A SPECTRAL BURGLARY
I cannot but consider it an interesting circumstance that the varied
happenings in the House on the Hill seemed to arrange themselves into
two rather strictly defined classes--the sportive and the terrible--and
that the respective influences responsible for them appeared
carefully to refrain from interfering with each others' functions or
prerogatives. As among our earthly acquaintances we number some who are
entirely deficient in appreciation of the ridiculous, and others so
flippant as to have no sense of the serious, so, it seemed to us, the
unseen friends who so diversely made their presence known were in like
manner to be differentiated.
In this connection another singular fact is to be noted. While
the clownish performers in the juggling of the milk pan, the
prestidigitation of the baked stuffed tomatoes, and other such
specialties, always remained invisible, even to my wife, what I may
call the more dramatic manifestations were accompanied by apparitions
that were the evident actors in them. It also occurred to us that if
the "acts" that were staged for our benefit were to be regarded as
presenting what passed for entertainment in the Dark World, there must
be drawn there, as here, a sharp line of distinction between vaudeville
and "the legitimate;" incidentally, too, it would seem that ghostly
audiences were like many in the flesh in their capacity for being
easily entertained.
However that may be, we somehow came to the opinion that while the more
impressive of the phenomena with which we were favored appeared to be
due to the action of beings that had aforetime been upon the earth--for
in every such case the attending spectres were to be identified as
_simulacra_ of persons whose previous existence was known to some one
(and generally all) of us,--the tricksy antics that seemed to come
from Nowhere might find their impulse in elementary entities or forces
which had not yet exercised their activities upon the earth plane (and,
indeed, might never be intended to do so), and thus had never assumed
a material form. I do not put this forward as a theory, but simply as
a passing impression that lightly brushed our minds:--and to repel
the temptation of being led into the seductive regions of speculation,
I will re-assume my _rôle_ as a mere narrator of facts and describe a
quite inexplicable affair that occurred near the close of our tenancy.
* * * * *
The bedroom which I have before described as being at the front of the
house, with two windows overlooking the veranda, was occupied at night
by my wife and myself. Between the windows was a ponderous mahogany
dressing table, surmounted by a large mirror. This article of furniture
was so broad that it extended on either side beyond the inner casing of
the windows, and so heavy that it required the united strength of both
of us to move it--as, during the cleaning of the room, we sometimes had
to do. The windows were protected by wire screens, secured by stout
bolts which were shot into sockets in the woodwork, and fitted flush
with the surface of the outer window casing. In February--the time of
which I am writing--the weather was at its hottest, and we slept at
night with the windows open, trusting our security to the strong wire
screens.
One morning, after an untroubled night's sleep, I awoke soon after
sunrise, and from my place in bed, nearest the window, looked lazily
out upon the day. Still half-asleep, I lay for some time without noting
anything unusual; but as my sensibilities revived I observed that the
screen was missing from the left-hand window, and that the dressing
table, instead of standing in its usual place against the wall, was
turned half-way around, and projected at right angles into the room. I
was out of bed in an instant, and at the window--looking out of which
I saw the screen lying flat on the floor of the veranda. I went out
and examined it. It was uninjured, and the bolts still projected from
either side to show that they had not been drawn; but two deep grooves
in the woodwork of the casing indicated that the screen had been
dragged outward from its place. How this damage could have been done
to the stout casing, without marring in the least the comparatively
light frame of the screen, I could by no means understand--particularly
as there was no possible way by which one could get a hold upon the
outside of the screen except by the use of screws or gimlets to act as
holds for one's hands; and of these there were no marks whatever.
I had made this examination so quietly that I had not awakened my
wife:--now, however, I returned to the bedroom and aroused her.
Her first thought, on seeing the condition of affairs, was that
burglars had visited us:--my idea had been the same until I had
observed the peculiar facts that I have just noted. Tacitly accepting
this theory for the moment, I assisted her in making an inventory of
our portable valuables. While I satisfied myself that my purse and
watch were safe, my wife took her keys from under the pillow (where
she always kept them at night) and went to the dressing table, in one
of whose drawers was her jewel box. The drawer was locked, and so was
the jewel box, and the latter, on being opened, seemed to hold all its
usual contents intact.
"No," she said, after mentally checking off the various articles;
"everything is here; nothing has been taken. Wait! I am wrong; one
thing is missing. Do you remember that rhinestone brooch in the shape
of a butterfly you bought for me one evening in Paris, four years ago?"
"Why, yes," I replied; "I got it in a shop under the arcades on the
Rue de Rivoli, and paid five francs for it. You don't mean to say that
the thieves, or our friends the 'spooks,' or whoever it may be, have
taken that trifle and left your diamond rings and other things really
valuable untouched!"
Yet such appeared to be the case--the cheap and unimportant brooch was
the only thing unaccounted for, nor had anything else been disturbed
throughout the house. It seemed incredible that any burglar who had
passed merely the kindergarten stage of schooling in his profession
could have been deceived into supposing that this commonplace _article
de Paris_ had any value; besides, why should _this_ have been taken
and the real jewelry that lay with it in the same box have been left?
And how had it been extracted from the locked box inside the locked
dressing table? The keys of both were on the same ring under my wife's
pillow, and although a robber might extract them without awaking her,
it seemed unreasonable to suppose he would take the additional risk
of replacing them when he had completed his work. But for these and
other questions that presented themselves we could find no satisfactory
answers.
We ate our breakfast in a state of mild expectation that the brooch
might be returned as mysteriously as it had been taken. The adventure
seemed to be constructed on lines similar to those laid down in the
affair of the baked stuffed tomatoes, and we were disposed to credit
it to the same agency;--but if the sprites who were responsible for the
former prank had contrived this later one also, they either intended to
carry it no further, or were preparing a different _dénouement_. This
last conjecture proved to be the true one, but we had to wait a long
time for the fact to be developed.
We gave our "spooks" sufficient time to consummate their joke (if,
indeed, they were responsible for it), and finally concluding that
they were not inclined to embrace the opportunity, we again took under
consideration the burglar theory, and I went to the local police
station to report the occurrence. Two heavyweight constables returned
with me to the house and gravely inspected the premises. Their verdict
was speedy and unanimous:--"Housebreakers." There had been similar
breakings-and-enterings in the town recently--therefore the facts were
obvious. I showed them the drawer and jewel box, and described the
singular and modest spoil of the supposed thieves; I also exhibited the
unmarred frame of the screen and the scarred window casing, and asked
them how they explained _that_. This puzzled them, but they fell back
easily upon the obvious and practical. "Housebreakers," they repeated.
"We shall make a report"--and marched away as ponderously as they had
come. I did not acquaint them with the goings-on in that house for
a year past:--had I done so, my prompt apprehension as a suspicious
character would doubtless have followed.
* * * * *
In July of the following year I went from Philadelphia, where I was
then living, to spend a few days with my wife at Savin Rock (near New
Haven, Connecticut), where I had rented a cottage for the summer. The
morning after my arrival I was awakened by my wife, who had risen but
the moment before, and who, as I opened my eyes, exclaimed excitedly:
"Look! Look at what is on the bureau!" Following with my eyes the
direction of her pointed finger, I saw upon the bureau the pin-cushion
into which I had stuck my scarf pin the night before, beside which, and
in the centre of the cushion, appeared the butterfly brooch which I had
last previously seen in Australia, sixteen months before!
"Where did you find it?" I asked, forgetting for the moment, and in my
half-awake condition, the incident in which it had figured as above
described.
"I didn't find it," my wife replied; "it is less than a minute ago that
I saw it. It was not on the pin cushion last night; how in the world
did it come here?"--"And from where?"--thus I completed the question.
Neither of us had any reply to this:--so I merely advanced the
suggestion that it was pleasant to think that our spookish friends had
not altogether forgotten us, although on our part we had no desire to
cultivate their better acquaintance. This expression of sentiment may
have had its effect:--at any rate, with the return of the brooch came
an end to the mystery of "The House on the Hill."