He worried Reynolds to death about it, and he gave no one else any peace. That waist, those delicate white fingers, those rosy, almond-shaped nails, those scintillating shoe buckles! They got on his brain. They obsessed him. He was like a maniac.
At last, at the suggestion of Reynolds, who wanted to get rid of him for awhile, he came up to London and paid visits to most of the professional mediums and occultists in the West End.
Some advised him one thing, and some another. Some immediately went into trances and learned from their controlling spirits all about the headless phantom, who she was, why she paraded the high road, and what had become of her head. But it was significant that no two told him alike, and that the head he so longed to see had at least a dozen different hiding-places. At last, when he had expended quite a small fortune, and his brain was much addled with psychic nomenclature, with detailed accounts of the Astral Plane, Karmas, Elementals, Elementaries, White Lodges, and What not, he interviewed a woman, living somewhere in the Bayswater direction, who suggested that he should hold a séance in the haunted hollow, and who promised, with a great show of condescension, to act as his medium if he would pay her the trifling sum of twenty pounds.
At first Brown declared the thing impossible, since he did not, at that moment, possess twenty pounds, which was literally true; but the prospect of seeing the ghost’s face at length proved too much for him, and he decided to pawn all he had, in order to gratify his longing.
He closed with the offer. When the night fixed for the séance arrived, the weather conditions were all that could be desired; the air was soft and calm, the moon brilliant, the sky almost cloudless, and promising only the finest weather for days to come. As the medium insisted upon a party of at least four, Brown persuaded a Mr. and Mrs. de Roscovi, Russians, to come, and they all set out together from Sudbury shortly after ten o’clock. Brown had made many inquiries in the neighbourhood as to the phantom figure, but he had only come across two people who would tell him anything about it. One, a farmer, assured him that he had on several occasions seen the ghost when driving, and that, on each occasion, it had kept abreast of his horse, even though the latter was careering along the road half mad with fright. But what terrified him most, he said, was that the apparition had no head.
The other, a blacksmith, said he had seen the woman twice, and that each time he had seen her she had been carrying something tucked under her arm, which he had fancied was a head. But he had been too scared to look at it very closely, and he only knew for certain that where her head should have been there was nothing. Both he and the farmer said they had heard all their lives that the road was haunted, but for what reason they had never been able to discover, as within the past sixty years, at any rate, neither murder nor suicide was known to have taken place near the hollow. This is as far as Brown had got with his investigations when he set out from Sudbury on the night in question. The de Roscovis did not think, for one moment, that the ghost would appear. They said, few people apparently had seen it; its visits in all probability were only periodical; and weeks, months, or even years might elapse before it put in an appearance there again.
“That may be, but then we have a medium,” Brown argued. “I engaged her to invoke the ghost, provided it would not come of its own accord. You can invoke it, can’t you, Madame Valenspin?”
Madame Valenspin now seemed rather dubious. “I have never tried in the open before,” she said, with a slight shiver, “but I will do my best. The conditions seem favourable; but I can’t say definitely till we arrive at the exact spot.”
Brown, however, could not help observing that the farther they advanced into the country, which became more and more lonely, the more restless and uneasy Madame Valenspin grew.
Once or twice she halted, as if irresolute whether to go on or not, and the moment she caught sight of the hollow she came to a dead stop.
“Not down there,” she said. “It’s too dark. We’d better stay here.”
It was frightfully still. Brown listened for the murmuring of water. There was none. The recent hot sun had probably dried up the spring. Through the same gap in the hedge he saw a big cow—possibly, so he thought, the same cow—and he took it as a favourable augury for the appearance of the ghost that the animal, as before, was gazing fixedly into the open space, as if momentarily expecting to see something.
Behind it, away back in the broad expanse of field, were other cattle, their skins startlingly white; all motionless, and all in attitudes suggestive of a sense of anticipation, of a conscious waiting for something. The sepulchral hush was uninterrupted saving by bats, assuredly the biggest and blackest Brown had ever seen, wheeling and skimming, with the faintest perceptible whiz, whiz, whiz, in and out the larches; and the soft intermittent fanning of the leaves as the night breeze came rustling over the flat country and continued its career down into the hollow. A rabbit scurried across the road from one gate to another, its white breast shining silver, and some other small furry creature, of a species undetected, created a brief pandemonium in a neighbouring ditch. Otherwise all nature was extraordinarily passive.
“The figure went right down into the hollow,” Brown said. “I think we ought to try there. What do you think, Mrs. de Roscovi?”
“I am of the same opinion as Madame Valenspin,” Mrs. de Roscovi replied, glancing apprehensively at the dip. “I think we had far better stay where we are.”
“Very well, then,” Brown said, “let’s begin. You are mistress of the ceremonies, Madame Valenspin. Will you tell us what to do?”
Madame Valenspin moved to one side of the road, and stood with her back resting against a gate. “Keep quite close to me,” she said, “and I will try and go under control. Ah!” She ejaculated the last syllable so sharply that Brown and Mrs. de Roscovi both started. She then began to mumble something, and then, breaking into a shrill, high-pitched key, stated that she was no longer Madame Valenspin but a spirit called Anne Heathcote, who was her temporary control. Anne Heathcote, so the audience were informed, was the ghost of a girl of very great beauty, who had been murdered in an adjoining field, close on a hundred years ago. There was no apparent motive for the deed, which was accomplished in a peculiarly barbarous fashion, the head being cut right off and thrown in a pit that had long since been filled in. The criminal was never caught.
“Can’t you appear to us with your head on,” Brown asked, “just as you were in your lifetime?”
“No,” the alleged spirit replied. “I am forbidden to do so. My visits are only periodical, and I shan’t be able to materialise again here for at least ten years.”
“Then there is little hope of my ever seeing you,” Brown said, bitterly disappointed.
“None,” was the somewhat abrupt answer.
“But why should you haunt this place at all?” Mr. de Roscovi asked. “What reason is there for your being earth-bound?”
“My sins,” the control replied. “I was a very wicked girl.”
“I don’t care whether you were wicked or not,” Brown put in mournfully. “I want to see you. If your face is in keeping with your limbs and figure, it must indeed be lovely. Is there no way of seeing you—just for a second?”
“None,” the control answered. Then, with much more emphasis, “None.”
But hardly had the alleged Anne Heathcote spoken, when far away in the distance came the sound of footsteps. Tap, tap, tap!
“Why! By Jove!” Brown shouted, “there she is! I recognise her step. I should know it in a million.”
For a minute everyone was silent, the tapping growing more and more audible. Then Madame Valenspin, in quite her own voice, exclaimed excitedly: “Let us be going. The spirits tell me we mustn’t remain here any longer. Let’s go back by the fields.”
She fumbled with the latchet of the gate, against which she had been leaning, and hurriedly tried to raise it.
Mrs. de Roscovi said nothing, but gripped her husband by the arm. The steps approached rapidly, and presently the same dainty form, Brown had previously seen when with Reynolds, once more figured on the horizon.
“It is—it is she!” Brown whispered. “Look—the waist, the arms, the hands, the shoes. Silver buckles! How they flash!”
An exclamation of horror interrupted him. It was from Mr. de Roscovi. He had moved to one side of the road, dragging his wife with him, and the two were standing huddled together, their eyes fixed in a frenzied stare at the phantom’s neck. Brown, forcing his attention away from the long slim hands which so fascinated him, followed their glances. The neck was not as he remembered it, white and slender as far as it went, but it ended abruptly in a grey nothingness, and beyond this nothingness Brown fancied he discerned the dimmest of shadows. He was appalled but fascinated, and intense curiosity far outweighed his fear. He was certain she was beautiful—beautiful to a degree that immeasurably excelled any feminine loveliness he had hitherto encountered. He must see her face. He did not believe her head was missing; he believed it was there on her body right enough, but that for some specific reason it had not materialised. He turned to Madame Valenspin to inquire the cause, and was greatly astonished to see her beating a hasty retreat across the fields. The figure had now come up to where he was standing, and tripping past him, it sped swiftly down the dip. Brown at once gave chase. He had not gone many yards before the darkness of the dip was on him; and the only clue he had to his quarry’s whereabouts was the sound of the shoes—the constant tap, tap, tapping. On and on he went, however, and at length, emerging from the darkness, he perceived a wooden stile and beyond it a tiny path, threading its way through a clump of firs that gradually grew thinner and thinner till they finally terminated in what appeared to be a broad clearing. Mounting the stile and springing off on the other side, the woman tripped along the path, and, turning for a moment to beckon Brown, disappeared from view.
The intense loneliness of the spot, emphasised a thousandfold by the eerie effect of the few straggling moonbeams that fell aslant the stile and pathway, and the knowledge that he had left his companions far behind made Brown falter, and it was some seconds before he could gather up the courage to continue his pursuit. A light girlish laugh, however, proceeding apparently from the spot where the figure had vanished, determined him. He saw once again vividly before him that willowy waist, those slim, delicate fingers, and those coquettish little feet. Were the devil itself to bar his way he must see her face. Sweating with terror, and yet withal obsessed with a passion that defies description, Brown mounted the stile and hastened in the direction of the laugh. Again it rang out, charged to overflowing with innocent fun and frolic, irresistibly girlish, irresistibly coy. This time there was no mistaking its locality. It came from behind a small clump of trees that bordered on the clearing. Wild with excitement and full of love madness, Brown dashed round the clump, and then halted. Floating in mid-air was a head, a head that looked as if it had long since been buried and just disinterred. The eyes alone lived, and they were fixed on Brown’s with a mocking, baneful glitter. Hanging on either side of it was a mass of long fair hair, suggestive of a woman.
Every detail in the face stood out with hideous clearness in the brilliancy of the moonlight, and as Brown stared at it, petrified with horror, the thing laughed.
CHAPTER III
THE CUPBOARD
A CASE OF HAUNTINGS NEAR BIRMINGHAM
People often wonder why new houses—houses without any apparent history—should suddenly begin to be haunted, often by a variety of very alarming phenomena, and then, just as suddenly, perhaps, cease to be haunted.
Of course one can only theorise, but I think a very possible and feasible reason is suggested, in the case I am about to relate.
Five years ago Sir George Cookham was living at “The Mayfields,” a large country house some ten or twelve miles south-east of Birmingham. He was greatly interested in criminology, inclining to the belief that crime is almost entirely due to physical malformation; and used to invite all the great experts on the subject to stay with him. It was one week-end, towards the middle of September, that Dr. Sickertorft came; and he and Sir George had some very heated arguments. Sir George was one of the most eccentric men I have ever met, and one of his many idiosyncrasies was to carry on his discussions walking.
On the morning of Sickertorft’s departure he and Sir George were arguing—Sir George, at the same time, perambulating the corridor of the ground floor of the house, for about the hundredth time—when Dr. Sickertorft suddenly remarked: “I wonder if this house is haunted?”
“Haunted!” Sir George laughed. “Why, of course not. It’s new. My father built it only sixty years ago. A house to be haunted must be old, must have some history. And the only tragedy that has occurred here was when a servant I once had, losing control of his temper, killed one of my most valuable dogs. That was a tragedy, both for the servant and the dog. There has been nothing else to my knowledge—nothing beyond one or two quite peaceful deaths from natural causes. But why do you ask?”
“Because,” Sickertorft replied, “that cupboard over there, opposite the foot of the stairs, to me, strongly suggests a ghost. Something peculiarly diabolical. Something that springs out on one and imparts the sensation of being strangled.”
“The only ghosts that haunt that cupboard,” Sir George chuckled, “are boots and shoes, and, I believe, my fishing rods. Ghosts are all a delusion—a peculiar state of the brain due to some minute osseous depression or cerebral inflammation.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Sickertorft said quietly. “I am positively certain that there are such things as ghosts, that they are objective and of many kinds. Some, in all probability, have always existed, and have never inhabited any human body; some are the earth-bound spiritual egos of man and beast; and some we can create ourselves.”
“Create ghosts!” Sir George cried. “Come, now, we are talking sense. Of course we can create ghosts. Pepper did, Maskelyne and Devant still do, and so do all the so-called materialising mediums.”
“I don’t mean spoof ghosts,” Sickertorft responded. “I mean real ones. Real superphysical, objective phenomena. Man can at times create them, but only by intense concentration.”
“You mean materialised thought forms?”
“If you like to term them such,” Sickertorft replied. “I believe they are responsible for a certain percentage of hauntings, but not all.”
“Well, I’ve never seen any of your ghostly thought forms nor, in my opinion, am I ever likely to,” Sir George growled. “Show me one and I’ll believe. But you can’t.”
“I don’t know so much,” Sickertorft muttered, and, with his eyes still on the cupboard, he followed Sir George into his study.
* * * *
A week later Lucy, a maid at “The Mayfields,” was walking past the cupboard on her way to the dining-room, when something, as she subsequently described it to the cook, came over her, and she ran for her life.
“I didn’t hear anything nor see anything,” she explained. “I only felt there was something nasty hiding there, ready to spring out.”
The following night she had the same experience, and her terror was so great that she ran shrieking into the dining-room, and it was some moments before she could make any coherent statement. Lady Cookham was very angry with her, and said it was all nonsense. There was nothing whatever wrong with the cupboard, and, if it occurred again, she must go. It did occur again, the very next night, and Lucy, without waiting for her dismissal, gave notice. She said this time she heard a laugh, a low chuckle, very sinister, and suggestive also of the utmost glee. The door of the cupboard creaked and, she believed, opened a little; but on this point she could not be absolutely certain. She only knew her horror was infinitely greater than it had been on former occasions, and that whe
n she ran, she was convinced something very dreadful ran after her.
The following evening, just about the same time, the butler went to the cupboard for a pair of shoes. He had just picked them up, and was about to go off with them, when someone breathed in his face. He sprang back in astonishment, striking his head somewhat badly against the edge of a shelf, whereupon there was a laugh—a short, sharp laugh, expressive of the keenest satisfaction. This was too much for the butler. Dropping the shoes, he dashed out of the cupboard and never ceased running till he was in the servants’ quarters.
He told the housekeeper, and the housekeeper mentioned the matter to the head parlourmaid; so that in a very short time the whole household got to know of it, and the cupboard was given as wide a berth as possible.
The next victim was the governess. Sir George had two children, both girls, and at present they were too young to go to school. The governess was a Cambridge graduate, who boasted of being utterly materialistic and of having a supreme contempt for weak nerves, and, to quote her own words, “poor simpletons who believe in ghosts.”
She was passing the cupboard one evening, three nights after the butler’s experience, when an irresistible impulse came over her to explore it. She opened the door and stepped inside, then someone closed the door with a bang and laughed.
“Who are you?” the governess demanded. “Let me out at once. How dare you!”
There was no reply, but when she stretched out her hand to feel for the door, she encountered something very cold and spongy, and the horror of it was so unexpected that she fainted.
In falling she struck the door violently. It flew open, and she was found some seconds later in a state of semi-insensibility, lying half in the cupboard and half across the corridor.
The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack Page 53