THE SEQUEL
In 1917 a friend rang me up and asked me if I would form one of a party
of investigation at "Castel a Mare." The services of a medium had been
secured, and a soldier on leave, who was deeply immersed in psychic
research, was in high hopes of getting some genuine results.
I accepted the invitation because a certain incident had once more
roused my curiosity in the haunted house.
During our investigations I had been disappointed at not hearing the
much-talked-of scream, the more so after learning from the former
tenants how very often they had heard it. When I did at last hear it I
was walking past the house on a very hot summer morning, about eleven
o'clock. I was not thinking of the house, and had just passed it on my
way home, when a piercing scream arrested my attention. I wheeled round
instantly; there was not a doubt as to where the scream came from, but
unfortunately, though there were people on the road, there was no one
near enough to bear witness. The scream appeared to come from some one
in abject terror, and would have arrested the attention of any one who
happened to be passing. I mean that had no haunted house stood there,
had the scream proceeded from any other villa, I am sure that any
passer-by would have halted wonderingly, and awaited further
developments.
"Castel a Mare" lay in absolute silence, under the blazing sunshine, and
in a minute or two I walked on. I could now understand what it must have
meant to live in that house, in constant dread of that weird and hideous
sound resounding through the rooms or garden.
This incident made me eager to join my friend's party, and on reaching
the house I found a small crowd assembled.
The medium, myself, and four other women. The soldier, and an elderly
and burly builder belonging to the neighborhood, who was interested in
psychic research. Eight persons in all.
As there was no chair or furniture of any description in the house, we
carried in a small empty box from a rubbish heap outside, and followed
the medium through the rooms. She elected to remain in the large
bedroom, on the first floor, out of which opened the bathroom, and she
sat down on the box and leaned her back against the wall, whilst we
lounged about the room and awaited events. It was a sunny summer
afternoon, and the many broken panes of glass throughout the house
admitted plenty of air.
After some minutes it was plain to see that the medium had fallen into a
trance. Her eyes were closed, and she lay back as if in sound sleep.
Time passed, nothing happened, we were all rather silent, as I had
warned the party that though we were in a room at the side of the house
farthest from the road, our voices could plainly be heard by passers-by,
and we wanted no interference.
Just as we were all beginning to feel rather bored and tired of
standing, the medium sprang to her feet with surprising agility, pouring
out a volume of violent language. Her voice had taken on the deep
growling tones of an infuriated man, who advanced menacingly towards
those of us who were nearest to him. In harsh, threatening voice he
demanded to know what right we had to intrude on his privacy.
There was a general scattering of the scared party before this
unlooked-for attack, and the soldier gave it as his opinion that the
medium was now controlled by the spirit of a very violent male entity. I
had no doubt upon the point.
Then commenced so very unpleasant a scene that I had no doubt also of
the medium's genuineness. No charlatan, dependent upon fraudulent
mediumship for her daily bread, would have made herself so intensely
obnoxious as did this frail little woman. I found myself saying, "Never
again. This isn't good enough."
The entity that controlled her possessed superhuman strength. His voice
was like the bellow of a bull, as he told us to be gone, or he would
throw us out himself, and his language was shocking.
I had warned the medium on entering the house that we must be as quiet
as possible, or we would have the police walking in on us. Now I
expected any moment to see a policeman, or some male stranger arrive on
the scene, and demand to know what was the matter.
The majority of our party were keeping at a safe distance, but suddenly
the control rushed full tilt at the soldier, who had stood his ground,
and attacking him with a tigerish fury drew blood at once. The big
builder and I rushed forward to his aid. The rest of the party forsook
us and fled, pell-mell, out of the house and into the garden. Glancing
through a window, near which we fought, I saw below a row of scared
faces staring up in awed wonder.
The scene being enacted was really amazing. This frail little creature
threw us off like feathers, and drove us foot by foot before her, always
heading us off the bathroom. We tried to stand our ground, and dodge her
furious lunges, but she was too much for us. After a desperate scuffle,
which lasted quite seven or eight minutes, and resulted in much torn
clothing, she drove us out of the room and on to the landing. Then
suddenly, without warning, the entity seemed to evacuate the body he had
controlled, and the medium went down with a crash and lay at our feet,
just a little crumpled disheveled heap.
For some considerable time I thought that she was dead. Her lips were
blue, and I could feel no pulse. We had neither water nor brandy with
which to revive her, and we decided to carry her down into the garden
and see what fresh air would do. Though villas stood all round us, the
foliage of the trees gave us absolute privacy, and we laid her flat on
the lawn. There, after about ten minutes, she gradually regained her
consciousness, and seemingly none the worse for her experiences she sat
up and asked what had happened.
We did not give her the truth in its entirety, and contrived to account
for the blood-stained soldier and the torn clothing, without unduly
shocking and distressing her. We then dispersed; the medium walking off
as if nothing whatever had occurred to deplete her strength.
Some days after this the soldier begged for another experiment with the
medium. He had no doubts as to her genuineness, and he was sure that if
we tried again we would get further developments. She was willing to
try again, and so was the builder, but with one exception the rest of
the party refused to have anything more to do with the unpleasant
affair, and the one exception stipulated to remain in the garden. She
very wisely remarked that if she came into the house there was no
knowing what entity might not attach itself to her, and return home with
her, and she was not going to risk it. Of course this real danger always
had to be counted upon in such investigations, but as the men of the
party desired a woman to accompany the medium, I consented, and we
entered the house once more, a reduced party of four.
After the medium had remained entranced for some minutes, the same male
entity again controlled her. The same violence, the same attacks began
once more, but this time we were better prepared to defend ourselves.
The soldier and the stalwart builder warded off the attacks, and tried
conciliatory expostulations, but all to no purpose. Then the soldier,
who seemed to have considerable experience in such matters, tried a
system of exorcising, sternly bidding the malignant entity depart. There
ensued a very curious spiritual conflict between the exorcist and the
entity, in which sometimes it seemed as if one, then the other, was
about to triumph.
Those wavering moments were useful in giving us breathing space from the
assaults, and at length having failed, as we desired, to get into the
bathroom, we drove him back against the wall at the far end of the room.
Finally the exorcist triumphed, and the medium collapsed on the floor,
as the strength of the control left her.
For a few moments we allowed the crumpled up little heap to remain
where she lay, whilst we mopped our brows and regained our breath. The
soldier had brought a flask of brandy which we proposed to administer to
the unconscious medium, but quite suddenly a new development began.
She raised her head, and still crouching on the floor with closed eyes
she began to cry bitterly. Wailing, and moaning, and uttering
inarticulate words, she had become the picture of absolute woe.
"Another entity has got hold of her," announced the soldier. It
certainly appeared to be so.
All signs of violence had gone. The medium had become a heart-broken
woman.
We raised her to her feet, her condition was pitiable, but her words
became more coherent.
"Poor master! On the bed. Help him! Help him!" she moaned, and pointed
to one side of the room. Again and again she indicated, by clenching her
hands on her throat, that death by strangulation was the culmination of
some terrible tragedy that had been enacted in that room.
She wandered, in a desolate manner, about the floor, wringing her hands,
the tears pouring down her cheeks, whilst she pointed to the bed, then
towards the bathroom with shuddering horror.
Suddenly we were startled out of our compassionate sympathy by a
piercing scream, and my thoughts flew instantly to the experiences of
the former tenants, and what I myself had heard in passing on that June
morning of the former year.
The medium had turned at bay, and began a frantic encounter with some
entity unseen by us. Wildly she wrestled and fought, as if for her life,
whilst she emitted piercing shrieks for "help." We rushed to the
rescue, dragging her away from her invisible assailant, but a
disembodied fighter has a considerable pull over a fighter in the flesh,
who possesses something tangible that can be seized. I placed the medium
behind me, with her back to the wall, but though I pressed her close she
continued to fight, and I had to defend myself as well as defend her.
Her assailant was undoubtedly the first terrible entity which had
controlled her. At intervals she gasped out, "Terrible doctor--will kill
me--he's killed master--help! help!"
Gradually she ceased to fight. The soldier was exorcising with all his
force, and was gaining power; finally he triumphed, inasmuch as he
banished the "terrible doctor."
The medium was, however, still under the control of the broken-hearted
entity, and began again to wander about the room. We extracted from her
further details. An approximate date of the tragedy. Her master's name,
that he was mentally deficient when the murder took place. She was a
maidservant in the house, and after witnessing the crime she appeared to
have shared her master's fate, though by what means we could not
determine. The doctor was a resident physician of foreign origin.
At last we induced her to enter the bathroom, which she seemed to dread,
and there she fell to lamenting over the dead body of her master, which
had lain hidden there when the room was used as a large cupboard. It was
a very painful scene, which was ended abruptly by her falling down
insensible.
She had collapsed in an awkward corner, but at last we lifted her out,
and carried her downstairs to the garden. When I tried to revive her
with brandy I found that her teeth were tightly clenched. I then tried
artificial respiration, as I could feel no pulse. Gradually she came
back to life, quietly, calmly, and in total ignorance of what had
occurred. The most amazing thing was that she showed no signs whatever
of exhaustion or mental fatigue. We were all dead beat, but not so the
fragile-looking little medium, though externally she looked terribly
disheveled and draggled.
This was the last time I set foot in the haunted house, which is now
being demolished, but I still had to experience more of its odd
phenomena.
The date and names the medium had given us were later on verified by
means of a record of villa residents, which for many years had been kept
in the town of Torquay.
There is no one left now who has any interest in verifying a tragic
story supposed to have been enacted about fifty years ago. It must be
left in the realms of psychic research, by which means it was dragged to
light. Certain it is that no such murder came to the knowledge of those
who were alive then, and live still in Torquay.
If there is any truth in the story it falls under the category of
undiscovered crimes. The murderer was able somehow to hide his
iniquities, and escape suspicion and punishment. I do not know if it is
intended to build another house on the same site. I hope not, for it is
very probable that a new residence would share the fate of the old.
Bricks and mortar are no impediment to the free passage of the
disembodied, and there is no reason why they should not elect to
manifest for an indefinite period of time.
There can be no doubt that the scream was an actual fact. There are so
many people living who heard it, and are willing to testify to the
horror of it. Amongst those living people are former tenants, who for
long bore the nervous strain of its constant recurrence.
There remains one other weird incident in connection with "Castel a
Mare" which I will now try to describe.
In the winter of 1917 I was engaged in war work which took me out at
night. Like every other coast town Torquay was plunged at sunset into
deepest darkness, save when the moon defied the authorities. The road
leading from the nearest tramcar to our house was not lit at all, and
one had to stumble along as best one could, even electric torches being
forbidden.
I was returning home one very dark, still night about a quarter past
ten, and being very tired I was walking very slowly. Owing to the inky
darkness I thought it best to walk in the middle of the road, in order
to avoid the inequalities in the footpath at each garden entrance to the
villas. At that hour there was no traffic, and not a soul about.
Suddenly my steps were arrested by a loud knocking on a window-pane, and
I collected my thoughts and tried to take my bearings. The sound came
from the left, where two or three villas stand close to the road. All I
could distinguish was a denser blot of black against the dense
surroundings, but by making certain calculations I recognized that I
stood outside "Castel a Mare." The knocking on the pane lasted only a
moment or two, and was insistent and peremptory. I jumped to the instant
conclusion that some one was having "a lark" inside, and was trying to
"get a rise" out of me. I was too tired to be bothered, and moved on
again with a strong inclination towards my own warm bed, when the
knocking rang out more peremptory than ever. It seemed to say "Stop!
don't go on. I have something to say to you." Involuntarily I stood
still again, and wished that some human being would pass along the road.
I really would not have cared who it was, policeman, soldier,
maidservant. I would have laid hold of them and said, "Do you hear that
knocking? It comes from the haunted house."
Alas! no one did come. The night lay like an inky pall all about me,
silent as the grave, save for that commanding order to stop which was
rapped upon a window-pane whenever I attempted to move on.
Though the being who thus sought to detain me could not possibly
distinguish who I was, or whether my gender was male or female, he could
certainly hear my footsteps as I walked, and the cool inconsequence of
his behavior began to nettle me. I was about to move resolutely on when
I heard something else. This time something really thrilling!
Peal after peal of light laughter, accompanied by flying feet. But such
laughter! Thin, high treble laughter, right away up and out of the
scale, and apparently proceeding from many persons. Such flying feet!
racing, pattering, rushing feet, light as those of the trained athlete.
I stood enthralled with wonder, for in the pitch-black darkness of that
house surely no human feet could avoid disaster. They were rushing up
and down that steep, bare wooden staircase that I knew so well, and the
laughter and the swift-winged feet sounded now from the ground floor,
then could be clearly traced ascending, till they reached the third and
last floor. Tearing along the empty corridors, they began the breakneck
descent again to the bottom, a pell-mell, wild rush of demented demons
chasing each other. That is what it sounded like.
I must have stood there for quite ten minutes, longing intensely for
some one to share in my experiences, but Torquay had gone to bed, and I
felt it was time for me to do likewise.
What could I make of the affair? Nothing! Rats? Rats don't laugh. Human
beings having a rag and trying to scare the neighborhood? No human being
could have run up and down that staircase in such profound darkness. It
would have been a case of crawling up with a firm hand on the banister
rail.
I gave up trying to think and turned resolutely away. As I did so the
knocking began again upon the window-pane.
"Do stop; oh! don't go away. Stop! stop!" it seemed to call after me
insistently as I quickened my footsteps and gradually outdistanced the
imperious demand.
What explanation have I to offer? None! The hallucinations of a tired
woman? That may do for the general public, but not for me. You see, I
was the person who heard it.
There are many haunted houses that are quite habitable, such as Hampton
Court Palace, etc. Where the apparition keeps strictly to an
anniversary, or where the phenomena are mild and inoffensive, their
presence can be endured with a certain amount of equanimity. The point
really lies in this. Are the ghosts who haunt a dwelling indifferent to,
or hostile to, the presence of their companions in the flesh? If the
situation is according to the latter, then the ghosts will certainly
score. They will rid themselves of the human inhabitants by a
wearing-down nerve pressure, which cannot be fought against with any
chance of success. If the ghosts are shy or indifferent, wrapped up in
their own concerns and containing themselves in a world of their own,
then there is no reason why the incarnate and discarnate should not live
peacefully together.
To-day, February 27th, 1919, I read the following in the _Morning
Post_:--
"Haunted or disturbed properties. A lady who has deeply studied this
subject and possesses unusual powers will find out the history of the
trouble and undertake to remedy it. Houses with persistent bad luck can
often be freed from the influence. Strictest confidence. Social
references asked and offered."
What would our grandparents have thought of this means of turning an
honest penny? I have no doubt the lady "possessing the unusual powers"
will be employed, and in many cases she will be successful. In the
majority of cases I venture to say that she will fail, simply because
the majority of cases are too elusive to be dealt with by human means.
How would this lady treat the "Castel a Mare" scream? How would she deal
with the next story I am going to relate?
It is a simple matter to compile a book of thrilling ghost stories if
direct evidence is not given, if names of persons and places are
suppressed.
I claim that my stories have a special interest and value, because I
have tried to restrict them to such as can be attested to by living
persons, closely related to me either by friendship or by family ties.
In a very few instances I have been obliged for obvious reasons to
suppress the names of houses and hotels. In these cases I am ready
personally to supply full information to genuine students of the occult,
if they are willing to approach me privately.