Ghost Stories and Mysteries (9 page)

Jackson, who had been intently watching his friend’s success, wrote a question rapidly on a sheet of the note-book, tore it out, folded it, strode forward, and laid it on the table.

The medium looked at Jackson, his lips moved, but no sound came. His face grew very pale, and his gaze turned with a fixed look on the folded paper; it deepened into such an expression of intense and absolute horror as to startle the surrounding company. It was evident to the most sceptical that there was no acting now. His hand moved over the paper and formed a few hasty words, he folded it, trembling as he did so, handed it to Jackson, and fell with a deep groan on to the floor.

Jackson, nearly as startled and scared-looking as the prostrate medium, put the paper into his pocket, and stooped over the fallen man. The rest crowded round, the people of the house were called, and they conveyed the pallid conjurer, now slowly recovering from his swoon, out of the room. The séance was broken up, and the company began to disperse. Some expressed great curiosity to see the answer which had produced such a commotion. Jackson, however, did not satisfy them, they looked for his question, but that and the former one had disappeared. “Taken by the spirits,” one devout believer suggested. In reality quietly pocketed by Harris during the confusion occasioned by the medium’s collapse.

Harris, his wife, and Jackson, left their friends a short distance from the spirit’s residence and went home. Scarcely a word passed between them on the way. Jackson appeared to be lost in deep thought. The only remark he made was—

“Did you ever see that fellow before, Harris?”

“Never that I know of,” was the answer.

Jackson was silent the rest of the way.

When Jackson and Harris were alone in the room, Mrs. Harris having gone upstairs to remove her bonnet, etc., Harris drew forth the two questions, his own and Jackson’s. He handed his to Jackson. It was—

“
If
the spirit of my first wife is really present let her sign her name.
”

“Here is the answer,” he said.

“
Mary Delaney.
”

Jackson looked very scared and excited as he almost whispered, “Look at my question, then we will look at the answer.”

Harris read—

“
Who was the murderer of James Starr?
”

Jackson opened the paper, the writing on which no one but the unhappy seer had as yet seen.

On it was written in a good, bold hand, differing entirely from the writing on Harris’ paper—

“
Rudolph George Rawlings, known to you under the name of Haughton
”

“It was him! I knew it!” exclaimed Jackson, in a voice which brought Mrs. Harris into the room in a fright.

“Who? Who?” cried Harris, nearly as excited as his friend.

“Haughton himself; I thought I knew him. No wonder he should faint; he wrote and handed to me his own death warrant.”

Harris still held the paper in his hand.

“Look Jackson,” he said, “it is Starr’s handwriting,”

He went to a bookcase and took down a book, on the fly-leaf was written, “T. C. Harris, from James Starr.” The handwriting was identical!

“Let us go at once and get a warrant, and have him arrested,” said Jackson, whose excitement could scarcely be controlled.

“We have no evidence to do so,” replied Harris; “we are no nearer towards doing justice on Starr’s murderer than we were before. This may carry conviction to you and me, but what magistrate would issue a warrant on such a lame story. We can inform the police that suspicious circumstances connect this medium—who you may be sure is well known to them—with the Haughton who was mixed up with Starr’s murder. They may find out some further evidence, but we are powerless. “

A knock at the door. Mrs. Harris, who was listening with a white face, went and opened it. The servant said that a woman wanted most particularly to see Mr. Jackson. Harris looked at him, then told the servant to show her up. She came in, a faded-looking woman, who handed a slip of paper to Jackson.

He read on it— “Come and see me before I die. R. Rawlings.” He passed it over to Harris; his wife read it over his shoulder.

“I will come with you,” said Jackson to the woman.

“And so will I,” said Harris.

She led them back to the house of the séance, to a room with a miserable bed in it, wherein lay the man they had seen acting the part of medium. He gazed wistfully at Jackson and spoke very feebly, and in abrupt sentences.

“I am dying, but I will tell you how it was done.”

The woman left the room, and closed the door.

“That night, which you remember as well as I, I went out on the verandah to sleep. I did not go to sleep until long after you all went to bed. I heard every word you said. I heard Harris tell the story of his marriage, which enabled me to make the lucky answer I did today. I knew you both directly you came in. I heard Starr expose me about the cards in a contemptuous sort of way that made me hate him. This led me on to recall your talk about the gold. I determined to rob him, but I was a coward, and assassinated him. I had not the courage even of a common bushranger to stick him up. I knew the exact day he would be back, as you know. I feigned sickness the next morning, and only went as far as the shepherd’s hut. The next day I went on a short distance past Harris’ place and camped. That night after dark I started back to Yorick’s Lagoon.

“I meant to conceal myself behind the bushes growing on the bank, and shoot him as he rode along the road, which, as you know, is close to the lagoon. I reached the neighborhood of the lagoon about daylight. My keeping off the road as much as possible led to my coming in along the cattle track, on the side of the lagoon opposite to the road. I had a short rifle in my pack, the barrel taken off the stock, which was the reason you did not notice it. I tied my horse up some distance off, and went down the dusty cattle track to the water’s edge on foot. There I waited the whole of the morning—how long it seemed! It was about three o’clock when I saw Starr coming. I was about aiming at him, when he pulled up, got off and stooped down to drink. He was right opposite to me, his horse drinking alongside of him, his head down on the surface of the water. I was a dead shot, and struck him right on the top of the head. He scarcely seemed to move; his horse gave a slight start and snort, stretched his neck, and snuffed once or twice at the body of its rider; presently, finding itself free, began feeding, and after a few minutes’ nibbling at the grass, walked towards home.

“I was in doubt what to do, but determined to follow the horse and obtain the valise. Should the gold not be in it, I would have to return and search the body. During the latter part of my watch, several mobs of cattle had come along the track I was lying on, smelling me when they got close; they had run back again. This gave me the idea of following the track back for a couple of miles, trusting to the cattle to obliterate all marks of my presence. Starr’s horse seemed to be making straight home. I determined to chance finding him somewhere along the road. I followed the track out, took a circle round, and came on to the road just as Starr’s horse and some more he had picked up with came along. He was quiet and easily caught. The gold was in the valise. The presence of the other horses prevented my track being noticed, and by midnight I was back at my camp. At daylight I looked along the road, and saw by the tracks that no one had passed during my absence.

“I was safe. You know all about the inquest. I am ill of a terrible disease which plagues me with fearful torments. I must die in a day or two, perhaps to-night. Remorse now is useless, but I tell you that I have known little peace since I shot Starr. Leave me now, and don’t attempt to preach to me.”

Neither of the two friends felt either fitted or able to attempt it, and seeing that their presence there availed nothing, they left. But when they reached the foot of the stairs, Harris called the woman, and, giving her money, told her to call and inform him of the fate of Rawlings.

She came next morning and told them that he died a few hours after they left, never having spoken again.

THE DEAD HAND

(1881)

In the town of Souviers in France there resided an English doctor named Cranstone. Late one night an old woman—a countrywoman of his—came to see him with a short note requesting his immediate attendance.

“How is Monsieur Varillon?” he asked after glancing at the few words the note consisted of.

“Dead, “replied the dame; “died this morning.”

“And Madame?”

“Miss Lucy is with me, and she wants you to go with her to-night to see her husband.”

“To see her husband! You say that he is dead?”

“He’s as bad dead, as he was living; but she’ll tell you all about it.”

Without more questions the doctor accompanied the old woman; and they presently reached a little cottage, the interior of which presented a strange jumble of French and English furniture.

Sitting by the fire burning in an open fire-place was a fair-faced girl, unmistakably English, who the doctor addressed as Madame Varillon.

It was some time before she mooted her real object for sending for him; then she watched his face narrowly with her big hazel eyes, as if dreading ridicule.

“He made me promise,” she said, speaking of her dead husband, “that for the two nights before he would be buried I should come and pray beside his coffin, and watch there from 2 o’clock until daylight.”

“What a childish whim,” replied the doctor. “You are certainly not strong enough to redeem your promise, so you can make up your mind for a good night’s rest to-night.”

“But I must go.”

“Nonsense, it might be the death of you. Why did you send for me if you won’t take my advice?”

“It was not for your advice I asked you to come,” she said apologetically, “but to ask a greater favour. I
must
go, but I confess I feel timid. Will you go with me?”

“Of course.”

“There’s nobody in the house but old Jeanne, and she sleeps below; the
sœur de charité
leaves at nightfall.”

“I will go to Miss Lucy,” said the old woman.

“No, nurse, I won’t let you; you know I shall be safe with Dr Cranstone.”

“Such a foolish whim,” grumbled the old dame.

“What could he mean by such a whim?” asked the doctor angrily.

“I can scarcely tell you what he said,” and her voice dropped, and she glanced fearfully around, “that somebody—somebody not living, you know, would come to his body if I were not there.”

“Gracious me! What nonsense,” cried the old nurse; “who’d like to go near his ugly body if they could help it, I’d like to know.”

“Go to bed at once, and dismiss these childish notions,” said the doctor.

“I must go, I feel I must.”

“A wilfu’ woman maun gang her ain gait,” muttered the doctor; “but if we must go I see no reason for leaving this snug room until necessary. I for one object to doing more penance than I can help.”

The doctor tried again to dissuade his young friend from her purpose, but in vain; and after one o’clock they were traversing the deserted streets. After some walking they reached a gloomy square, in a quarter that Cranstone was very little acquainted with. On one side of the square rose the dark towers of a church, the remaining three sides consisting of large houses. High up in one of these a dim light shone through a window, and before it they stopped. After pulling at the bell for some time, somebody in the porter’s lodge seemingly awoke, for a small door cut in the large one opened, and the doctor and his companion entered. The hall was intensely dark, and the air close and unwholesome as if the place were always shut up. Madam Varillon took the doctor’s hand, and led him on a few paces, then giving him a whispered and very necessary caution to mind the stairs, they commenced to ascend. Like the hall, the staircase was unlighted, save by such meagre starlight as struggled in through the uncleaned windows; and as the doctor followed his silent guide, he could scarcely help feeling a slight thrill of superstitious feeling creep over him. They stopped on the third story, and entered the room where burned the light they had seen from the street. In one corner of the room stood a heavy old-fashioned bedstead; on it was an open coffin, and in the coffin the body of a man. A flickering candle burnt on either side of the corpse, and on the breast lay a wreath of immortelles.

The girl looked on the dead with a half-terrified gaze, and then, throwing back her cloak, knelt down beside the bed, and, burying her face in her hands, seemed to pray. Hardly knowing what to do, Cranstone stood beside her, and gazed curiously around at the place in which he now found himself for the first time. It was a large room, and the furniture in it was cold and dilapidated. The uncertain light of the two candles only illuminated that portion of the room in the immediate neighbourhood of the bed, and the far corners were shrouded in grim obscurity.

Having finished his unsatisfactory survey, he then examined the corpse. Its face was that of a man above middle age, evidently of a stern, forbidding aspect during life, and now looking doubly so as he lay still in death. The hair and beard were dark, streaked with grey, and contrasted in a ghastly manner with the white face.