The sound was not like that of the walking of the human. Nor was it such
as an animal would make. It was neither a thud nor a pattering, but more
like a scratching shuffle, such as reminded me of nothing that I had
ever heard before.
Next moment, however, there came another sort of sound, plainly audible
above the footsteps. This was a thin, musical chuckle which ended in a
deep, but faint, organ-like throb. It happened only once.
Immediately it was followed by a steady clicking, such as might be made
by gently striking a stick against the pavement; only sharper. This
lasted a minute, during which the other sounds ceased.
Once more the footsteps. They were not very loud, but in the stillness
of that room they all but resounded.
Presently Charlotte could stand it no longer. She placed the ring on the
table, where it continued to emit those unplaceable sounds.
“Well! Do--do you people,” stammered Dr. Malloy, “do you people all hear
THAT?”
Miss Clarke's face was rather pale. But her mouth was firm. “It is
nothing,” said she, with theosophical positiveness. “You must not
believe it--it is not the truth of--”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Sir Henry, “but this isn't something to argue
about! It is a reality; and the sooner we all admit it, the better.
There is a living creature of some kind making that sound!”
“It is the spirit of some two-footed creature,” asserted Mme. Le Fabre,
plainly at her ease. She was on familiar ground now. “If only we had a
medium!”
Abruptly the sounds left the vicinity of the ring. At first we could
not locate their new position. Then Herold declared that they came
from under the table; and presently we were all gathered on the floor,
listening to those odd little sounds, while the ring remained thirty
inches above, on the top of the table!
It may be that the thing, whatever it was, did not care for such a
crowd. For shortly the shuffling ceased. And for a while we stared and
listened, scarcely breathing, trying to locate the new position.
Finally we went back to our chairs. We had heard nothing further.
Nevertheless, we continued to keep silence, with our ears alert for
anything more.
“Hush!” whispered Charlotte all of a sudden. “Did you hear that?” And
she looked up toward the ceiling.
In a moment I caught the sound. It was exceedingly faint, like the
distant thrumming of a zither. Only it was a single note, which did
not rise and fall, although there seemed a continual variation in its
volume.
Unexpectedly the other sounds came again, down under the table. This
time we remained in our seats and simply listened. And presently Sir
Henry, referring to the ring, made this suggestion:
“Suppose we seal it up, and see whether it inducts the sound then as
well as when exposed.”
This appealed to Herold very strongly; the others were agreeable; so I
ran upstairs to my room and secured a small screw-top metal canister,
which I knew to be airtight. It was necessary to remove the stone from
the ring, in order to get it into the opening in the can. Presently this
was done; and while our invisible visitor continued his scratchy little
walking as before, I screwed the top of the can down as tightly as I
could.
Instantly the footsteps halted.