THE TRUNK
A STRANGE CASE OF HAUNTING IN SYDENHAM
The other day I went to a matinée at "The St. James's." I am fond of
French Revolutionary plays, and _The Aristocrat_ appealed to me, not
only by reason of its picturesqueness, which is happily unimpaired by
any slavish adherence to historical accuracy, but also, and mostly,
perhaps, by reason of its pretty and unimpeachable sentiment. The
abandoned woman--a type so many of our modern dramatists consider
cannot be dispensed with--apparently did not figure in this play at all.
On this particular afternoon one of the principals happened to be away,
but as the part was played to perfection by my young and charming
compatriot, Miss Nina Oldfield, instead of being disappointed, I only
experienced an additional pleasure. I was leaning back in my seat
during the interval, thinking of Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, and other
of the romantic figures of that period, when someone touched me on the
shoulder and whispered, "Ghost man."
Not recognising the voice, I turned round sharply. It was John
Boulton, late dramatic critic of the _Arctus_, now a staff captain,
home on leave from Egypt.
"I've just heard of a case that will interest you," he said. "It bears
out two of your theories, namely, that all animals and insects have
spirits, and that spirits of all kinds, when freed from the material
body, can assume dimensions far exceeding--in height especially--the
dimensions of the material body that they once inhabited. But come on
to my Club as soon as this show is over, and I'll tell you all about
it."
I accepted Boulton's invitation, and subsequently listened to the
following:
"Some friends of friends of mine, the Parminters, recently took a
small house in Sydenham. Now Sydenham is not in the hey-day of its
popularity. Scores of the bigger houses are to let, and the smaller
ones--the majority at least--have not even that air of genteel
respectability which characterises houses of the same size in some of
the less remote suburbs. Of course the train service is responsible
for much--even to think of a twenty-five minutes' journey into Town
by train, when one can go any distance on tube in next to no time, is
both intolerable and demoralising. But the decay of the Palace--the
Palace that twenty years ago all London flocked to see--is in itself
sufficient to have generated that all-pervading atmosphere of sadness
that seems to have permeated people and houses, alike, with its spirit
of abandonment and desolation. However, as a set-off against the
many disadvantages of Sydenham, including its high rates and dull,
unattractive shops, there is its wonderful air--the purest, so many
doctors say, in England. And, after all, what is of more consequence
than pure air which means health? At least, so the Parminters argued
when they gave up the idea of living right in Town and bought this
little two-storeyed villa close to the Crystal Palace Station.
"It had stood empty for years and was in a sad state of dilapidation;
but the owner, being on the verge of bankruptcy, had no money to lay
out on it.
"'I will let you have it for a very low figure,' he had said to them,
'provided you take it as it stands.'
"The sum named was £120, and this the Parminters considered, in
spite of there being a pretty stiff ground rent, a bargain price.
Consequently, they closed with the offer, had the house renovated, and
eventually moved in. On the day after their arrival Mrs. Parminter
made a discovery. Stowed away in the loft was a long, weather-worn,
bolster-shaped, brown wooden trunk, bearing on it two steamship
company's labels, one marked Suez and the other London.
"There was no address on it--no name. The Parminters made inquiries
of the builder who had done the repairs and of the late owner of the
house, and neither could give them any clue as to the person to whom
it belonged. The landlord declared that he had gone through all the
rooms, including the loft, immediately before giving up the keys to
Mrs. Parminter, and that he could swear that when he did so there was
nothing in the house at all, no trunk of any description; whilst the
builder declared that both he and his men, when doing the repairs, had
seen the trunk in the loft and had concluded that it belonged to the
Parminters.
"'Well, as nobody seems to want it, we had better keep it,' Mrs.
Parminter remarked. 'I wonder what it contains! It would be a pity to
force the lock, we must get a key to fit it.'
"As no one happened to be going out just then, the trunk was pushed
on one side, and the Parminters, having many other things to occupy
their minds, did not give it another thought. Tired out with all the
worry and work of 'moving in,' they went to bed early that night, in
the room immediately beneath the loft, and fell asleep almost as soon
as they had lain down. Parminter had the digestion of an ox and, never
over-taxing his brain, slept, as a rule, right through the night.
On this occasion, however, he awoke with a violent start to hear a
strange, scraping sound on the floor overhead.
"It was just as if someone was drawing the rough edge of a stone
backwards and forwards on the floor.
"This went on for some seconds; then it abruptly ceased, and the
stairs, leading from the landing outside the Parminters' room to the
loft, gave a series of loud creaks. Of course stairs often creak,
and one excuses their conduct on the ground of natural causes. The
wood, we say, cannot expand or contract, when certain changes in the
temperature take place, without making some little noise, and vibration
due to the passing by of some heavy vehicle must be accompanied by some
slight sound. But why, I ask, do we not hear creaks in the daytime,
when the traffic is more constant and changes in the temperature quite
as marked? Parminter was not an imaginative man; on the contrary, he
was practical to a degree. He had a hearty contempt for anything in the
nature of superstition, and regarded all so-called psychists either
as charlatans or lunatics. Yet, when he listened to this creaking, he
was bound to admit that there was something about it that bothered
and perplexed him. He got up and opened the door. There was no moon,
but, on the staircase, there was a long streak of leadish blue light,
that moved as Parminter stared at it, and slowly began to descend. The
stairs creaked under it and, though he could see nothing beyond the
light, he could hear the most peculiar rattling, scraping sound, as if
some metal-clad body was in course of transit. The thing, whatever it
was, at last arrived on the landing, where it remained stationary. A
feeling of unutterable horror and repulsion now came over Parminter,
and, springing back into the room, he shut and locked the door. The
noise awoke his wife, and they both stood by the door and listened, as
the creaking and rattling was renewed and the thing crossed the landing
and descended the stairs into the hall. Presently there came a savage
snarl, which ended in a shrill whine, that was almost human in the
intensity of its agony and terror, and after that, silence.
"'Puck!' Mrs. Parminter ejaculated, her teeth chattering. 'What can
have happened to him?'
"'God knows,' Parminter replied. 'I'm not going to see.'
"They stood there shivering in their night clothes, until, from
the absolute stillness of the house, they concluded that the thing
had gone; then they lighted candles and, slipping into their
dressing-gowns, descended the stairs. Puck was crouching on the mat
by the drawing-room door, in an attitude he often assumed when well
scolded. They called him by his name. He did not answer. Then they bent
over him and patted his head. Still he did not stir, and when they came
to examine him more closely they discovered he was dead.
"Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Parminter, the
following night, sprinkled the stairs all over with flour and sand. The
same thing happened. First of all the scraping immediately overhead,
then the creaking and rattling on the stairs, then the pause, and then
the slow and stealthy descent, accompanied by the same combination
of noises, into the hall. When all was still again, they examined
the flour and sand. There were no imprints on it of any kind, and
apparently it had not been touched, for it bore no sign whatever of
anything having passed over it.
"Still Parminter would not acknowledge the possibility of the
superphysical. 'The noises we've heard,' he remarked, 'are simply the
result of some curious acoustic property, not uncommon, perhaps, if
we only knew it, in houses of this description. And what I saw on the
stairs is, of course, merely the effect of some trick of the light
which anyone who understands natural science could easily explain.'
"'Well, all I can say is that I should like to have the whole thing
explained, and to know what these natural causes that you're so fond of
talking about really are,' rejoined Mrs. Parminter.
"'So should I,' Parminter replied. 'But I can't explain it, because I'm
not a scientist.'
"'Well, get one,' was the reply. 'Get Professor Keipler.'
"Professor Keipler was the only scientist the Parminters knew. He was a
German, and at that time happened to be living in Penge. At Parminter's
request he came over to Sydenham and accepted an invitation to stay the
night. Parminter showed him the loft, and the Professor made a very
careful examination of it, pulling up one or two boards and peering
into all the cracks and crevices. He tested the walls and stairs too,
and admitted that he could discern nothing there that could account for
some, at least, of the noises the Parminters described. When bedtime
came, instead of retiring to rest, Parminter lowered all the lights,
and they all three sat on the landing and waited.
"Precisely at the same time as on the previous night they heard the
scraping sound in the loft, then the gentle opening of a door, then
a rattling of metal; and then--Parminter caught the Professor by the
arm--a long, luminous something came into view. Instead, however, of
descending the stairs, it mounted the wall and suddenly shot down
towards them like a streak of lightning.
"Mrs. Parminter screamed, Parminter tightened his hold of the
Professor, and the next thing they knew was that they were all three
rolling on the floor with something huge and scaly crawling over them.
It conveyed the impression that it was some gigantic, venomous, and
indescribably hideous insect, furnished with many long and dreadful
legs, and they shrank from its touch just as they would have shrunk
from the touch of an enormous spider, black-beetle, or other creature
to which they had a special aversion. The Professor had brought with
him a very powerful electric torch. In the first panic it had slipped
from his grasp and rolled away into the darkness, but his fingers
eventually coming into contact with it, he pressed the button. In an
instant the landing was flooded with light, and the thing of horror had
gone. Parminter then lit the incandescent gas, and they all three went
downstairs into the dining-room and had brandies and soda.
"'Well, how do you account for it?' Parminter said to the Professor.
'What do you think it was?'
"'Nothing that I can explain by any known physical law,' the Professor
replied. 'I never believed in the possibility of the superphysical
before, but I am convinced of it now. What struck me most about
that thing, even more than its extraordinary property of completely
vanishing under the influence of light, was its malignancy. Didn't you
feel how intensely antagonistic it was to us?'
"'Yes,' Parminter said. 'I did.'
"'Well,' the Professor went on, 'such antagonism, such concentrated
spleen and venom and bloodthirstiness--I felt the thing wanted to
crush, tear, mangle, lacerate, poison me--could only originate in
Hell--in a world altogether distinct from ours, where cruelty and
maliciousness attain dimensions entirely beyond the scope of the
physical. My advice to you is to quit the house with all haste, lest
something really evil befall you.'
"Having only just moved in, and spent a lot of money on the place, the
Parminters naturally did not feel inclined to carry out this advice.
"'If the place is haunted,' they argued, 'we can surely get rid of the
ghost by exorcism or some other device.'
"They consulted several of their friends, and were finally persuaded to
call in a priest--an Anglican, from a parish in the East End, that Mrs.
Parminter used to visit when they lived in town.
"The Parminters did not tell me exactly what Father S---- did (I
believe there is a special form of exorcism practised in the Church),
but anyhow he could not proceed; his nerves, so he himself admitted,
went all to bits, and directly the long streak of light began to crawl
towards him he turned tail and fled.
"Another clerical friend whom the Parminters called in to exorcise the
ghost did, I believe, complete the service; but it had no effect--the
thing mounted the wall, just as it had done before, and darting
downwards put the exorciser to instant flight. The Parminters next
resolved to try a West End occultist. It was an expensive proceeding;
but terms were at length agreed upon, and the following night the
renowned psychic arrived to lay the ghost. When it was time for it to
appear, this exorciser insisted upon the Parminters retiring to their
room, whilst he himself remained outside on the landing alone.
"They heard him repeat a lot of gibberish, as Parminter afterwards
described it to me; and then he rapped at their door and told them they
need not worry any more as he had seen the ghost, the spirit of a monk,
and given it the consolation it needed.
"'But why did the monk crawl and make such a queer rattling noise?'
Mrs. Parminter inquired.
"'Because just before he died he lost the use of his limbs,' was the
reply. 'Spirits, you know, always come back in the state they were in
immediately prior to their death. The rattling was due to the fact that
he wore armour; so many of the old monks combined two professions,
that of soldier and priest.'
"'But how about the speed with which the thing darted at us,' Parminter
said, 'and the feeling we all had that it possessed innumerable legs?
That doesn't look much like a disabled monk, does it?'
"'He didn't appear like that to me,' the occultist replied. 'In all
probability you had that impression because your psychic faculties
are not sufficiently developed. At present you see spirits all out of
focus, as it were--not in their true perspective. If you went through a
proper course of training at some psychic college, you would see them
just as I do.'
"'Possibly,' Parminter said, 'but how about the gas? I see you had it
full on all the time.'
"'That would make no difference in my case,' the occultist replied,
'because to anyone of my advanced learning ghosts can materialise in
the light just as well as in the dark.'
"'Then you feel certain the hauntings have now ceased?' Mrs. Parminter
observed.
"'That is what the monk told me,' was the reply; 'and now, if you will
kindly pay me my fee, I will go.'
"Parminter gave him a cheque, and he went. An hour later, when the
Parminters were in bed and the house was still and dark, they heard
the scraping on the floor overhead, and the thing came down. This time
neither of them stirred, and the thing, as before, passed their room
and descended into the hall.
"The following morning Mrs. Parminter received a letter from her
sister, Mrs. Fellowes, asking her if she could put up the two children,
Flo and Maisie, their maid, and herself for a week. It was extremely
inconvenient just then for Mrs. Parminter to have visitors, and had it
been anyone else she would have refused; but she was devoted to this
particular sister, and at once wrote back bidding her come.
"The house was rather oddly constructed. On the top story were three
rooms, two quite a decent size, but the third barely big enough for a
bed, and having two doors, one of which opened on to the landing and
the other into the loft. The loft was very large, but so dark and badly
ventilated that it could not possibly be used for sleeping purposes.
Every room in the house being required, Mrs. Fellowes' nursemaid, Lily,
was put to sleep in the room adjoining the loft, whilst Flo and Maisie
occupied one of the two larger rooms, and the Parminters' cook and
housemaid the other. For the first two nights after the arrival of the
visitors there were no disturbances, although Lily complained that she
had never slept worse in her life. On the third day of their stay the
children were invited out to tea, and their mother accompanied them.
When they returned they inquired for Lily, and being told that she
had been in her room all the afternoon, they ran upstairs to see if
anything was the matter with her.
"Maisie knocked, and receiving no reply, opened the door and peeped in.
"Lily was lying on the bed, and on the top of her, its long antennæ
waving over her face, was an enormous scaly thing with a hideous
jointed body and hundreds of poisonous-looking black legs. Its
appearance was so terrific, so unmistakably evil and savage, that
Maisie was petrified, and stood staring at it, unable to move or utter
a sound.
"Flo, wondering what had happened, peeped over her sister's shoulders,
and was equally shocked. Just then someone came running upstairs,
making a great noise, and the thing slowly vanished. The children then
recovered the use of their tongue, and shrieked for help.
"Parminter, happening to enter the house at that moment, ran to the
assistance of the children, and in a few moments the whole household
was on the top landing. Lily was unconscious, and for days she was so
ill that the doctor held out very little hope of her recovery. In the
end, however, she pulled round, but both her throat and heart were
permanently affected. Soon after this event the Parminters resold the
house, as they felt they could not remain in it any longer. They had
stored a good many things in the loft, and, on removing them, they came
across the trunk.
"'Why, we never opened it,' Mrs. Parminter cried, trying in vain to
lift up the lid.
"'No; we were going to get a key, and then forgot all about it,'
Parminter replied. 'But we'll soon remedy that. I'll send for a
locksmith at once.'
"He did so, and the man, at last finding a key that fitted, opened the
box.
"It was not quite empty; on the bottom of it, stuck firmly down with
two big hatpins, its long legs spread out on either side of it like a
hideous fringe, was a black Indian centipede."