and nothing had happened. The last whistle we had heard, which was
about two minutes before, had been particularly shrill and cheerful.
It seemed quite evident that we had drawn a blank, and I turned to my
brother to suggest that we should call Peter out, and go home.
But, over our heads there came something which was not a sound, for
there was no sound; not a wind, for the trees were still; nothing
visible, for we saw nothing. A second later, a cry from the house, in
Peter’s voice, the like of which I hope I shall never hear again. It
was a long-drawn ah-h-h! The sort of cry that a man would give who had
been stabbed in the back.
We sprang to our feet, and rushed to the window. As we did so, a single
cloud which had long been drifting slowly to the moon, started to
obscure the light. Clambering through, we found ourselves in utter
darkness. The planks and boxes which, by candlelight had been so easy
to surmount, appeared gigantic. To add to the distraction there came
from upstairs the wildest thuds and crashes, as though several men were
struggling together.
‘For God’s sake, matches.’
‘Haven’t got any.’
‘We must get some.’
We scrambled to the patch of light made by the window, rushed through
the bushes, the noise of the struggle inside increasing all the
time, vaulted the wall into the garden of the house next door, whose
occupants were fortunately well known to us, pushed wide the front door
which was fortunately open, seized a lantern which, by a miracle lay
just inside the hall, tore back again, over the wall. As we vaulted the
wall we heard a noise which was like a whole platoon of men stumbling
down the stairs.
And then, ‘Oh, my God! ’ in Peter’s voice.
We met him as he emerged, staggering round the corner, his face dead
white, his hair, his hands and his clothes covered with plaster and
dirt. We took him into the next house, dosed him with brandy, and
listened to the following story:
‘When I got into the house,’ said Peter, taking a plentiful gulp of
brandy, ‘I couldn’t at first decide where to take up a position. I
eventually chose the bottom of the staircase, for two reasons. It was
central--that is to say, it commanded a view of nearly every door on
the ground floor, and it also allowed me to face the corridor on to
which opened the little room from which you’ (turning to me) ‘felt the
influence coming.
‘I wasn’t particularly hopeful of seeing anything. However, something
seemed to tell me that if there _were_ to be any manifestations, that
is to say, quite crudely, if there was a ghost, the centre of its
activity would be in that little room. My attention seemed constantly
switched in that direction, and after a few minutes I sat quite still,
my eyes fixed on the door of the little room, which I could just make
out as a patch of greyish light in the darkness of the corridor.
‘The minutes sped by, bringing nothing with them. I heard your whistles
outside. I whistled back. And though the echo of my whistle sounded a
little uncanny in the lonely house, I still didn’t feel in the least
“ghostly.” I felt extraordinarily matter of fact. I remember even
wondering if the wood on which I was sitting was damp.
‘I suppose that about twenty minutes must have gone by like this, and I
was seriously thinking of giving it up as a bad job. Your last whistle
had just sounded, and, growing impatient, I began to rise to my feet,
intending to have a final look at the little room, and then to go home.
‘Then, the thing happened. Out of that room, down the darkness of the
corridor, something rushed. I don’t know what it was, except that it
was black, and seemed to be shaped like a man. But two things I did
notice. The first that I could see no face--only blackness. The second
was that it made no noise. It rushed towards me over that bare floor
without a sound.
‘I must have taken in those two facts subconsciously, for I had only
two or three seconds in which to think. After that I was knocked flat
on my back by some overwhelming force. I had a sickening, overwhelming
sensation of evil, as though I were struggling with something beastly,
out of hell.
‘After that I remember struggling--it seemed to me for my
life--staggering with an incredible effort to my feet--and fighting my
way downstairs. If one’s sensations in moments of half-consciousness
are of any value, then I must have been fighting not with one thing,
but with two or three. How I managed to get down the stairs, God knows.
There was nothing but darkness and a hundred filthy influences sapping
my strength. The next thing I remember is meeting you outside.’
Before I go on to the sequel to this story, just let me remind you
of two things. Peter was, once again, a perfectly normal and healthy
creature, going through the war like any other young man, fond of
country life, the reverse of neurotic. Secondly, whatever it was that
knocked him down, it was not a human being. That room from which the
‘thing’ emerged was empty. It had no cupboards, no secret doors. There
was no possible way of entering it.
The sequel is as follows. We were naturally very anxious, after this
exceedingly unpleasant experience, to find out a little more about
Weir, and its antecedents, and with this object we paid a visit
to a certain very charming lady who lived close by and who had an
international reputation in things psychic. She knew all about it. She
heard our story quite calmly, and without the least surprise.
‘But do you mean to say,’ she said, when we had finished, ‘that you
didn’t _know_?’
‘Didn’t know what?’ I asked impatiently.
And then it transpired that some forty years ago, Weir had been the
scene of a particularly brutal double murder, in which a semi-insane
doctor had done to death first his wife, and then a maid-servant. The
actual scene of the murder was in the bathroom. _And the bathroom was
the little room at the end of the corridor from which I had felt the
influence coming and from which the thing had rushed at Peter._
I could tell you a lot more about Weir if I had time--how when it was
renovated, and re-inhabited a short time ago, no door in the place
would keep shut, and how even the stodgiest tenants were forced to
admit that something very devilish was on foot. How no dog can be got
past the house after a certain hour. How--but one might go on like that
for ever, and so I shall leave the facts as they stand.
* * * * *
Before leaving this question of ghosts, however, I cannot refrain from
telling another story of the same kind, which also had Peter as its
main victim. You may disbelieve it or not as you choose, but at least,
even if you decide to treat it as pure fiction, it makes very good
reading. And it is, as a matter of fact, the unadulterated truth.
The scene was laid about six years ago at St. Audries, a rambling,
pleasant old place in Somersetshire. Peter had come home from London
the night before, and apart from his sister, there was nobody there
except the servants. On the second night, he was rather tired, and so
at about ten o’clock he went to his room, which lay at the end of a
long wing, a good distance away from the main body of the house. By
half-past ten he was sound asleep.
Some hours later, in the middle of the night, he suddenly found himself
awake, with that strange feeling that one has been disturbed by some
noise outside. He rubbed his eyes, and sat up. Yes--distinctly there
was a noise in the corridor. Wondering who on earth it could be at this
time of night, he called out. There was no answer. Called again. Still
no answer. Mystified, he rose from bed, put on a dressing-gown, and
opened the door.
Outside, there was an old woman with a candle, standing a few yards
away from him, regarding him with calm, wide eyes. He had never seen
her before, and he spoke to her. She did not reply.
He then took a step towards her, and as he did so, she suddenly turned
and began to walk away. Exceedingly curious, he began to follow, but
she broke into a run. He too started running, and he chased her down
corridors, along passages, up little staircases, faster and faster.
Suddenly at the other end of the house, when he was only a few yards
behind, she turned into a corridor that led to a room from which there
was no escape. There was the sound of a door slamming, and a second
later he flung it open. Bright moonlight flooded the room. It was
empty, silent, deserted.
Peter stood there, wondering. The only exit from the room was by the
door through which she had just entered. Unless of course one jumped
out of the window, from which there was a sheer drop of forty feet on
to a hard lawn. But the window was locked and barred. Nobody had opened
it for years.
Shrugging his shoulders, he walked back to his room, a little
disturbed, and greatly puzzled. Before he turned out the light to go to
sleep again he glanced at his watch. It was two minutes to one.
The next morning, the whole adventure seemed so fantastic that he
decided to say nothing about it. He therefore went down to breakfast,
talked quite normally and cheerfully, and kept his peace.
As he rose to go out, his sister suddenly said to him:
‘Oh, Peter. The clock on the mantelpiece has stopped, and it’s a
terrible nuisance to wind. What is the right time?’
Peter looked at the clock. It registered two minutes to one. He took
out his own watch. That also marked two minutes to one.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll go outside and tell you.’
But in the hall the same thing had happened. The grandfather clock,
which was usually kept fast, had also ceased ticking--at two minutes to
one. The clocks in all the other rooms had stopped--at two minutes to
one. Even a clock over the staircase, which could only be reached by a
ladder, and of which he alone held the key, had stopped at two minutes
to one.
That is all. There is no explanation, no ‘sequel’ of any kind. It just
happened. It has never happened again.
Since these events I have looked the other way whenever I have seen any
spiritualists coming down the street.
CHAPTER TEN
In which I Journey to Greece
It was not easy, in the unrest and turmoil of the year 1921, for
any young man to settle down to a definite occupation. There was a
great outpouring from Oxford in that year, mainly consisting of those
who had been to the war, had returned to the University to finish
their studies, and had taken the shortened course. Men of that type,
prematurely matured, seemed indeed to many of us, quite middle-aged,
though most of them were not twenty-eight. And naturally having already
lived many lives and died many deaths, the prospect of beginning all
over again and being treated like children was not altogether pleasing.
Everybody who has done much public speaking at the University is
always told that he ought to go to the Bar. It seems destined for him,
as something almost inevitable--why, I could never quite understand,
because mere eloquence is not nearly so great an asset at the Bar as
the capacity to spurn delights, to live laborious days, and to make up
your mind that for several years at least you must be content to be a
very dull dog indeed.
I, too, was caught in this spirit of unrest. I went to London in
search of a job, had no idea how to set about it, wrote odd articles,
spent all my money, and returned home. Something had to be done, so I
sat down and occupied the next four months in writing _Patchwork_, a
novel of the new Oxford. It was published in the autumn, had a certain
_succès d’estime_, and brought me in about enough money to pay my
tailor’s bill.
And then one day, there came a letter which set my heart beating
quickly and filled me with a sense of adventure which made life seem
more than worth living again. It was from my publishers, and it told me
the following story:
A new revolution, it seemed, was on the point of breaking out in
Greece. That unfortunate country was in the direst distress, being
ruled by a monarch (the late King Constantine) who was not recognized
by the Allies, who had already been exiled once, and who, unless
drastic measures were taken, would be exiled again. The national
exchequer was empty, the national spirit almost broken, and the
national manhood practically exhausted by the war against Turkey, which
had already lasted, on and off, for seven years.
The only way in which Greece could be saved was by the recognition of
King Constantine by the Allies. Such an event was, at the moment, out
of the question, since ‘Tino’ was regarded in France and England and
America as an Arch-Traitor, a sort of miniature Kaiser, who by his
treachery and his double dealing had imperilled our cause throughout
the whole of the Near East.
But that legend of Tino, it was now alleged, was false. It had been
carefully built up, during the war, by interested agents, on a fabric
of complete falsehoods. The astounding nature of these falsehoods
was contained in a collection of documents which was being carefully
guarded. In those documents was material for a book which would cause a
sensation throughout Europe as soon as it was published.
Would I go to Athens and write that book? I should be given immediate
access to the documents, I should be under the special protection of
the Greek Government, I should have, as a matter of course, the entrée
to every circle of Greek Society which I might desire to investigate,
from the Court downwards. And all my expenses would be paid.
Would I go to Athens? Would I go to heaven? Just imagine if _you_ had
just come down from Oxford, were still at heart an undergraduate,
and were suddenly given the opportunity of embarking on an adventure
which gave every promise of situations as fantastic as ever occurred
to the peppery imagination of William le Queux! For, naturally, one
guessed that, in an undertaking of this sort, there would be a certain
element of danger. The Balkan countries have never been exactly a
health resort for political adventurers, and what should I be but a
political adventurer, delving into secrets of which, at the moment, I
knew nothing, in a distant and romantic capital which was alive with
intrigue?
Would I go to Athens? Without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a
telegram, saying that if necessary I would start to-morrow.
* * * * *
Let us get straight on to Greece, for it is easier to do that in
a book than in the so-called _train-de-luxe_ which totters across
Europe, falling over bridges, blundering through ravines, and waiting
for a whole day at deadly looking hamlets in strange countries. It
is all right until you reach Fiume. Till then you have a comfortable
dining-car with regular meals, and a sleeping compartment in which it
is possible to sleep and not to freeze. But after that, God help you.
They take off the dining-car, and you have to depend for sustenance on
what you have got with you. And if you have got nothing, it means that
you have to clamber out of bed in the middle of the night and go into
some filthy little railway café, to bargain for black olives and dusty
chocolate and sour bread. At least, that was how things were in the
winter of 1921.
A word about Belgrade, the capital of Yugo-Slavia, because it is,
of all the cities I have ever seen, the most sinister and the most
melancholy. It would appeal to Poe. We arrived at about dawn, and I
woke up to look out on a dreary, broken-down station, snow-bound, and
to hear the monotonous echo of some soldiers singing round a little
fire which they had built on the platform to keep them warm. I dressed
and went outside with some Greeks, who spoke bad French. We were all
terribly hungry and were determined to eat some breakfast or die in the
attempt.
What a sight when we stepped outside the station. You must imagine
a background of leaden skies, and long, almost empty streets along
which an occasional bullock cart silently plodded. In the foreground,
however, all was colour and noise and animation, for it was market day,
and the peasants from the outlying districts had all come in to sell
their cattle. Never can there have been such a picturesque crew of
rascals--rather like a chorus in the Chauve-Souris. The men with black
beards, and stockings brightly worked in blue and crimson wools, the
women with green aprons and yellow jackets, and odd-looking belts that
seemed to be made of dyed leather. And they were all stamping about in
the snow, shouting out in that dark, stinging language which sounds
like Russian spoken by a devil. At least three fights were in progress,
and the way they treated their animals made me feel that, unless I went
straight into Belgrade, there would be a fourth.
We pushed our way through this unsavoury collection, and walked down
the silent, desolate street in a sort of dream. There were no motors
(I did not see a single motor in the whole of Belgrade) and very few
horse-carriages. Almost every man we met was a soldier. And such
soldiers! Dreary, pale, half-starved-looking creatures, slouching along
like tramps, with uniforms that hung about them in rags and boots that
had long been unfit for any human beings. Then, suddenly, we saw three
officers, swaggering down towards us. A greater contrast it would be
impossible to imagine. They were not only smart, they were superb. They
glittered and shone and sparkled, they strutted, and puffed, and posed.
They were the complete musical-comedy officer of the Balkans, their
uniforms a dream of delight. And as they passed, a group of ragged
soldiers sprang to attention, and remained stiff as corpses for fully a
minute after the said officers had gone by. Discipline, what crimes are
committed in thy name!
And then the breakfast! It was quite as depressing as a Dostoievsky
novel. We had it at the best hotel in the place, and it consisted of
bitter coffee, white butter made with goats’ milk, and bread so sour
that it was almost impossible to eat. There were no eggs, no meat, no
sugar. One was back in war-time England again, _with_ a difference.
Only one word more about Belgrade, and that must be to record the
impression of amazement I had that this terrible hole of a place was
the capital of one of the largest countries in Europe, of the country
which, according to the economists, is going to be one of the most
prosperous in the whole world. Make no doubt about it, Yugo-Slavia is
a coming country. But if you could see its capital, the town which, by
the august dispensation of the Peace-Makers, has been set in authority
over many fair and cultured cities of the Austria that was, you would
say it was a back slum of London, set on a hill, subjected to an
earthquake, and then cursed by the Creator.
They don’t build houses to last in Belgrade, because they know that in
ten years or so there will be another war, and the whole thing will be
blown to pieces again. That is the sort of spirit one met the whole
time. Nothing permanent. No trust. No faith. No hope. I looked into a
photographer’s shop and saw a photograph of the Parliament in session.
So pompous, so threadbare, so utterly, damnably sad.
All this may have been the effect of a bad breakfast and a cold
morning. But I think that you will admit that it is borne out by the
facts.
Let us hurry to Greece. The next scene in the journey was when, at
dawn, the train, with a last despairing effort, arrived at the frontier
town of Ghev-Gelli, and stopped, panting. And this was Greece! This
land of crystal sunlight, with the brown mountains against skies of
burning blue. Greece! I felt like Linnæus, who went down on his knees
at the first sight of English gorse; or like Cortez, when his eagle eye
first gazed upon the Pacific, through the medium of Keats’ Sonnet. Or
like a great many other popular people who may all be found in _The
Children’s Encyclopædia_.
I dressed quickly, and went into a little restaurant that lay just
behind the station. A brown-eyed maiden bustled forward and showed me
to one of the four small tables. There was a spotless cloth on the
table, and a big earthen bowl of violets. And for breakfast there was
a huge glass of fresh milk, a chunk of coarse bread, and the sweetest
honey that even Greek bees can ever have distilled. One felt that on
such a diet, and under such sunshine, anybody could write masterpieces.
I had just swallowed my last spoonful of honey, and lit a cigarette,
when there was a sound of tramping feet outside, a shouted word of
command, a moment’s silence, and then a babble of conversation.
Soldiers! Greek soldiers! These must be inspected at once. I went to
the door and saw, lined up, a small platoon of soldiers, clad in khaki,
standing at ease. They were burnt almost black with the sunlight,
were of rather under average height and were talking in a fierce and
indigestible language. But what most attracted the eye was the superb
young officer who was engaged in conversation with the conductor of the
wagon-lit. He was the first (and almost the last) Greek I ever saw who
gave one the impression of a statue come to life. And how smart he was!
How his sword glistened in the sunlight, how his leather shone and his
buttons sparkled!
Suddenly he turned, pointed in my direction, and started walking
towards me. I hurriedly adjusted my tie, and wished that I had shaved.
It didn’t seem to make much difference, but it made one feel somehow
undressed. However, there was little time for regret. The officer was
already by my side.
‘Monsieur Nichols?’
‘Oui.’
He saluted, turned, and shouted to the soldiers. They ceased talking.
Shouting again. They sprang to attention. Shouted again. They sloped
arms.
This was terrifying. I also endeavoured to put a few inches on my
height, and frowned severely, which is reputed to have an effect of
making one look older.
‘I come from the Military Commander of Macedonia,’ he informed me. ‘You
are to be under his special protection.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, in as deep and resonant a voice as possible. ‘It
is very gracious of him.’
‘I have also,’ he remarked, ‘to present you these documents.’ He handed
me some papers decorated with heavy seals. I took them, glanced at
them, and placed them inside my pocket.
‘You will have no difficulty,’ added this excellent young man, ‘in such
things as customs. Athens has been informed of your arrival. Everything
will be done to ensure your comfort.’
‘I am more than honoured,’ I said. I felt an awful fraud, and was
thankful that the Military Commander himself was not present. If only
one could have grown a beard, or have developed pouches under the eyes,
or a cynical smile or _something_ which would have concealed the fact
that one was really only an undergraduate, and not the distinguished
author that they were expecting. How marvellously Hall Caine would have
suited an occasion like this. He would probably have emerged in a
black coat, looking like a minor prophet, and have made some profound
remark on the liberty of Greece. All I could do was to ask the young
man to stand his soldiers at ease, which seemed an excellent suggestion
and was promptly carried out.
We talked for a little longer, and then, in order to end a situation
which was rapidly becoming unbearable, I informed him that I had
business in the train which must be attended to. He sprang to
attention, we shook hands, the soldiers clicked, sloped arms, right
turned and stamped rhythmically out of the station. The last thing I
saw was the glint of their rifles in the sun.
After waiting nearly the whole day at Ghev-Gelli, the train puffed out
into the open country towards Athens at about five o’clock. I looked
out on to the mountains and flower-filled valleys, dreaming in the late
afternoon sunlight. The adventure had really begun.
* * * * *
And now, Athens.
We arrived at about seven o’clock in the evening, and all the things
which my admirable and decorative soldier had foretold, came to pass.
Various imposing people met me, my luggage slipped through the customs
unopened, and I found myself outside the station while the other
wretched people were still wrestling with officials.
Now, I am all for dramatizing the various episodes in one’s life in
order to get the utmost emotion from them. This seemed to be an episode
well worthy of such treatment. And so, for this night, I planned to
drive through the streets to my hotel in an open cab, have a jolly good
dinner, and then go up to the Acropolis by moonlight alone.