The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack

by Elliott O'Donnell

  When Lady Cookham heard of what had happened, she was furious. “The cupboard can’t be haunted,” she declared, “it’s ridiculous. Someone is playing us a trick. I’ll call in the police.”

  The local inspector being summoned, examined the cupboard and cross-questioned the servants. But he discovered nothing. Lady Cookham now determined to unravel the mystery—if mystery there were—herself. She gave all the servants save one—the new maid Hemmings, whom she had engaged in the place of Lucy—a fortnight’s holiday, and got in a supply cook from Coventry. The governess was allowed to remain, but she was strictly forbidden to go anywhere near the cupboard after midday.

  When evening arrived, Lady Cookham, arming herself with a revolver and horsewhip, commenced to watch. Her first vigil passed uneventfully; but the next night, just as she had arrived at the cupboard and was taking up her stand facing it, the door slowly began to open. Lady Cookham is about as good a specimen of the thoroughly practical, strong-minded English sportswoman as one could meet anywhere. Up to the commencement of the present war she rode regularly with the Pytchley hounds, had a cold douche bath every morning, and spent a month at least every summer yachting in the English Channel.

  She had never known fear—never, at least, until now. “Who’s there?” she demanded. “You had better speak sharp, or I’ll fire!”

  There was no reply, however, and the door continued opening.

  Had she seen anything, she doesn’t think she would have been so frightened, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing visible. Her impressions were, however, that something was coming out, and that that something was nothing human.

  It moved stealthily towards her—and she could define a soft clinging tread, just as if it had tentacles that kept adhering to the boards. She tried to press the trigger of the revolver, but her muscles refused to act, and when she opened her mouth to shout she could not articulate a sound. It was now close to her. One of its large, clammy feet touched her, and she could feel its clammy, pungent breath fanning the top of her head.

  Then something icy cold and indescribably repulsive sought her throat and slowly began to throttle her. She tried to beat it off and to make some kind of noise to attract help, but it was all to no purpose. She was powerless. The grip tightened. All the blood in her veins congealed—her lungs expanded to the verge of bursting; and then, when the pain and horror reached its climax, and the identity of the hellish creature seemed about to reveal itself, there was a loud crack, and with it the acme of her sufferings, the final conscious stage of excruciating asphyxiation passed, and she relapsed into apparent death. She supposes that, for the first time in her life, she must have fainted. The crack was the report of her revolver. In her acute agony, her fingers had closed convulsively over the trigger, and the weapon had exploded.

  The noise proved her salvation. No psychic phenomena can stand violent vibration, and Sir George Cookham, arriving on the scene at the sound of the report, found his wife lying on the ground unconscious, but alone. He heard her story, and refused to be convinced.

  “It’s a case of suggestion,” he argued. “Lucy was a highly strung, imaginative girl. She had, in all probability, been reading spook tales, and hearing a noise in the cupboard had at once attributed the sound to ghosts. That was quite enough for Wilkins. Servants are ready to believe anything—especially if it is propagated by one of their own class. Miss Dennis is a hypochondriac. All governesses must be. The nature of their work necessitates it. She heard a well-garnished account of what was supposed to have happened from Wilkins, probably from Lucy too, and the neurotic state of her nerves did the rest. Of course when it comes to you, my dear,” he said, “it is more difficult to understand. But as there are no such things as ghosts—as they are a scientific impossibility—it must have been suggestion.”

  “I’m certain it was not,” Lady Cookham retorted, “and I’m going to leave the house and take the children with me. It’s not right for them to stay.”

  Sir George protested, but Lady Cookham had her own way, and in less than a fortnight there were notices in the Field, and other papers, to say that “The Mayfields” was to be let furnished.

  “We’ll give it a year’s trial,” Lady Cookham said, “and, if the people who take it are not disturbed by anything unusual happening, we will conclude the hauntings are at an end and return.”

  A few days after this conversation Sir George met Dr. Sickertorft on the platform of Coventry Station. Though the day was almost sultry, the doctor was muffled up in an overcoat, and appeared very pale and thin.

  “So you are leaving ‘The Mayfields,’” Sickertorft remarked. “Has the ghost been too much for you?”

  “Ghost!” Sir George cried angrily, “what the deuce do you mean? We have let the house for awhile, but not on account of any ghost. My wife wants to be nearer London.”

  “Then the stories that have got afloat are all moonshine,” Sickertorft replied, with a smile, “and you are still just as sceptical as ever.”

  “I am,” Sir George responded; “and if you hear any more reports about ‘The Mayfields’ being haunted, kindly contradict them.”

  Sickertorft smiled. “I will make a bet, Sir George,” he said, “that you will be converted one day.”

  “You may bet as much as you like, but you’ll lose,” Sir George answered furiously. And turning his back on Sickertorft, he walked away from him without another word.

  The following day Lady Cookham and the children left, and Sir George finding himself the sole occupant of the house, the servants having left at midday, telephoned to Sydney N. Morgan, a well-known private detective who specialised in cases of theft and blackmail, asking him to come. On his arrival at “The Mayfields” that same evening, Morgan listened to all Sir George had to say, and then made an exhaustive examination of the premises, paying particular attention to the cupboard in the hall.

  “Well?” Sir George asked. “What is your opinion? Rats?”

  “Not human ones, at any rate,” Morgan replied. “Anyhow, I can find no traces of them. I incline to your theory of nerves.”

  “Imagination first and then suggestion.” Sir George grunted. Now that he was alone there with the detective, he began to have misgivings. The house seemed strangely large and silent. But ghosts! Bah! There were no such things. He said as much to Morgan, and they both laughed.

  Then they stared at one another in amazement, for, from afar off, there came an answering echo, a faint yet distinctly audible—chuckle.

  They were standing at one end of the corridor on the ground floor when this happened, and to both of them the sound seemed to emanate from the cupboard. “What was that?” Sir George asked. “The wind?”

  “It may have been,” Morgan said dubiously, “but there’s no getting away from the fact that it was a queer noise for the wind to make. I made sure I looked everywhere.”

  “I’ll go upstairs and get my revolver,” Sir George observed. “It may come in handy. Will you remain here?”

  They looked at one another furtively, and each thought they saw fear in the other’s eyes.

  Both, however, had reputations to sustain.

  “I’ll wait down here, Sir George,” Morgan said, “and keep an eye on the cupboard. You’ll call if you want me.”

  “I will,” Sir George replied. “I shan’t be gone more than a minute. Be on your guard. It’s just about this time the alleged disturbances begin.”

  He hurried off, and Morgan watched his long legs cross the hall and hastily ascend the main staircase. The hall occupied a large space in the centre of the house, and overlooking it was a gallery connecting the east and west wings.

  Sir George’s room—that is to say, the room he was reserving for himself on this occasion—was in the east wing, the first to be reached from the gallery, and Morgan could almost see it from where he stood in th
e hall. His gaze was still fixed on Sir George’s retreating figure when a noise from behind him made him turn hurriedly round, and he distinctly saw the cupboard door open a few inches. Moving towards the cupboard, he then saw, as the door opened wider, a huge indefinable something emerge from it. Morgan admits that the most sublime terror seized him, and that he shrank back convulsively against the wall, totally unable to do anything but stare. The shape came towards him with a slow, shambling gait, and Morgan was at length able to compare it with an enormous fungus. It had arms and legs truly, but they were disproportionately long and crooked, and hardly seemed to belong to the body.

  There was no apparent head. The whole thing was vague and misty, but suggestive of the greatest foulness and antagonism. Morgan’s horror was so great as it passed him that he believes his heart practically stopped beating, and so tightly had he clenched his hands that the print of his finger nails remained on his palms for days afterwards. It left him in time, however, and he watched it shuffle its unwholesome way across the hall and surreptitiously begin to ascend the staircase.

  He tried to shout to Sir George to put him on his guard, but his voice refused to act and he could do nothing.

  Up and up it went, until at last it reached the gallery and crept onward into the east wing.

  He then heard Sir George cry out, “Hullo, Morgan! Is that you? Anything——” There was then a moment of the most intense silence, and then a shriek. Morgan says it was like a woman’s shriek—it was so shrill, so uncontrolled, so full of the most abject terror. For a moment it completely paralysed Morgan, but he seems then to have partially recovered. Anyhow, he pulled himself sufficiently together to run up the stairs and arrive outside Sir George’s door in time to hear sounds of a most violent struggle. Tables, chairs, washstand, crockery, were all hurled to the ground, as Sir George raced round and round the room in his desperate efforts to escape. Once he caught hold of the handle of the door and turned it furiously. “Let me out!” he shrieked. “For mercy’s sake let me out!” and again Morgan heard him rush to the window and pound madly on the glass.

  Then there came another spell of silence—short and emphatic—then a shriek that far eclipsed anything Morgan had hitherto heard, and then a voice—a man’s voice, but certainly not Sir George’s—which, speaking in sharp, jerky sentences that conveyed with them a sense of strange far-offness, said: “You’ll believe now, Sir George. You’ll believe now. Damn you, you’ll believe now!” Then there were sounds as if someone was being shaken very violently to and fro, and Morgan, utterly unable to stand it any longer, turned tail and—fled.

  * * * *

  When Morgan returned some half an hour later, accompanied by the lodge-keeper and one of the under-gardeners, they found Sir George lying in a heap on the floor—unconscious. He did not die, however, neither did he go mad; but his heart was badly affected, and he subsequently developed fits.

  Nothing would induce him to describe what had actually taken place, and this, added to the fact that he never again set foot within “The Mayfields,” caused his friends to draw their own conclusions. Morgan told me all about it, and I at once wrote to Dr. Sickertorft. I was too late, however; Dr. Sickertorft had been dead some weeks—he had died of cerebral tuberculosis exactly three months after Morgan’s visit to “The Mayfields.” I was informed that he attributed the fatal malady to supernormal concentration.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE EMPTY LEASH

  A CASE OF HAUNTING IN ST. JOHN’S WOOD

  I have so often been accused of writing too exclusively about the horrid types of spirit, such as earth-bound murderers, suicides, and elements, that I am more than pleased to be able to present to my readers a case of a different kind. Until quite recently Barcombe House, St. John’s Wood, was haunted by the ghost of a very lovely little girl, who, it is believed, died of a broken heart because a dog to which she was very much attached had to be destroyed. I obtained particulars as to the hauntings from a Mr. John Tyley, whose verbatim account I will endeavour, as nearly as possible, to reproduce.

  “Guy Darnton is a very intimate friend of mine. Some people call us inseparables, and I suppose we are—though at times, I believe, no two men could so thoroughly hate one another. Indeed, to such an extremity has this spirit of execration and dislike been carried that I have on occasions actually accused him of being my very worst—my most cruel, and certainly my most subtly destructive—enemy. But even then, even at the moment when my abhorrence of him has been most acute, I have always accorded him—reluctantly, I admit—one great redeeming quality—his affection for and kindness to Ghoul.

  “Ghoul was an Irish terrier, just an ordinary-looking Irish terrier, with all the pugnacious and—as some unkind critics would add—quarrelsome characteristics of his race. He hated fops, those little brown Pekinese and King Charles horrors that ladies scent and comb, and stuff to bursting-point with every imaginable dainty; and whenever he saw one mincing its way along the street, he would always block its path and try to bite it.

  “Yet he was an idealist. It’s all nonsense to say that animals have no appreciation of beauty. Ghoul had. He was fond of biscuits truly; but he liked other things more, far more than food. I have known him stand in front of a rose bush and gaze at it with an expression which no one but the most unkind and prejudiced sceptic could possibly misinterpret for anything but sheer, solid admiration; and I used to notice that whenever he was introduced to several ladies, he always wagged his tail hardest at the prettiest of them. But most of all Ghoul admired pretty children—dainty little girls with fluffy yellow curls and big, smiling eyes. He adored them, and he hated with equal fervour all children who were in any way physically ill-favoured. I have known him bark furiously at a boy who squinted, and snarl at and refuse to go near a girl who had a blotchy, yellow complexion and a cavernous, frog-shaped mouth.

  “But I am speaking as if Ghoul were my property. He was not—at least, not in the legal sense. Darnton paid for his licence—and housed and fed him—and so had every apparent right to call himself Ghoul’s master.

  “In spite of this, however, I knew intuitively that Ghoul regarded me as his actual master, and I believe the explanation of this circumstance lay in the superphysical. I am psychic, and I am convinced that the unknown is nearer, far nearer to me than it is to most people. Now dogs, at least most dogs, have the faculty of second sight, of clairvoyance and clairaudience, very acutely developed—you have only to be in a haunted house with them to see it; and there is nothing they stand in awe of more—or for which they have a more profound respect—than the superphysical. Now Ghoul was no exception. He saw around me what I only felt; and he recognised that I was the magnet. He respected me as one true psychic respects another.

  “One day we were out together. Darnton had gone to the dentist, and Ghoul, tired of his own company, resolved to pay me a visit. He wandered in at the wicket gate of my garden just as I was about to set off for a morning constitutional. I greeted him somewhat boisterously, for Ghoul, when extra solemn, always excited my risibility, and, after a brief skirmish with him on behalf of my cat, an extraordinarily ugly Tom, for whom Ghoul cherished the most inveterate hatred, we set off together. It was pure accident that led me into the Adelaide Road. I was half-way along it, thinking of nothing in particular, when someone whistled behind me, and I turned round. As a rule, one may see a few pedestrians—one or two at least—at all times of the day in the Adelaide Road, but oddly enough no one was in sight just at that moment, and I could see no traces of Ghoul. I called him, and getting no reply, walked back a little distance. At last I discovered him. He was in the front garden of Barcombe House, sitting in the centre of a grass plot, his eyes fixed on space, but with such an expression of absorbing interest that I was absolutely astounded. Thinking something, perhaps, was hiding in the bushes, I threw stones and made a great shooing; but nothing came out, and Ghoul still maintained his position. The l
ook in his face did not suggest anything antagonistic, it was indicative rather of something very pleasing to him—something idealistic—something he adored.

  “I shouted ‘Ghoul!’ He did not take the slightest notice, and when I caught him by the scruff of the neck, he dug his paws in the ground and whined piteously. Then I grew alarmed. He must either have hurt himself or have gone mad. I examined him carefully, and nothing appearing to be the matter with him, I lifted him up, and, despite his frantic struggles, carried him out of the garden.

  “The moment I set him down he raced back. Then I grew determined. A taxi was hailed, and Ghoul, driven off in it, speedily found himself a close prisoner in Darnton’s exceedingly unromantic study.

  “That afternoon I revisited Barcombe House alone. The premises were to let, and, judging by their neglected and dilapidated appearance, had been so for some considerable time. Both front and back garden were overgrown with a wild profusion of convolvulus, thistles, and other weeds; and an air of desolation, common to all abandoned houses, hung about the place. All the same, I could detect nothing unpleasant.

  “I was unmistakably aware of some superphysical influence; but that influence, unlike the majority of those I had hitherto experienced, was decidedly attractive.

  “It seemed to affect everything—the ruddy rays of sunlight that, falling aslant the paths, turned them into scintillating gold; the buttercups and dandelions more glorious yellow than I had ever remembered seeing them; the air—charged to overflowing with the rich, entrancing perfume of an abnormally generous summer’s choicest flowers. All nature here seemed stimulated, cheered and glorified, and the longer I lingered the longer I wished to linger. At the far end of the garden was an arbour overgrown with jasmine and sweet honeysuckle, and on its moss-covered seat I espied a monstrous Teddy bear adorned with a piece of faded and mildewy pink ribbon. The sight filled me with a strange melancholy. The poor Teddy bear, once held so lovingly in the tight embrace of two little infantile arms, was now abandoned to the mercies of spiders and wood-lice, and the pitiless spoliation of decay. How long had it been left, and where was its owner? I looked at the sunshine, and, in the beams that gilded everything around me, I felt an answer to my queries. Most haunted places scare me, but it was otherwise here; and I was so fascinated, so eager to probe the mystery to its core, that I left the garden and, crossing a tiny stone yard, approached the back of the house. The premises were quite easy of access, as the catch of one of the windows was broken, and the shutter of the coal-house had come off its hinges. One has always supposed that the basement of any house that has stood empty for a long time must become cold and musty, but here I could detect neither cold nor mustiness. Even in the darkest recesses the sun made its influence felt, and its beams warmed and illuminated walls and flagstones alike. I now entered a large and lofty apartment, with a daintily tiled floor, spotlessly clean ceiling, artistically coloured walls, and scrupulously clean dresser. Here again the devastating hand of decay was nowhere to be seen, and indeed I thought I had never been in such a pleasant kitchen.