The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (12 page)

“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered. “Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”

But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,” one might say, and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. “What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?” The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing-room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing-room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling – what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the room . . .” the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare, coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the Downs. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure yours.”

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

“Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.” “Waking in the morning –” “Silver between the trees –” “Upstairs –” “In the garden –” “When summer came –” “In winter snowtime –” The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their lips.”

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting, stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years –” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure –” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this
your
buried treasure? The light in the heart.”

Ghost Hunt

H. Russell Wakefield

Well, listeners, this is Tony Weldon speaking. Here we are on the third of our series of Ghost Hunts. Let’s hope it will be more successful than the other two. All our preparations have been made and now it is up to the spooks. My colleague tonight is Professor Mignon of Paris. He is the most celebrated investigator of psychic phenomena in the world and I am very proud to be his collaborator.

We are in a medium-sized, three-story Georgian house not far from London. We have chosen it for this reason: it has a truly terrible history. Since it was built, there are records of no less than thirty suicides in or from it and there may well have been more. There have been eight since 1893. Its builder and first occupant was a prosperous city merchant and a very bad hat, it appears: glutton, wine bibber and other undesirable things, including a very bad husband. His wife stood his cruelties and infidelities as long as she could and then hanged herself in the powder closet belonging to the biggest bedroom on the second floor, so initiating a horrible sequence.

I used the expression “suicides in and from it”, because while some have shot themselves and some hanged themselves, no less than nine have done a very strange thing. They have risen from their beds during the night and flung themselves to death in the river which runs past the bottom of the garden some hundred yards away. The last one was actually seen to do so at dawn on an autumn morning. He was seen running headlong and heard to be shouting as though to companions running by his side. The owner tells me people simply will not live in the house and the agents will no longer keep it on their books. He will not live in it himself, for very good reasons, he declares. He will not tell us what those reasons are; he wishes us to have an absolutely open mind on the subject, as it were. And he declares that if the professor’s verdict is unfavorable, he will pull down the house and rebuild it. One can understand that, for it seems to merit the label, “Death Trap”.

Well, that is sufficient introduction. I think I have convinced you it certainly merits investigation, but we cannot guarantee to deliver the goods or the ghosts, which have an awkward habit of taking a night off on these occasions.

And now to business – imagine me seated at a fine satinwood table, not quite in the middle of a big reception room on the ground floor. The rest of the furniture is shrouded in white protective covers. The walls are light oak panels. The electric light in the house has been switched off, so all the illumination I have is a not very powerful electric lamp. I shall remain here with a mike while the professor roams the house in search of what he may find. He will not have a mike, as it distracts him and he has a habit, so he says, of talking to himself while he conducts these investigations. He will return to me as soon as he has anything to report. Is that all clear? Well, then, here is the professor to say a few words to you before he sets forth on his tour of discovery. I may say he speaks English far better than I do. Professor Mignon –

Well, listeners, I’m sure if anyone can, it’s the professor. You must have found those few words far more impressive than anything I said. That was an expert speaking on what he knows. Personally, alone here in this big, silent room, they didn’t have a very reassuring effect on me. In fact, he wasn’t quite correct when he said this place didn’t affect me at all. I don’t find it a very cheerful spot, by any means. You can be sure of that. I may not be psychic, but I’ve certainly got a sort of feeling it doesn’t want us here, resents us, and would like to see the back of us.
Or else!
I felt that way as soon as I entered the front door. One sort of had to wade through the hostility. I’m not kidding or trying to raise your hopes.

It’s very quiet here, listeners. I’m having a look around the room. This lamp casts some queer shadows. There is an odd one near the wall by the door, but I realize now it must be one cast by a big Adams bookcase. I know that’s what it is because I peeped under the dust cover when I first came in. It’s a very fine piece. It’s queer to think of you all listening to me. I shouldn’t really mind if I had some of you for company. The owner of the house told us we should probably hear rats and mice in the wainscoting. Well, I can certainly hear them now. Pretty hefty rats, from the sound of them – even you can almost hear them, I should think.

Well, what else is there to tell you about? Nothing very much, except that there’s a bat in the room. I think it must be a bat and not a bird. I haven’t actually seen it, only its shadow as it flew past the wall just now and then it fanned past my face. I don’t know much about bats, but I thought they went to bed in the winter. This one must suffer from insomnia. Ah, there it is again – it actually touched me as it passed.

Now I can hear the professor moving about in the room above. I don’t suppose you can – have a try. Now listen carefully –

Hello! Did you hear that? He must have knocked over a chair or something – a heavy chair, from the sound of it. I wonder if he’s having any luck. Ah, there’s that bat again – it seems to like me. Each time it just touches my face with its wings as it passes. They’re smelly things, bats – I don’t think they wash often enough. This one smells kind of rotten.

I wonder what the professor knocked over – I can see a small stain forming on the ceiling. Perhaps a flower bowl or something. Hello! Did you hear that sharp crack? I think you must have. The oak panelling stretching, I suppose, but it was almost ear-splitting in here. Something ran across my foot then – a rat, perhaps. I’ve always loathed rats. Most people do, of course.

That stain on the ceiling has grown quite a lot. I think I’ll just go to the door and shout to the professor to make sure he’s all right. You’ll hear me shout and his answer, I expect –

Professor! – Professor! –

Well, he didn’t answer. I believe he’s a little bit deaf. But he’s sure to be all right. I won’t try again just yet, as I know he likes to be undisturbed on these occasions. I’ll sit down again for a minute or two. I’m afraid this is rather dull for you, listeners. I’m not finding it so, but then of course – There, I heard him cough. Did you hear that cough, listeners – a sort of very throaty double cough? It seemed to come from – I wonder if he’s crept down and is having a little fun with me, because I tell you, listeners, this place is beginning to get on my nerves just a wee little bit, just a bit. I wouldn’t live in it for a pension, a very large pension – Get away, you brute! That bat – faugh! It stinks.

Now listen carefully – can you hear those rats? Having a game of Rugger, from the sound of them. I really shall be quite glad to get out of here. I can quite imagine people doing themselves in in this house. Saying to themselves, after all, it isn’t much of a life when you think of it – figure it out, is it? Just work and worry and getting old and seeing your friends die. Let’s end it all in the river!

I’m not being very cheerful, am I? It’s this darned house. Those other two places we investigated didn’t worry me a bit, but this – I wonder what the professor’s doing, besides coughing. I can’t quite make that cough out because – get away, you brute! That bat’ll be the death of me! Death of me! Death of me!