Tales of terror
At that moment the spectre vanished, and I retraced my steps like one
who walked in a dream. I got back to my bedroom, but how I don’t quite
know; nor have I any recollection of getting into bed. Hours afterwards
I awoke. It was broad daylight. The horror of the night came back to me
with overwhelming force, and made me faint and ill. I managed, however,
to struggle through with my toilet, and hurried from that haunted room.
It was a beautifully fine morning. The sun was shining brightly, and
the birds carolled blithely in every tree and bush. I strolled out on
to the lawn, and paced up and down. I was strangely agitated, and asked
myself over and over again if what I had seen or dreamed about had any
significance.
Presently my host came out. He visibly started as he saw me.
‘Hullo, old chap. What’s the matter with you?’ he exclaimed. ‘You look
jolly queer; as though you had been having a bad night of it.’
‘I have had a bad night.’
His manner became more serious and grave.
‘What--seen anything?’
‘Yes.’
‘The deuce! You don’t mean it, really!’
‘Indeed I do. I have gone through a night of horror such as I could not
live through again. But let us have breakfast first, and then I will
try and make you understand what I have suffered, and you shall judge
for yourself whether any significance is to be attached to my dream, or
whatever you like to call it.’
We walked, without speaking, into the breakfast room, where my charming
hostess greeted me cordially; but she, like her husband, noticed my
changed appearance, and expressed alarm and anxiety. I reassured her by
saying I had had a rather restless night, and didn’t feel particularly
well, but that it was a mere passing ailment. I was unable to partake
of much breakfast, and both my good friend and his wife again showed
some anxiety, and pressed me to state the cause of my distress. As I
could not see any good cause that was to be gained by concealment,
and even at the risk of being laughed at by my host, I recounted the
experience I had gone through during the night of terror.
So far from my host showing any disposition to ridicule me, as I quite
expected he would have done, he became unusually thoughtful, and
presently said:
‘Either this is a wild phantasy of your own brain, or there is
something in it. The door that the ghost of the woman led you to is
situated on the top of a flight of stone steps, leading to a vault
below the building, which I have never used, and have never even had
the curiosity to enter, though I did once go to the bottom of the
steps; but the place was so exceedingly suggestive of a tomb that I
mentally exclaimed, “I’ve no use for this dungeon,” and so I shut it
up, bolted and barred the door, and have never opened it since.’
I answered that the time had come when he must once more descend into
that cellar or vault, whatever it was. He asked me if I would accompany
him, and, of course, I said I would. So he summoned his head gardener,
and after much searching about, the key of the door was found; but even
then the door was only opened with difficulty, as lock and key alike
were foul with rust.
As we descended the slimy, slippery stone steps, each of us carrying a
candle, a rank, mouldy smell greeted us, and a cold noisome atmosphere
pervaded the place. The steps led into a huge vault, that apparently
extended under the greater part of the building. The roof was arched,
and was supported by brick pillars. The floor was the natural
earth, and was soft and oozy. The miasma was almost overpowering,
notwithstanding that there were ventilating slits in the wall in
various places.
We proceeded to explore this vast cellar, and found that there was an
air shaft which apparently communicated with the roof of the house;
but it was choked with rubbish, old boxes, and the like. The gardener
cleared this away, and then, looking up, we could see the blue sky
overhead.
Continuing our exploration, we noted that in a recess formed by the
angle of the walls was a quantity of bricks and mortar. Under other
circumstances this would not, perhaps, have aroused our curiosity or
suspicions. But in this instance it did; and we examined the wall
thereabouts with painful interest, until the conviction was forced
upon us that a space of over a yard in width, and extending from floor
to roof, had recently been filled in. I was drawn towards the new
brickwork by some subtle magic, some weird fascination. I examined it
with an eager, critical, curious interest, and the thoughts that passed
through my brain were reflected in the faces of my companions. We
looked at each other, and each knew by some unexplainable instinct what
was passing in his fellow’s mind.
‘It seems to me we are face to face with some mystery,’ remarked Dick,
solemnly. Indeed, throughout all the years I had known him I had
never before seen him so serious. Usually his expression was that of
good-humoured cynicism, but now he might have been a judge about to
pronounce the doom of death on a red-handed sinner.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘there is a mystery, unless I have been tricked by
my own fancy.’
‘Umph! it is strange,’ muttered Dick to himself.
‘Well, sir,’ chimed in the gardener, ‘you know there have been some
precious queer stories going about for a long time. And before you come
and took the place plenty of folks round about used to say they’d seen
some uncanny sights. I never had no faith in them stories myself; but,
after all, maybe there’s truth in ’em.’
Dick picked up half a brick and began to tap the wall with it where the
new work was, and the taps gave forth a hollow sound, quite different
from the sound produced when the other parts of the wall were struck.
‘I say, old chap,’ exclaimed my host, with a sorry attempt at a smile,
‘upon my word, I begin to experience a sort of uncanny kind of
feeling. I’ll be hanged if I am not getting as superstitious as you
are.’
‘You may call me superstitious if you like, but either I have seen what
I have seen, or my senses have played the fool with me. Anyway, let us
put it to the test.’
‘How?’
‘By breaking away some of that new brickwork.’
Dick laughed a laugh that wasn’t a laugh, as he asked:
‘What do you expect to find?’ I hesitated what to say, and he added
the answer himself--‘Mouldering bones, if your ghostly visitor hasn’t
deceived you.’
‘Mouldering bones!’ I echoed involuntarily.
‘Gardener, have you got a crowbar amongst your tools?’ Dick asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Go up and get it.’
The man obeyed the command.
‘This is a strange sort of business altogether,’ Dick continued, after
glancing round the vast and gloomy cellar. ‘But, upon my word, to tell
you the truth, I’m half ashamed of myself for yielding to anything like
superstition. It strikes me that you’ll find you are the victim of a
trick of the imagination, and that these bogey fancies of yours have
placed us in rather a ridiculous position.’
In answer to this I could not possibly resist reminding Dick that even
scientists admitted that there were certain phenomena--they called them
‘natural phenomena’--that could not be accounted for by ordinary laws.
Dick shrugged his shoulders and remarked with assumed indifference:
‘Perhaps--perhaps it is so.’ He proceeded to fill his pipe with
tobacco, and having lit it he smoked with a nervous energy quite
unusual with him.
The gardener was only away about ten minutes, but it seemed infinitely
longer. He brought both a pickaxe and a crowbar with him, and in
obedience to his master’s orders he commenced to hack at the wall. A
brick was soon dislodged. Then the crowbar was inserted in the hole,
and a mass prized out. From the opening came forth a sickening odour,
so that we all drew back instinctively, and I am sure we all shuddered,
and I saw the pipe fall from Dick’s lips; but he snatched it up quickly
and puffed at it vigorously until a cloud of smoke hung in the fœtid
and stagnant air. Then, picking up a candle from the ground, where it
had been placed, he approached the hole, holding the candle in such a
position that its rays were thrown into the opening. In a few moments
he started back with an exclamation:
‘My God! the ghost hasn’t lied,’ he said, and I noticed that his face
paled. I peered into the hole and so did the gardener, and we both drew
back with a start, for sure enough in that recess were decaying human
remains.
‘This awful business must be investigated,’ said Dick. ‘Come, let us
go.’
We needed no second bidding. We were only too glad to quit that place
of horror, and get into the fresh air and bright sunlight. We verily
felt that we had come up out of a tomb, and we knew that once more the
adage, ‘Murder will out,’ had proved true.
Half an hour later Dick and I were driving to the nearest town to lay
information of the awful discovery we had made, and the subsequent
search carried out by the police brought two skeletons to light.
Critical medical examination left not the shadow of a doubt that they
were the remains of a woman and a girl, and each had been brutally
murdered. Of course it became necessary to hold an inquest, and the
police set to work to collect evidence as to the identity of the bodies
hidden in the recess in the wall.
Naturally all the stories which had been current for so many years
throughout the country were revived, and the gossips were busy in
retailing all they had heard, with many additions of their own, of
course. But the chief topic was that of the strange disappearance of
the wife and daughter of the once owner of the castle, Greeta Jones.
This story had been touched upon the previous night, during the
after-dinner chat in my host’s smoking room. Morgan, as was remembered,
had gambled his fortune away, and married a lady much older than
himself, who bore him a daughter who was subject to epileptic fits.
When this girl was about twelve she and her mother disappeared from the
neighbourhood, and, according to the husband’s account, they had gone
to London.
Then he left, and people troubled themselves no more about him and his
belongings.
A quarter of a century had passed since that period, and Bleak Hill
Castle had gone through many vicissitudes until it fell into the hands
of my friend Dick Dirckman. The more the history of Greeta Jones was
gone into the more it was made clear that the remains which had been
bricked up in the cellar were those of his wife and daughter. That
the unfortunate girl and woman had been brutally and barbarously
murdered there wasn’t a doubt. The question was, who murdered them?
After leaving Wales Greeta Jones--as was brought to light--led a wild
life in London. One night, while in a state of intoxication, he was
knocked down by a cab, and so seriously injured that he died while
being carried to the hospital; and with him his secret, for could there
be any reasonable doubt that, even if he was not the actual murderer,
he had connived at the crime. But there was reason to believe that he
killed his wife and child with his own hand, and that with the aid of
a navvy, whose services he bought, he bricked the bodies up in the
cellar. It was remembered that a navvy named Howell Williams had been
in the habit of going to the castle frequently, and that suddenly he
became possessed of what was, for him, a considerable sum of money. For
several weeks he drank hard; then, being a single man, he packed up his
few belongings and gave out that he was going to California, and all
efforts to trace him failed.
So much for this ghastly crime. As to the circumstances that led to
its discovery, it was curious that I should have been selected as the
medium for bringing it to light. Why it should have been so I cannot
and do not pretend to explain. I have recorded facts as they occurred;