Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
candle on the floor, and he declares now that if he had been left in
the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not
happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good
look at the picture. It was indubitable—rankly impossible, no doubt,
but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the
unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five
o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all-fours towards the house,
and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the
back.
I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this
kind. I can only tell you what Mr Williams did. He took the picture by
one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms
which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the
doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out
and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had
undergone since it had come into his possession.
Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the
behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported
testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had
seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been
tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to
his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two
matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture
very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make
a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was
represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast
with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.
Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.30. His host was not quite
dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast
nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a
picture on which he wished for Nisbet’s opinion. But those who are
familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and
delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows
of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning
breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to
lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught;
for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which
was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.
The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for
which he looked. With very considerable—almost tremulous—excitement he
ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture—still face
downwards—ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.
“Now,” he said, “Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in
that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll
tell you why afterwards.”
“Well,” said Nisbet, “I have here a view of a country-house—English, I
presume—by moonlight.”
“Moonlight? You’re sure of that?”
“Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for
details, and there are clouds in the sky.”
“All right. Go on. I’ll swear,” added Williams in an aside, “there was
no moon when I saw it first.”
“Well, there’s not much more to be said,” Nisbet continued. “The house
has one—two—three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the
bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and—”
“But what about figures?” said Williams, with marked interest.
“There aren’t any,” said Nisbet; “but—”
“What! No figure on the grass in front?”
“Not a thing.”
“You’ll swear to that?”
“Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.”
“What?”
“Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor—left of the door—is open.”
“Is it really so? My goodness! he must have got in,” said Williams,
with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which
Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the
matter for himself.
It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window.
Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the
writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two
papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one—it was his own
description of the picture, which you have just heard—and then to read
the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.
“What can it all mean?” said Nisbet.
“Exactly,” said Williams. “Well, one thing I must do—or three things,
now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood”—this was his last
night’s visitor—“what he saw, and then I must get the thing
photographed before it goes further, and then I must find out what the
place is.”
“I can do the photographing myself,” said Nisbet, “and I will. But, you
know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of
a tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is it
going to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,” he said,
looking at the picture again, “I expect you’re right: he has got in.
And if I don’t mistake there’ll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms
upstairs.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Williams: “I’ll take the picture across to
old Green” (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been
Bursar for many years). “It’s quite likely he’ll know it. We have
property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two
counties a lot in his time.”
“Quite likely he will,” said Nisbet; “but just let me take my
photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green isn’t up today.
He wasn’t in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going
down for the Sunday.”
“That’s true, too,” said Williams; “I know he’s gone to Brighton. Well,
if you’ll photograph it now, I’ll go across to Garwood and get his
statement, and you keep an eye on it while I’m gone. I’m beginning to
think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.”
In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr Garwood with him.
Garwood’s statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen
it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across
the lawn. He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but
could not have been sure it was a cross. A document to this effect was
then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the
picture.
“Now what do you mean to do?” he said. “Are you going to sit and watch
it all day?”
“Well, no, I think not,” said Williams. “I rather imagine we’re meant
to see the whole thing. You see, between the time I saw it last night
and this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the
creature only got into the house. It could easily have got through its
business in the time and gone to its own place again; but the fact of
the window being open, I think, must mean that it’s in there now. So I
feel quite easy about leaving it. And, besides, I have a kind of idea
that it wouldn’t change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go
out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets
dark. I shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My
skip can get in, but no one else.”
The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if
they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk
about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a
transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the
Phasmatological Society about their ears.
We may give them a respite until five o’clock.
At or near that hour the three were entering Williams’s staircase. They
were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was
unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips
came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a
surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the picture
leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left,
and the next thing was Williams’s skip, seated on a chair opposite,
gazing at it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr Filcher (the
name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing,
and set the standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several
neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than
to be found sitting on his master’s chair, or appearing to take any
particular notice of his master’s furniture or pictures. Indeed, he
seemed to feel this himself. He started violently when the three men
were in the room, and got up with a marked effort. Then he said:
“I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.”
“Not at all, Robert,” interposed Mr Williams. “I was meaning to ask you
some time what you thought of that picture.”
“Well, sir, of course I don’t set up my opinion again yours, but it
ain’t the pictur I should ’ang where my little girl could see it, sir.”
“Wouldn’t you, Robert? Why not?”
“No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible,
with pictures not ’alf what that is, and we ’ad to set up with her
three or four nights afterwards, if you’ll believe me; and if she was
to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying
off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. You know ’ow it is with
children; ’ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I
should say, it don’t seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not
where anyone that’s liable to be startled could come on it. Should you
be wanting anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir.”
With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his
masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in
gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before, under
the waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open
was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time
crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping
swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moon
was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that
only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the
spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white
dome-like forehead and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down,
and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly
seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not
possible to say. The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly
discerned, and they were horribly thin.
From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by
turns. But it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe
to leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further
developments.
When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the
engraving was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet
under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening
over gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last,
and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray’s _Guide
to Essex_ the following lines:
16½ miles, _Anningley_. The church has been an interesting building of
Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last century. It
contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose mansion, Anningley
Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately beyond the
churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now extinct, the
last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802.
The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur