitting image of Nell Gwyn. But how could he know consciously? It was just another nightclub.

  “Fantastic woman…something in her one could almost love, or hate…there’s a beauty spot on her cheek … very full lips, and what a temper….”

  Hearn was breathing with difficulty now, as if he were falling into trance. Jimmy sat there motionless, and his voice seemed to trail off.

  “Do you know where the Saddlery is?” Jimmy mumbled now, before I could stop him. I wanted one medium at a time.

  “Below here,” Hearn answered immediately, “two floors below.”

 
“Who’d be in the Saddlery?” Jimmy asked. I motioned him to stay out of it, but he could not see me.

  “John,” Hearn murmured.

  “What’s his rank?” Jimmy wanted to know. It was hard to tell whether Jimmy Jacobs, medium, or Jimmy Jacobs, curious proprietor of the Gargoyle Club, was asking.

  “Captain,” Hearn answered. He was now totally entranced.

  “Who was this Captain John?”

  “A friend of the King’s.”

  “What did he serve in?”

  “Cavalry,” the voice coming from Hearn’s lips replied.

  Jimmy nodded assent. Evidently he was getting the same message.

  “What duty?” he asked now.

  “In charge of the guard.”

  Hearn’s own personality was completely gone now, and I decided to move in closer.

  “Brought here,” I heard him mumble.

  “Who was brought here?” I asked.

  “They made me…to hide…from the King…jealous….”

  “For what reason?” The breathing was labored and heavy.

  “Tell us who you are!”

  “Oh God it’s Car…Charles….” The voice was now so excited it could scarcely be understood.

  “Whose house is this?” I demanded to know.

  “I….” The communicator choked.

  “What is your name?”

  But the entity speaking through Hearn would not divulge it.

  A moment later, the medium awoke, grimacing with pain. He was holding his left arm as if it had been hurt.

  “Almost can’t move it,” he said, with his usual voice.

  I often get additional information from a psychic just after the trance ends.

  “Was the entity female or male?”

  “Female.”

  “Connected with this house?”

  “Yes, yes. She must have lived here, for some time at least.”

  “Is she still here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does she want?”

  “She can’t leave. Because she is ashamed of having caused something to happen. She felt responsible for somebody’s death.”

  “Whose death?”

  “It was her lover. Somebody was murdered. It has to do with the stairs.”

  “Is she here alone?”

  “No, I think there is somebody else here. There was a fight on the stairs. Two men.”

  “Who was the other man?”

  “He was sent…terrible, I feel like banging my head very hard….”

  Evidently Hearn was in a semi-trance state now, not fully out, and not really in, but somewhere in between.

  “What period are we in now?” I continued the questioning.

  “Long curls and white hats…big hats…Charles the First….”

  “Who was the other man who was killed?”

  “I can’t be sure….”

  A sudden outburst of bitter laughter broke through the clammy, cold silence of the room. Hearn was being seized by a spell of laughter, but it wasn’t funny at all. I realized he was again being taken over. I asked why he was laughing so hard.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” came the retort, and I pressed again for a name.

  “Are you ashamed of your name?”

  “Yes,” came the reply, “trouble…my name was trouble…always trouble…I loved too much….”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be here? It is my house.”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Charles.”

  “What do you seek?”

  Mad laughter was my answer. But I pressed on, gently and quietly.

  “Oh, no…you could pay, love…but the King wouldn’t like it….” The voice was full of bitterness and mock hilarity.

  “Are you here alone?” I asked.

  “No….”

  “Who is with you?”

  “He is…my lover…John.”

  “What is his name?”

  “He has many names…many….”

  Evidently the communicator was having her little fun with me. “What happened to him?”

  “He was killed.”

  “By whom?”

  “The King’s men.”

  “Which ones of the King’s men?”

  “Fortescue.”

  “What is his rank?”

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Regiment?”

  “Guards.”

  “Who sent him?”

  “The King.”

  “How did he find out?”

  “Sometimes…beyond talking….”

  “Did you cheat on the King?”

  “Yes, many times.” Great satisfaction in the voice now.

  “Did he give you this house?”

  “He did.”

  “Then why did you cheat?”

  “Because he wasn’t satisfactory….” It was said with such disdain I almost shuddered. Here was a voice, presumably from the 1660s or 1670s, and still filled with the old passions and emotional outbursts.

  “How many years since then?” I said. Perhaps it was time to jolt this entity into understanding the true situation.

  “Oh, God…what’s time? What’s time?! Too much time….”

  “Are you happy?”

  “No!!” the voice shouted, “No! He killed my lover!”

  “But your lover is dead and should be with you now. Would that not give you happiness?” I asked.

  “No,” the entity replied, “because my lover was the same cheat. Cheat! Oh, my God…that’s all these men ever cared about…hasn’t changed much, has it? Hahaha….”

  Evidently the ghostly communicator was referring to the current use to which her old house was being put. It seemed logical to me that someone of Nell Gwyn’s class (or lack of it) would naturally enjoy hanging around a burlesque theater and enjoy the sight of men hungering for women.

  “Not much difference from what it used to be.”

  “How did it used to be?”

  “The same. They wanted entertainment, they got it.” If this was really Nell Gwyn and she was able to observe goings-on in the present, then she was a “free spirit,” only partially bound to these surroundings. Then, too, she would have been able to appear both here and at her country house whenever the emotional memories pulled her hither or yon.

  “Is this your only house?” I asked now.

  “No…Cheapside…don’t live there much…Smithfield…God, why all these questions?” The voice flared up.

  “How do we know you are the person you claim to be?” I countered. “Prove it.”

  “Oh, my God,” the voice replied, as if it were below her dignity to comply.

  I recalled Jimmy Jacobs’ view that the ghost was an imposter posing as Nell Gwyn.

  “Are you an imposter?”

  “No…” the voice shot back firmly and a bit surprised.

  “Where were you born?”

  “Why do you want to know?…What does it matter?…”

  “To do you honor.”

  “Honor? Hahaha…. Sir, you speak of honor?”

  “What is your name?”

  “I used to have a name…. What does it matter now?”

  She refused and I insisted, threatened, cajoled.

  Finally, the bitterness became less virulent.

  “It is written,” she said, “all over…Nell…Nell… God!!!”

  There was a moment of silence, and I continued in a quieter vein. Was she happy in this house? Sometimes. Did she know that many years had passed? Yes. Was she aware of the fact that she was not what she used to be?

  “What I used to be?” she repeated, “Do you know what I used to be? A slut. A slut!!”

  “And what are you now,” I said, quietly, “now you’re a ghost.”

  “A ghost,” she repeated, pensively, playing with the dreaded word, as I continued to explain her status to her. “Why did they have to fight?” she asked.

  “Did you know he was coming?”

 
; “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you warn him?”

  “What could I do? My life or his!”

  “I don’t understand—do you mean he would have killed you?”

  “The King was a jealous man,” she replied, “always quarrels…he was bald…bald…hahaha…with his wig….”

  “Why are you in this part of the building? What is there here for you?”

  “Don’t I have a right?”

  I explained that the house belonged to someone else. “Do I—disturb—?”

  “What are you looking for here?”

  “I’m not looking for anything….”

  Again, the name Fortescue came from the entranced lips of the medium. “Where did this Fortescue do the killing?” I asked. Almost as if every word were wrought with pain, the voice replied.

  Nell Gwyn, the Royal actress

  “On the stairs…near the top….”

  “What time was that?”

  “Oh, God, time! It was the autumn….”

  “Was there anyone with him?”

  “Outside.”

  “Where did you yourself pass over?” I said as gently as I could. There was moment of silence as if she did not understand the question. “You do know you’ve passed over?” I said.

  “No.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “What is there to remember, nobody cares. Why do they use this house, these people?” she demanded to know now. I explained it was a theater.

  “Is there any other place you go to, or are you here all the time?”

  “I think so….”

  “What are the noises for? What do you want?”

  “Do you want me to stop the fighting, you hear them fighting on the stairs?…”

  “What was John’s full name?”

  “Molyneaux.”

  “He was a lieutenant?”

  “Captain…in the Guards.”

  “And Fortescue, what was he?”

  “Lieutenant…King’s Guards. He was sent by the King.”

  “What was the order?”

  “Kill him…I was terrified…fight with swords…I was below…the salon….”

  “What can I do to help you find peace?”

  “What is peace?”