It was still evening, as I remember, and the four of us, Jessop,
Arkright, Taylor and I, looked disappointedly at Carnacki, where he sat
silent in his great chair.
We had come in response to the usual card of invitation, which--as you
know--we have come to consider as a sure prelude to a good story; and
now, after telling us the short incident of the Three Straw Platters, he
had lapsed into a contented silence, and the night not half gone, as I
have hinted.
However, as it chanced, some pitying fate jogged Carnacki's elbow, or his
memory, and he began again, in his queer level way:--
"The 'Straw Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I
have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact
a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of
what I might term 'curious' things was very small at that time.
"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just
outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast. The house was the last of a
row of detached cottage villas, each house standing in its own garden;
and very dainty little places they were, very old, and most of them
smothered in roses; and all with those quaint old leaded windows, and
doors of genuine oak. You must try to picture them for the sake of their
complete niceness.
"Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in
that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had
not been a single peculiar happening to worry us.
"And then, something happened.
"It was about two o'clock one morning, as I was finishing some letters,
that I heard the door of my mother's bedroom open, and she came to the
top of the stairs, and knocked on the banisters.
"'All right, dear,' I called; for I suppose she was merely reminding me
that I should have been in bed long ago; then I heard her go back to her
room, and I hurried my work, for fear she should lie awake, until she
heard me safe up to my room.
"When I was finished, I lit my candle, put out the lamp, and went
upstairs. As I came opposite the door of my mother's room, I saw that it
was open, called good night to her, very softly, and asked whether I
should close the door. As there was no answer, I knew that she had
dropped off to sleep again, and I closed the door very gently, and turned
into my room, just across the passage. As I did so, I experienced a
momentary, half-aware sense of a faint, peculiar, disagreeable odor in
the passage; but it was not until the following night that I _realized_ I
had noticed a smell that offended me. You follow me? It is so often like
that--one suddenly knows a thing that really recorded itself on one's
consciousness, perhaps a year before.
"The next morning at breakfast, I mentioned casually to my mother that
she had 'dropped off,' and I had shut the door for her. To my surprise,
she assured me she had never been out of her room. I reminded her about
the two raps she had given upon the banister; but she still was certain I
must be mistaken; and in the end I teased her, saying she had grown so
accustomed to my bad habit of sitting up late, that she had come to call
me in her sleep. Of course, she denied this, and I let the matter drop;
but I was more than a little puzzled, and did not know whether to believe
my own explanation, or to take the mater's, which was to put the noises
down to the mice, and the open door to the fact that she couldn't have
properly latched it, when she went to bed. I suppose, away in the
subconscious part of me, I had a stirring of less reasonable thoughts;
but certainly, I had no real uneasiness at that time.
"The next night there came a further development. About two thirty a.m.,
I heard my mother's door open, just as on the previous night, and
immediately afterward she rapped sharply, on the banister, as it seemed
to me. I stopped my work and called up that I would not be long. As she
made no reply, and I did not hear her go back to bed, I had a quick sense
of wonder whether she might not be doing it in her sleep, after all, just
as I had said.
"With the thought, I stood up, and taking the lamp from the table, began
to go toward the door, which was open into the passage. It was then I got
a sudden nasty sort of thrill; for it came to me, all at once, that my
mother never knocked, when I sat up too late; she always called. You will
understand I was not really frightened in any way; only vaguely uneasy,
and pretty sure she must really be doing the thing in her sleep.
"I went quickly up the stairs, and when I came to the top, my mother was
not there; but her door was open. I had a bewildered sense though
believing she must have gone quietly back to bed, without my hearing
her. I entered her room and found her sleeping quietly and naturally; for
the vague sense of trouble in me was sufficiently strong to make me go
over to look at her.
"When I was sure that she was perfectly right in every way, I was still
a little bothered; but much more inclined to think my suspicion correct
and that she had gone quietly back to bed in her sleep, without knowing
what she had been doing. This was the most reasonable thing to think, as
you must see.
"And then it came to me, suddenly, that vague, queer, mildewy smell in
the room; and it was in that instant I became aware I had smelt the same
strange, uncertain smell the night before in the passage.
"I was definitely uneasy now, and began to search my mother's room;
though with no aim or clear thought of anything, except to assure myself
that there was nothing in the room. All the time, you know, I never
_expected really_ to find anything; only my uneasiness had to be assured.
"In the middle of my search my mother woke up, and of course I had to
explain. I told her about her door opening, and the knocks on the
banister, and that I had come up and found her asleep. I said nothing
about the smell, which was not very distinct; but told her that the thing
happening twice had made me a bit nervous, and possibly fanciful, and I
thought I would take a look 'round, just to feel satisfied.
"I have thought since that the reason I made no mention of the smell, was
not only that I did not want to frighten my mother, for I was scarcely
that myself; but because I had only a vague half-knowledge that I
associated the smell with fancies too indefinite and peculiar to bear
talking about. You will understand that I am able _now_ to analyze and
put the thing into words; but _then_ I did not even know my chief reason
for saying nothing; let alone appreciate its possible significance.
"It was my mother, after all, who put part of my vague sensations
into words:--
"'What a disagreeable smell!' she exclaimed, and was silent a moment,
looking at me. Then:--'You feel there's something wrong?' still looking
at me, very quietly but with a little, nervous note of questioning
expectancy.
"'I don't know,' I said. 'I can't understand it, unless you've really
been walking about in your sleep.'
"'The smell,' she said.
"'Yes,' I replied. 'That's what puzzles me too. I'll take a walk through
the house; but I don't suppose it's anything.'
"I lit her candle, and taking the lamp, I went through the other
bedrooms, and afterward all over the house, including the three
underground cellars, which was a little trying to the nerves, seeing that
I was more nervous than I would admit.
"Then I went back to my mother, and told her there was really nothing to
bother about; and, you know, in the end, we talked ourselves into
believing it was nothing. My mother would not agree that she might have
been sleepwalking; but she was ready to put the door opening down to the
fault of the latch, which certainly snicked very lightly. As for the
knocks, they might be the old warped woodwork of the house cracking a
bit, or a mouse rattling a piece of loose plaster. The smell was more
difficult to explain; but finally we agreed that it might easily be the
queer night smell of the moist earth, coming in through the open window
of my mother's room, from the back garden, or--for that matter--from the
little churchyard beyond the big wall at the bottom of the garden.
"And so we quietened down, and finally I went to bed, and to sleep.
"I think this is certainly a lesson on the way we humans can delude
ourselves; for there was not one of these explanations that my reason
could really accept. Try to imagine yourself in the same circumstances,
and you will see how absurd our attempts to explain the happenings
really were.
"In the morning, when I came down to breakfast, we talked it all over
again, and whilst we agreed that it was strange, we also agreed that we
had begun to imagine funny things in the backs of our minds, which now we
felt half ashamed to admit. This is very strange when you come to look
into it; but very human.
"And then that night again my mother's door was slammed once more just
after midnight. I caught up the lamp, and when I reached her door, I
found it shut. I opened it quickly, and went in, to find my mother lying
with her eyes open, and rather nervous; having been waked by the bang of
the door. But what upset me more than anything, was the fact that there
was a disgusting smell in the passage and in her room.
"Whilst I was asking her whether she was all right, a door slammed
twice downstairs; and you can imagine how it made me feel. My mother
and I looked at one another; and then I lit her candle, and taking the
poker from the fender, went downstairs with the lamp, beginning to feel
really nervous. The cumulative effect of so many queer happenings was
getting hold of me; and all the _apparently_ reasonable explanations
seemed futile.
"The horrible smell seemed to be very strong in the downstairs passage;
also in the front room and the cellars; but chiefly in the passage. I
made a very thorough search of the house, and when I had finished, I knew
that all the lower windows and doors were properly shut and fastened, and
that there was no living thing in the house, beyond our two selves. Then
I went up to my mother's room again, and we talked the thing over for an
hour or more, and in the end came to the conclusion that we might, after
all, be reading too much into a number of little things; but, you know,
inside of us, we did not believe this.
"Later, when we had talked ourselves into a more comfortable state of
mind, I said good night, and went off to bed; and presently managed to
get to sleep.
"In the early hours of the morning, whilst it was still dark, I was waked
by a loud noise. I sat up in bed, and listened. And from downstairs, I
heard:--bang, bang, bang, one door after another being slammed; at least,
that is the impression the sounds gave to me.
"I jumped out of bed, with the tingle and shiver of sudden fright on me;
and at the same moment, as I lit my candle, my door was pushed slowly
open; I had left it unlatched, so as not to feel that my mother was quite
shut off from me.
"'Who's there?' I shouted out, in a voice twice as deep as my natural
one, and with a queer breathlessness, that sudden fright so often gives
one. 'Who's there?'
"Then I heard my mother saying:--
"'It's me, Thomas. Whatever is happening downstairs?'
"She was in the room by this, and I saw she had her bedroom poker in one
hand, and her candle in the other. I could have smiled at her, had it not
been for the extraordinary sounds downstairs.
"I got into my slippers, and reached down an old sword bayonet from the
wall; then I picked up my candle, and begged my mother not to come; but I
knew it would be little use, if she had made up her mind; and she had,
with the result that she acted as a sort of rearguard for me, during our
search. I know, in some ways, I was very glad to have her with me, as you
will understand.
"By this time, the door slamming had ceased, and there seemed, probably
because of the contrast, to be an appalling silence in the house.
However, I led the way, holding my candle high, and keeping the sword
bayonet very handy. Downstairs we found all the doors wide open; although
the outer doors and the windows were closed all right. I began to wonder
whether the noises had been made by the doors after all. Of one thing
only were we sure, and that was, there was no living thing in the house,
beside ourselves, while everywhere throughout the house, there was the
taint of that disgusting odor.
"Of course it was absurd to try to make believe any longer. There was
something strange about the house; and as soon as it was daylight, I set
my mother to packing; and soon after breakfast, I saw her off by train.
"Then I set to work to try to clear up the mystery. I went first to the
landlord, and told him all the circumstances. From him, I found that
twelve or fifteen years back, the house had got rather a curious name
from three or four tenants; with the result that it had remained empty a
long while; in the end he had let it at a low rent to a Captain Tobias,
on the one condition that he should hold his tongue, if he saw anything
peculiar. The landlord's idea--as he told me frankly--was to free the
house from these tales of 'something queer,' by keeping a tenant in it,
and then to sell it for the best price he could get.
"However, when Captain Tobias left, after a ten years' tenancy, there was
no longer any talk about the house; so when I offered to take it on a
five years' lease, he had jumped at the offer. This was the whole story;
so he gave me to understand. When I pressed him for details of the
supposed peculiar happenings in the house, all those years back, he said
the tenants had talked about a woman who always moved about the house at
night. Some tenants never saw anything; but others would not stay out the
first month's tenancy.
"One thing the landlord was particular to point out, that no tenant had
ever complained about knockings, or door slamming. As for the smell, he
seemed positively indignant about it; but why, I don't suppose he knew
himself, except that he probably had some vague feeling that it was an
indirect accusation on my part that the drains were not right.
"In the end, I suggested that he should come down and spend the night
with me. He agreed at once, especially as I told him I intended to keep
the whole business quiet, and try to get to the bottom of the curious
affair; for he was anxious to keep the rumor of the haunting from
getting about.
"About three o'clock that afternoon, he came down, and we made a
thorough search of the house, which, however, revealed nothing unusual.
Afterward, the landlord made one or two tests, which showed him the
drainage was in perfect order; after that we made our preparations for
sitting up all night.
"First, we borrowed two policemen's dark lanterns from the station
nearby, and where the superintendent and I were friendly, and as soon as
it was really dusk, the landlord went up to his house for his gun. I had
the sword bayonet I have told you about; and when the landlord got back,
we sat talking in my study until nearly midnight.
"Then we lit the lanterns and went upstairs. We placed the lanterns, gun
and bayonet handy on the table; then I shut and sealed the bedroom doors;
afterward we took our seats, and turned off the lights.
"From then until two o'clock, nothing happened; but a little after two,
as I found by holding my watch near the faint glow of the closed
lanterns, I had a time of extraordinary nervousness; and I bent toward
the landlord, and whispered to him that I had a queer feeling something
was about to happen, and to be ready with his lantern; at the same time I
reached out toward mine. In the very instant I made this movement, the
darkness which filled the passage seemed to become suddenly of a dull
violet color; not, as if a light had been shone; but as if the natural
blackness of the night had changed color. And then, coming through this
violet night, through this violet-colored gloom, came a little naked
Child, running. In an extraordinary way, the Child seemed not to be
distinct from the surrounding gloom; but almost as if it were a
concentration of that extraordinary atmosphere; as if that gloomy color
which had changed the night, came from the Child. It seems impossible to
make clear to you; but try to understand it.
"The Child went past me, running, with the natural movement of the legs
of a chubby human child, but in an absolute and inconceivable silence. It
was a very small Child, and must have passed under the table; but I saw
the Child through the table, as if it had been only a slightly darker
shadow than the colored gloom. In the same instant, I saw that a
fluctuating glimmer of violet light outlined the metal of the gun-barrels
and the blade of the sword bayonet, making them seem like faint shapes of
glimmering light, floating unsupported where the tabletop should have
shown solid.
"Now, curiously, as I saw these things, I was subconsciously aware that I
heard the anxious breathing of the landlord, quite clear and labored,
close to my elbow, where he waited nervously with his hands on the
lantern. I realized in that moment that he saw nothing; but waited in the
darkness, for my warning to come true.
"Even as I took heed of these minor things, I saw the Child jump to one
side, and hide behind some half-seen object that was certainly nothing
belonging to the passage. I stared, intently, with a most extraordinary
thrill of expectant wonder, with fright making goose flesh of my back.
And even as I stared, I solved for myself the less important problem of
what the two black clouds were that hung over a part of the table. I
think it very curious and interesting, the double working of the mind,
often so much more apparent during times of stress. The two clouds came
from two faintly shining shapes, which I knew must be the metal of the
lanterns; and the things that looked black to the sight with which I was
then seeing, could be nothing else but what to normal human sight is
known as light. This phenomenon I have always remembered. I have twice
seen a somewhat similar thing; in the Dark Light Case and in that trouble
of Maaetheson's, which you know about.
"Even as I understood this matter of the lights, I was looking to my
left, to understand why the Child was hiding. And suddenly, I heard the
landlord shout out:--'The Woman!' But I saw nothing. I had a
disagreeable sense that something repugnant was near to me, and I was
aware in the same moment that the landlord was gripping my arm in a hard,
frightened grip. Then I was looking back to where the Child had hidden. I
saw the Child peeping out from behind its hiding place, seeming to be
looking up the passage; but whether in fear I could not tell. Then it
came out, and ran headlong away, through the place where should have been
the wall of my mother's bedroom; but the Sense with which I was seeing
these things, showed me the wall only as a vague, upright shadow,
unsubstantial. And immediately the child was lost to me, in the dull
violet gloom. At the same time, I felt the landlord press back against
me, as if something had passed close to him; and he called out again, a
hoarse sort of cry:--'The Woman! The Woman!' and turned the shade
clumsily from off his lantern. But I had seen no Woman; and the passage
showed empty, as he shone the beam of his light jerkily to and fro; but
chiefly in the direction of the doorway of my mother's room.
"He was still clutching my arm, and had risen to his feet; and now,
mechanically and almost slowly, I picked up my lantern and turned on
the light. I shone it, a little dazedly, at the seals upon the doors;
but none were broken; then I sent the light to and fro, up and down the
passage; but there was nothing; and I turned to the landlord, who was
saying something in a rather incoherent fashion. As my light passed
over his face, I noted, in a dull sort of way, that he was drenched
with sweat.
"Then my wits became more handleable, and I began to catch the drift of
his words:--'Did you see her? Did you see her?' he was saying, over and
over again; and then I found myself telling him, in quite a level
voice, that I had not seen any Woman. He became more coherent then, and
I found that he had seen a Woman come from the end of the passage, and
go past us; but he could not describe her, except that she kept
stopping and looking about her, and had even peered at the wall, close
beside him, as if looking for something. But what seemed to trouble him
most, was that she had not seemed to see him at all. He repeated this
so often, that in the end I told him, in an absurd sort of way, that he
ought to be very glad she had not. What did it all mean? was the
question; somehow I was not so frightened, as utterly bewildered. I had
seen less then, than since; but what I had seen, had made me feel
adrift from my anchorage of Reason.
"What did it mean? He had seen a Woman, searching for something. _I_ had
not seen this Woman. _I_ had seen a Child, running away, and hiding from
Something or Someone. _He_ had not seen the Child, or the other
things--only the Woman. And _I_ had not seen her. What did it all mean?
"I had said nothing to the landlord about the Child. I had been too
bewildered, and I realized that it would be futile to attempt an
explanation. He was already stupid with the thing he had seen; and not
the kind of man to understand. All this went through my mind as we stood
there, shining the lanterns to and fro. All the time, intermingled with a
streak of practical reasoning, I was questioning myself, what did it all
mean? What was the Woman searching for; what was the Child running from?
"Suddenly, as I stood there, bewildered and nervous, making random
answers to the landlord, a door below was violently slammed, and directly
I caught the horrible reek of which I have told you.
"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
Smell! Do _you_ smell it?'
"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I shook
him.
"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
shaking lantern at the stair head.
"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
it makes rags of your courage.
"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
should know which had been opened.
"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
courage, I went down the stairs.
"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
extraordinary horror.
"Backward and forward I flashed the light over the impossible marks and
saw them everywhere. Suddenly I noticed that they led to each of the
closed doors. I felt something touch my back, and glanced 'round
swiftly, to find the landlord had come close to me, almost pressing
against me, in his fear.
"'It's all right,' I said, but in a rather breathless whisper, meaning to
put a little courage into him; for I could feel that he was shaking
through all his body. Even then as I tried to get him steadied enough to
be of some use, his gun went off with a tremendous bang. He jumped, and
yelled with sheer terror; and I swore because of the shock.
"'Give it to me, for God's sake!' I said, and slipped the gun from his
hand; and in the same instant there was a sound of running steps up the
garden path, and immediately the flash of a bull's-eye lantern upon the
fan light over the front door. Then the door was tried, and directly
afterward there came a thunderous knocking, which told me a policeman had
heard the shot.
"I went to the door, and opened it. Fortunately the constable knew me,
and when I had beckoned him in, I was able to explain matters in a
very short time. While doing this, Inspector Johnstone came up the
path, having missed the officer, and seeing lights and the open door.
I told him as briefly as possible what had occurred, and did not
mention the Child or the Woman; for it would have seem too fantastic
for him to notice. I showed him the queer, wet footprints and how they
went toward the closed doors. I explained quickly about the mats, and
how that the one against the cellar door was flat, which showed the
door had been opened.
"The inspector nodded, and told the constable to guard the door at the
top of the cellar stairs. He then asked the hall lamp to be lit, after
which he took the policeman's lantern, and led the way into the front
room. He paused with the door wide open, and threw the light all 'round;
then he jumped into the room, and looked behind the door; there was no
one there; but all over the polished oak floor, between the scattered
rugs, went the marks of those horrible spreading footprints; and the room
permeated with the horrible odor.
"The inspector searched the room carefully, and then went into the middle
room, using the same precautions. There was nothing in the middle room,
or in the kitchen or pantry; but everywhere went the wet footmarks
through all the rooms, showing plainly wherever there were woodwork or
oilcloth; and always there was the smell.
"The inspector ceased from his search of the rooms, and spent a minute in
trying whether the mats would really fall flat when the doors were open,
or merely ruckle up in a way as to appear they had been untouched; but in
each case, the mats fell flat, and remained so.
"'Extraordinary!' I heard Johnstone mutter to himself. And then he went
toward the cellar door. He had inquired at first whether there were
windows to the cellar, and when he learned there was no way out, except
by the door, he had left this part of the search to the last.
"As Johnstone came up to the door, the policeman made a motion of salute,
and said something in a low voice; and something in the tone made me
flick my light across him. I saw then that the man was very white, and he
looked strange and bewildered.
"'What?' said Johnstone impatiently. 'Speak up!'
"'A woman come along 'ere, sir, and went through this 'ere door,' said
the constable, clearly, but with a curious monotonous intonation that is
sometimes heard from an unintelligent man.
"'Speak up!' shouted the inspector.
"'A woman come along and went through this 'ere door,' repeated the man,
monotonously.
"The inspector caught the man by the shoulder, and deliberately sniffed
his breath.
"'No!' he said. And then sarcastically:--'I hope you held the door open
politely for the lady.'
"'The door weren't opened, sir,' said the man, simply.
"'Are you mad--' began Johnstone.
"'No,' broke in the landlord's voice from the back. Speaking steadily
enough. 'I saw the Woman upstairs.' It was evident that he had got back
his control again.
"'I'm afraid, Inspector Johnstone,' I said, 'that there's more in this
than you think. I certainly saw some very extraordinary things upstairs.'
"The inspector seemed about to say something; but instead, he turned
again to the door, and flashed his light down and 'round about the mat. I
saw then that the strange, horrible footmarks came straight up to the
cellar door; and the last print showed _under_ the door; yet the
policeman said the door had not been opened.
"And suddenly, without any intention, or realization of what I was
saying, I asked the landlord:--
"'What were the feet like?'
"I received no answer; for the inspector was ordering the constable to
open the cellar door, and the man was not obeying. Johnstone repeated the
order, and at last, in a queer automatic way, the man obeyed, and pushed
the door open. The loathsome smell beat up at us, in a great wave of
horror, and the inspector came backward a step.
"'My God!' he said, and went forward again, and shone his light down the
steps; but there was nothing visible, only that on each step showed the
unnatural footprints.
"The inspector brought the beam of the light vividly on the top step; and
there, clear in the light, there was something small, moving. The
inspector bent to look, and the policeman and I with him. I don't want to
disgust you; but the thing we looked at was a maggot. The policeman
backed suddenly out of the doorway:
"'The churchyard,' he said, '... at the back of the 'ouse.'
"'Silence!' said Johnstone, with a queer break in the word, and I knew
that at last he was frightened. He put his lantern into the doorway, and
shone it from step to step, following the footprints down into the
darkness; then he stepped back from the open doorway, and we all gave
back with him. He looked 'round, and I had a feeling that he was looking
for a weapon of some kind.
"'Your gun,' I said to the landlord, and he brought it from the front
hall, and passed it over to the inspector, who took it and ejected the
empty shell from the right barrel. He held out his hand for a live
cartridge, which the landlord brought from his pocket. He loaded the gun
and snapped the breech. He turned to the constable:--
"'Come on,' he said, and moved toward the cellar doorway.
"'I ain't comin', sir,' said the policeman, very white in the face.
"With a sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff
and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward,
screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the
gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I
heard the landlord.
"At the bottom of the stairs, the inspector was helping the policeman to
his feet, where he stood swaying a moment, in a bewildered fashion; then
the inspector went into the front cellar, and his man followed him in
stupid fashion; but evidently no longer with any thought of running away
from the horror.
"We all crowded into the front cellar, flashing our lights to and fro.
Inspector Johnstone was examining the floor, and I saw that the footmarks
went all 'round the cellar, into all the corners, and across the floor. I
thought suddenly of the Child that was running away from Something. Do
you see the thing that I was seeing vaguely?
"We went out of the cellar in a body, for there was nothing to be
found. In the next cellar, the footprints went everywhere in that queer
erratic fashion, as of someone searching for something, or following
some blind scent.
"In the third cellar the prints ended at the shallow well that had been
the old water supply of the house. The well was full to the brim, and the
water so clear that the pebbly bottom was plainly to be seen, as we shone
the lights into the water. The search came to an abrupt end, and we stood
about the well, looking at one another, in an absolute, horrible silence.
"Johnstone made another examination of the footprints; then he shone his
light again into the clear shallow water, searching each inch of the
plainly seen bottom; but there was nothing there. The cellar was full of
the dreadful smell; and everyone stood silent, except for the constant
turning of the lamps to and fro around the cellar.
"The inspector looked up from his search of the well, and nodded quietly
across at me, with his sudden acknowledgment that our belief was now his
belief, the smell in the cellar seemed to grow more dreadful, and to be,
as it were, a menace--the material expression that some monstrous thing
was there with us, invisible.
"'I think--' began the inspector, and shone his light toward the
stairway; and at this the constable's restraint went utterly, and he ran
for the stairs, making a queer sound in his throat.
"The landlord followed, at a quick walk, and then the inspector and I. He
waited a single instant for me, and we went up together, treading on the
same steps, and with our lights held backward. At the top, I slammed and
locked the stair door, and wiped my forehead, and my hands were shaking.
"The inspector asked me to give his man a glass of whisky, and then he
sent him on his beat. He stayed a short while with the landlord and me,
and it was arranged that he would join us again the following night and
watch the Well with us from midnight until daylight. Then he left us,
just as the dawn was coming in. The landlord and I locked up the house,
and went over to his place for a sleep.
"In the afternoon, the landlord and I returned to the house, to make
arrangements for the night. He was very quiet, and I felt he was to be
relied on, now that he had been 'salted,' as it were, with his fright of
the previous night.
"We opened all the doors and windows, and blew the house through very
thoroughly; and in the meanwhile, we lit the lamps in the house, and took
them into the cellars, where we set them all about, so as to have light
everywhere. Then we carried down three chairs and a table, and set them
in the cellar where the well was sunk. After that, we stretched thin
piano wire across the cellar, about nine inches from the floor, at such a
height that it should catch anything moving about in the dark.
"When this was done, I went through the house with the landlord, and
sealed every window and door in the place, excepting only the front door
and the door at the top of the cellar stairs.
"Meanwhile, a local wire-smith was making something to my order; and
when the landlord and I had finished tea at his house, we went down to
see how the smith was getting on. We found the thing complete. It looked
rather like a huge parrot's cage, without any bottom, of very heavy gage
wire, and stood about seven feet high and was four feet in diameter.
Fortunately, I remembered to have it made longitudinally in two halves,
or else we should never have got it through the doorways and down the
cellar stairs.
"I told the wire-smith to bring the cage up to the house so he could fit
the two halves rigidly together. As we returned, I called in at an
ironmonger's, where I bought some thin hemp rope and an iron rack pulley,
like those used in Lancashire for hauling up the ceiling clothes racks,
which you will find in every cottage. I bought also a couple of
pitchforks.
"'We shan't want to touch it," I said to the landlord; and he nodded,
rather white all at once.
"As soon as the cage arrived and had been fitted together in the cellar,
I sent away the smith; and the landlord and I suspended it over the well,
into which it fitted easily. After a lot of trouble, we managed to hang
it so perfectly central from the rope over the iron pulley, that when
hoisted to the ceiling and dropped, it went every time plunk into the
well, like a candle-extinguisher. When we had it finally arranged, I
hoisted it up once more, to the ready position, and made the rope fast to
a heavy wooden pillar, which stood in the middle of the cellar.
"By ten o'clock, I had everything arranged, with the two pitchforks and
the two police lanterns; also some whisky and sandwiches. Underneath the
table I had several buckets full of disinfectant.
"A little after eleven o'clock, there was a knock at the front door, and
when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with
him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was
to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough,
nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to
help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do
that night.
"When the inspector and the detective had entered, I shut and locked the
front door; then, while the inspector held the light, I sealed the door
carefully, with tape and wax. At the head of the cellar stairs, I shut
and locked that door also, and sealed it in the same way.
"As we entered the cellar, I warned Johnstone and his man to be careful
not to fall over the wires; and then, as I saw his surprise at my
arrangements, I began to explain my ideas and intentions, to all of which
he listened with strong approval. I was pleased to see also that the
detective was nodding his head, as I talked, in a way that showed he
appreciated all my precautions.
"As he put his lantern down, the inspector picked up one of the
pitchforks, and balanced it in his hand; he looked at me, and nodded.
"'The best thing,' he said. 'I only wish you'd got two more.'
"Then we all took our seats, the detective getting a washing stool from
the corner of the cellar. From then, until a quarter to twelve, we talked
quietly, whilst we made a light supper of whisky and sandwiches; after
which, we cleared everything off the table, excepting the lanterns and
the pitchforks. One of the latter, I handed to the inspector; the other I
took myself, and then, having set my chair so as to be handy to the rope
which lowered the cage into the well, I went 'round the cellar and put
out every lamp.
"I groped my way to my chair, and arranged the pitchfork and the dark
lantern ready to my hand; after which I suggested that everyone should
keep an absolute silence throughout the watch. I asked, also, that no
lantern should be turned on, until I gave the word.
"I put my watch on the table, where a faint glow from my lantern made me
able to see the time. For an hour nothing happened, and everyone kept an
absolute silence, except for an occasional uneasy movement.
"About half-past one, however, I was conscious again of the same
extraordinary and peculiar nervousness, which I had felt on the previous
night. I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
hold of it, in readiness.
"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
violet night in which it ran.
"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
our world.
"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
Someway I knew that none of the others saw what I was seeing.
"Abruptly, the landlord, who was next to me, let out his breath with a
little hissing sound; I knew then that something was visible to him.
There came a creak from the table, and I had a feeling that the inspector
was leaning forward, looking at something that I could not see. The
landlord reached out his hand through the darkness, and fumbled a moment
to catch my arm:--
"'The Woman!' he whispered, close to my ear. 'Over by the well.'
"I stared hard in that direction; but saw nothing, except that the violet
color of the cellar seemed a little duller just there.
"I looked back quickly to the vague place where the Child was hiding. I
saw it was peering back from its hiding place. Suddenly it rose and ran
straight for the middle of the table, which showed only as vague shadow
half-way between my eyes and the unseen floor. As the Child ran under the
table, the steel prongs of my pitchfork glimmered with a violet,
fluctuating light. A little way off, there showed high up in the gloom,
the vaguely shining outline of the other fork, so I knew the inspector
had it raised in his hand, ready. There was no doubt but that he saw
something. On the table, the metal of the five lanterns shone with the
same strange glow; and about each lantern there was a little cloud of
absolute blackness, where the phenomenon that is light to our natural
eyes, came through the fittings; and in this complete darkness, the metal
of each lantern showed plain, as might a cat's-eye in a nest of black
cotton wool.
"Just beyond the table, the Child paused again, and stood, seeming to
oscillate a little upon its feet, which gave the impression that it was
lighter and vaguer than a thistle-down; and yet, in the same moment,
another part of me seemed to know that it was to me, as something that
might be beyond thick, invisible glass, and subject to conditions and
forces that I was unable to comprehend.
"The Child was looking back again, and my gaze went the same way. I
stared across the cellar, and saw the cage hanging clear in the violet
light, every wire and tie outlined with its glimmering; above it there
was a little space of gloom, and then the dull shining of the iron pulley
which I had screwed into the ceiling.
"I stared in a bewildered way 'round the cellar; there were thin lines of
vague fire crossing the floor in all directions; and suddenly I
remembered the piano wire that the landlord and I had stretched. But
there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were
indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull
glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket. I remember a sort
of subconscious satisfaction, as I settled the point in a queer automatic
fashion. On the table, near to me, there was a little shapeless
collection of the light; and this I knew, after an instant's
consideration, to be the steel portions of my watch.
"I had looked several times at the Child, and 'round at the cellar,
whilst I was decided these trifles; and had found it still in that
attitude of hiding from something. But now, suddenly, it ran clear away
into the distance, and was nothing more than a slightly deeper colored
nucleus far away in the strange colored atmosphere.
"The landlord gave out a queer little cry, and twisted over against me,
as if to avoid something. From the inspector there came a sharp breathing
sound, as if he had been suddenly drenched with cold water. Then suddenly
the violet color went out of the night, and I was conscious of the
nearness of something monstrous and repugnant.
"There was a tense silence, and the blackness of the cellar seemed
absolute, with only the faint glow about each of the lanterns on the
table. Then, in the darkness and the silence, there came a faint tinkle
of water from the well, as if something were rising noiselessly out of
it, and the water running back with a gentle tinkling. In the same
instant, there came to me a sudden waft of the awful smell.
"I gave a sharp cry of warning to the inspector, and loosed the rope.
There came instantly the sharp splash of the cage entering the water;
and then, with a stiff, frightened movement, I opened the shutter of
my lantern, and shone the light at the cage, shouting to the others to
do the same.
"As my light struck the cage, I saw that about two feet of it projected
from the top of the well, and there was something protruding up out of
the water, into the cage. I stared, with a feeling that I recognized the
thing; and then, as the other lanterns were opened, I saw that it was a
leg of mutton. The thing was held by a brawny fist and arm, that rose out
of the water. I stood utterly bewildered, watching to see what was
coming. In a moment there rose into view a great bearded face, that I
felt for one quick instant was the face of a drowned man, long dead. Then
the face opened at the mouth part, and spluttered and coughed. Another
big hand came into view, and wiped the water from the eyes, which blinked
rapidly, and then fixed themselves into a stare at the lights.
"From the detective there came a sudden shout:--
"'Captain Tobias!' he shouted, and the inspector echoed him; and
instantly burst into loud roars of laughter.
"The inspector and the detective ran across the cellar to the cage; and I
followed, still bewildered. The man in the cage was holding the leg of
mutton as far away from him, as possible, and holding his nose.
"'Lift thig dam trap, quig!' he shouted in a stifled voice; but the
inspector and the detective simply doubled before him, and tried to hold
their noses, whilst they laughed, and the light from their lanterns went
dancing all over the place.
"'Quig! quig!' said the man in the cage, still holding his nose, and
trying to speak plainly.
"Then Johnstone and the detective stopped laughing, and lifted the cage.
The man in the well threw the leg across the cellar, and turned swiftly
to go down into the well; but the officers were too quick for him, and
had him out in a twinkling. Whilst they held him, dripping upon the
floor, the inspector jerked his thumb in the direction of the offending
leg, and the landlord, having harpooned it with one of the pitchforks,
ran with it upstairs and so into the open air.
"Meanwhile, I had given the man from the well a stiff tot of whisky; for
which he thanked me with a cheerful nod, and having emptied the glass at
a draft, held his hand for the bottle, which he finished, as if it had
been so much water.
"As you will remember, it was a Captain Tobias who had been the previous
tenant; and this was the very man, who had appeared from the well. In
the course of the talk that followed, I learned the reason for Captain
Tobias leaving the house; he had been wanted by the police for
smuggling. He had undergone imprisonment; and had been released only a
couple of weeks earlier.
"He had returned to find new tenants in his old home. He had entered the
house through the well, the walls of which were not continued to the
bottom (this I will deal with later); and gone up by a little stairway in
the cellar wall, which opened at the top through a panel beside my
mother's bedroom. This panel was opened, by revolving the left doorpost
of the bedroom door, with the result that the bedroom door always became
unlatched, in the process of opening the panel.
"The captain complained, without any bitterness, that the panel had
warped, and that each time he opened it, it made a cracking noise. This
had been evidently what I mistook for raps. He would not give his reason
for entering the house; but it was pretty obvious that he had hidden
something, which he wanted to get. However, as he found it impossible to
get into the house without the risk of being caught, he decided to try to
drive us out, relying on the bad reputation of the house, and his own
artistic efforts as a ghost. I must say he succeeded. He intended then to
rent the house again, as before; and would then, of course have plenty of
time to get whatever he had hidden. The house suited him admirably; for
there was a passage--as he showed me afterward--connecting the dummy well
with the crypt of the church beyond the garden wall; and these, in turn,
were connected with certain caves in the cliffs, which went down to the
beach beyond the church.
"In the course of his talk, Captain Tobias offered to take the house off
my hands; and as this suited me perfectly, for I was about stalled with
it, and the plan also suited the landlord, it was decided that no steps
should be taken against him; and that the whole business should be
hushed up.
"I asked the captain whether there was really anything queer about the
house; whether he had ever seen anything. He said yes, that he had twice
seen a Woman going about the house. We all looked at one another, when
the captain said that. He told us she never bothered him, and that he had
only seen her twice, and on each occasion it had followed a narrow escape
from the Revenue people.
"Captain Tobias was an observant man; he had seen how I had placed the
mats against the doors; and after entering the rooms, and walking all
about them, so as to leave the foot-marks of an old pair of wet
woollen slippers everywhere, he had deliberately put the mats back as
he found them.
"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
delighted to learn how it had affected us.
"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
contributions.
"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.
"I can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as I might
say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. _I_ saw nothing, until
I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
Force present in the house.
"The peculiar shining of all the metal objects in the cellar, had been
visible only to me. The cause, naturally I do not know; neither do I know
why I, alone, was able to see the shining."
"The Child," I asked. "Can you explain that part at all? Why _you_ didn't
see the Woman, and why _they_ didn't see the Child. Was it merely the
same Force, appearing differently to different people?"
"No," said Carnacki, "I can't explain that. But I am quite sure that the
Woman and the Child were not only two complete and different entities;
but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence.
"To give you a root idea, however, it is held in the Sigsand MS. that a
child '_still_born' is 'Snatyched back bye thee Haggs.' This is crude;
but may yet contain an elemental truth. Yet, before I make this clearer,
let me tell you a thought that has often been made. It may be that
physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
Element--the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.
"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
there is a Mother Spirit--"
"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
other side?"
"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."
"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
_en rapport_, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
produced the tragedy?"
"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."
"There may be other houses--" I began.
"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.
"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
five minutes we were on the Embankment, going thoughtfully to our
various homes.