SOME years ago, I, along with a sister ten years older than myself,
was teaching in a Midland town. We had the greatest difficulty in
obtaining rooms, no one seemed to want lady teachers. At last we
succeeded, but not to our liking, as the house was old and gloomy and
the landlady of a very saturnine countenance. We found she and her
daughter were the only other occupants of the house.
As it was winter time, we asked if she had an attic where we could
store our bikes. We were told that there was no attic.
We were nightly disturbed by strange sounds as of someone going up
and down stairs and raking the fire—this, after the landlady and her
daughter had retired hours before. When questioned, the landlady only
replied that the house was old and creaky.
I was eighteen and full of ghosts, but my sister was of the cool
unimaginative kind and not in the least nervy. She was constantly
reassuring me that everything was all right, but I knew she thought
different, as she never left me alone, and we always went up stairs
together, even in the day time.
Our bedroom looked out on to the river, and the Midland railway ran
between.
A chest of drawers stood in one corner, and one of the drawers was
full of papers, which the landlady informed us were left by a
previous boarder who had occupied our rooms, and promised to return
for them. Several were legal-looking documents, and the rest a mass
of old correspondence.
One day, as I was leaving the bath-room, a gleam of winter sunshine
revealed an opening in the panelling opposite. On looking I saw a
stair and a tray at the bottom with the remains of a meal. I
immediately brought my sister. To say we were amazed is putting it
mildly, after our landlady’s denial of an attic. We felt this had
been the repast of our nightly disturber, but did not mention it to
the landlady.
A few nights after, there was a singular happening. I awoke in the
early hours to find my sister sitting up in bed. I drowsily asked her
if she was ill, but she answered rather abruptly and told me to go to
sleep. I was roused by her manner and sat up trying to peer into her
face. After much questioning, she said: “There has been a man in this
room.” Although I was terrified, I tried to laugh and say “That is
impossible as our door is locked and bolted.”
My thoughts had gone to the occupant of the attic. She said: “This
was no human visitor; he went over to the chest and examined the
papers, and then came and leaned over the bed in a grief-stricken
attitude.” She was so calm whilst telling it and described the man as
very tall and slightly bent, with a sad face and iron-grey hair.
Needless to add, we prayed for daylight and got to school as early as
possible, where our ghost caused great excitement, the other teachers
giving credence to the story, coming from my sister and not my
imaginative self.
On returning to our rooms for lunch, the landlady came in with a
newspaper and pointed out a paragraph giving an account of a man
being cut to pieces on the railway just at the back of the house. She
said, “He had your rooms Miss, and those were his papers.” My sister
said he was a tall man and went on to give the landlady a description
of our midnight visitor. She said: “Why, Miss, did you know him,” and
then my sister told her the story. She said it was an exact likeness
of the man who had always promised to return for the papers. That
explains our ghostly visitor. We made a hasty exit that same day.
Weeks after, we heard of the police raiding the house and capturing
an escaped prisoner. It was the landlady’s husband, and she had had
him in hiding all those weeks. That explained the tread on the stairs
and the raking of the fire when the prisoner escaped from his attic
hiding.