They return at evening A book of ghost stories
me tell you what it’s been like. On the day we arrived I saw a man
pass ahead of me into my bedroom. Of course, I only _thought_ I had.
And then I’ve heard beastly whisperings, and every time I pass that
turn in the corridor I _know_ there’s someone just round the corner.
And then the day before you arrived I woke suddenly, and something
seemed to force me to go to the window, and I crawled there on hands
and knees and peeped through the blind. It was just light enough to
see. And suddenly I saw someone running down the lawn, his or her hands
outstretched, and there was something ghastly just beside him, and they
disappeared behind the trees at the end. I’m terrified every minute.”
“What about the servants?”
“Nurse hasn’t seen anything, but the others have, I’m certain. And
then there are those slimy patches, I think they’re the vilest of all.
I don’t think Tim has been troubled till now, but I’m sure he’s been
puzzled and uncertain several times.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s pretty obvious we must clear out. I’m seeing Sir
William about it to-morrow, I hope, and I’m certain enough of what
he’ll advise. Meanwhile we must think over where to go. It is a nasty
jar, though; I don’t mean merely the money, though that’s bad enough,
but the fuss--just when I hoped we were going to be so happy and
settled. However, it’s got to be done. We should be mad after a week of
this filth-drenched hole.”
Just then the telephone bell rang. It was a message to say Sir William
would be pleased to see me at half past ten to-morrow.
With the dusk came that sense of being watched, waited for, followed
about, plotted against, an atmosphere of quiet, hunting malignancy. A
thick mist came up from the river, and as I was changing for dinner
I noticed the lights from the windows seemed to project a series
of swiftly changing pictures on its grey, crawling screen. The one
opposite my window, for example, was unpleasantly suggestive of three
figures staring in and seeming to grow nearer and larger. The effect
must have been slightly hypnotic, for suddenly I started back, for it
was as if they were about to close on me. I pulled down the blind and
hurried downstairs. During dinner we decided that unless Sir William
had something very reassuring to say we would go back to London two
days later and stay at a hotel till we could find somewhere to spend
the next six weeks. Just before going to bed we went up to the night
nursery to see if Tim was all right. This room was at the top of a
short flight of stairs. As these stairs were covered with green slime,
and there was a pool of the muck just outside the door, we took him
down to sleep with us.
The Permanent Occupants of the Red Lodge waited till the light was
out, but then I felt them come thronging, slipping in one by one, their
weapon fear. It seemed to me they were massed for the attack. A yard
away my wife was lying with my son in her arms, so I must fight. I lay
back, gripped the sides of the bed and strove with all my might to
hold my assailants back. As the hours went by I felt myself beginning
to get the upper hand, and a sense of exaltation came to me. But an
hour before dawn they made their greatest effort. I knew that they
were willing me to creep on my hands and knees to the window and peep
through the blind, and that if I did so we were doomed. As I set my
teeth and tightened my grip till I felt racked with agony, the sweat
poured from me. I felt them come crowding round the bed and thrusting
their faces into mine, and a voice in my head kept saying insistently,
“You must crawl to the window and look through the blind.” In my mind’s
eye I could see myself crawling stealthily across the floor and pulling
the blind aside, but who would be staring back at me? Just when I felt
my resistance breaking I heard a sweet, sleepy twitter from a tree
outside, and saw the blind touched by a faint suggestion of light, and
at once those with whom I had been struggling left me and went their
way, and, utterly exhausted, I slept.
In the morning I found, somewhat ironically, that Mary had slept better
than on any night since she came down.
Half past ten found me entering the Manor House, a delightful
nondescript old place, which started wagging its tail as soon as I
entered it. Sir William was awaiting me in the library. “I expected
this would happen,” he said gravely, “and now tell me.”
I gave him a short outline of our experiences.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s always much the same story. Every time
that horrible place has been let I have felt a sense of personal
responsibility, and yet I cannot give a proper warning, for the letting
of haunted houses is not yet a criminal offence--though it ought to
be--and I couldn’t afford a libel action, and, as a matter of fact, one
old couple had the house for fifteen years and were perfectly delighted
with it, being troubled in no way. But now let me tell you what I know
of the Red Lodge. I have studied it for forty years, and I regard it as
my personal enemy.
“The local tradition is that the second owner, early in the eighteenth
century, wished to get rid of his wife, and bribed his servants to
frighten her to death--just the sort of ancestor I can imagine that
blackguard Wilkes being descended from.
“What devilries they perpetrated I don’t know, but she is supposed
to have rushed from the house just before dawn one day and drowned
herself. Whereupon her husband installed a small harem in the house;
but it was a failure, for each of these charmers one by one rushed down
to the river just before dawn, and finally the husband himself did the
same. Of the period between then and forty years ago I have no record,
but the local tradition has it that it was the scene of tragedy after
tragedy, and then was shut up for a long time. When I first began to
study it, it was occupied by two bachelor brothers. One shot himself
in the room which I imagine you use as your bedroom, and the other
drowned himself in the usual way. I may tell you that the worst room in
the house, the one the unfortunate lady is supposed to have occupied,
is locked up, you know, the one on the second floor. I imagine Wilkes
mentioned it to you.”
“Yes, he did,” I replied. “Said he kept important papers there.”
“Yes; well, he was forced in self-defence to do so ten years ago, and
since then the death rate has been lower, but in those forty years
twenty people have taken their lives in the house or in the river, and
six children have been drowned accidentally. The last case was Lord
Passover’s butler in 1924. He was seen to run down to the river and
leap in. He was pulled out, but had died of shock.
“The people who took the house two years ago left in a week, and
threatened to bring an action against Wilkes, but they were warned they
had no legal case. And I strongly advise you, more than that, _implore_
you, to follow their example, though I can imagine the financial loss
and great inconvenience, for that house is a death-trap.”
“I will,” I replied. “I forgot to mention one thing; when my little boy
was so badly frightened he said something about ‘a green monkey.’”
“He did!” said Sir William sharply. “Well then, it is absolutely
imperative that you should leave at once. You remember I mentioned the
death of certain children. Well, in each case they have been found
drowned in the reeds just at the end of that lane, and the people
about here have a firm belief that ‘The Green Thing,’ or ‘The Green
Death’--it is sometimes referred to as the first and sometimes as the
other--is connected with danger to children.”
“Have you ever seen anything yourself?” I asked.
“I go to the infernal place as little as possible,” replied Sir
William, “but when I called on your predecessors I most distinctly saw
someone leave the drawing-room as we entered it, otherwise all I have
noted is a certain dream which recurs with curious regularity. I find
myself standing at the end of the lane and watching the river--always
in a sort of brassy half-light. And presently something comes floating
down the stream. I can see it jerking up and down, and I always feel
passionately anxious to see what it may be. At first I think that it
is a log, but when it gets exactly opposite me it changes its course
and comes towards me, and then I see that it is a dead body, very
decomposed. And when it reaches the bank it begins to climb up towards
me, and then I am thankful to say I always awake. Sometimes I have
thought that one day I shall not wake just then, and that on this
occasion something will happen to me, but that is probably merely the
silly fancy of an old gentleman who has concerned himself with these
singular events rather more than is good for his nerves.”
“That is obviously the explanation,” I said, “and I am extremely
grateful to you. We will leave to-morrow. But don’t you think we should
attempt to devise some means by which other people may be spared this
sort of thing, and this brute Wilkes be prevented from letting the
house again?”
“I certainly do so, and we will discuss it further on some other
occasion. And now go and pack!”
A very great and charming gentleman, Sir William, I reflected, as I
walked back to the Red Lodge.
Tim seemed to have recovered excellently well, but I thought it wise to
keep him out of the house as much as possible, so while Mary and the
maids packed after lunch I went with him for a walk through the fields.
We took our time, and it was only when the sky grew black and there was
a distant rumble of thunder and a menacing little breeze came from the
west that we turned to come back. We had to hurry, and as we reached
the meadow next to the house there came a ripping flash and the storm
broke. We started to run for the door into the garden when I tripped
over my bootlace, which had come undone, and fell. Tim ran on. I had
just tied the lace and was on my feet again when I saw something slip
through the door. It was green, thin, tall. It seemed to glance back
at me, and what should have been its face was a patch of soused slime.
At that moment Tim saw it, screamed, and ran for the river. The figure
turned and followed him, and before I could reach him hovered over
him. Tim screamed again and flung himself in. A moment later I passed
through a green and stenching film and dived after him. I found him
writhing in the reeds and brought him to the bank. I ran with him in my
arms to the house, and I shall not forget Mary’s face as she saw us
from the bedroom window.
By nine o’clock we were all in a hotel in London, and the Red Lodge an
evil, fading memory. I shut the front door when I had packed them all
into the car. As I took hold of the knob I felt a quick and powerful
pressure from the other side, and it shut with a crash. The Permanent
Occupants of the Red Lodge were in sole possession once more.
“AND HE SHALL SING....”
“AND HE SHALL SING....”
Mr. Cheltenham, a rather dusty and musty, yet amiable-looking person,
a veteran of some sixty publishing seasons, was seated at his desk
in his charming if a little ricketty office in Willoughby Court, one
placid September afternoon, reflecting drowsily on an aphorism which
an American publisher friend had yapped at him during luncheon. “It’s
a sort of joke amongst authors in America to say, ‘Now Barabbas was a
publisher.’” “Well,” thought Mr. Cheltenham, “if that were so, every
scribe in the Province should have come to howl for his release.
Three-quarters of all the books I have published would never have been
born but for me. By my instinct and initiative they are conceived; I
midwife them and wet-nurse them. I ensure that they are beautiful. In
most cases only too soon I am compelled to recognise they are dead,
and remainder their remains. And my remuneration for carrying out