 CHAPTER 1 THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER In response to Karnaki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427 Chain Walk to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times there before me. Five minutes later, Karnaki, Arkwright, Jessup, Taylor, and I were all engaged in the pleasant occupation of dining. You've not been long away this time, I remarked, as I finished my soup, forgetting momentarily Karnaki's dislike of being asked even to skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he would not stint words. That's all, he replied, with brevity, and I changed the subject, remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely good-humored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation. Later, when dinner was finished, Karnaki snugged himself comfortably down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story with very little circumlocution. As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and for a very good reason too, I've only been away a short distance. The exact locality I'm afraid I must not tell you, but it is less than twenty miles from here, though, except for changing a name, that won't spoil the story, and it is a story too, one of the most extraordinary things ever I've run against. I received a letter a fortnight ago from a man I must call Anderson, asking for an appointment. I arranged a time, and when he came, I found that he wished me to investigate, and see whether I could not clear up a long-standing and well, too well, authenticated case of what he termed haunting. He gave me very full particulars, and finally, as the case seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up. Two days later I drove to the house, late in the afternoon, and found at a very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. Anderson had left a letter with the butler I found, pleading excuses for his absence, and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an old and privileged servant, and had the history of the grey room exact in detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the door of the grey room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap in the corner. But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many and many a time he told me he had lain awake, and just got shivering with fright, listening. For sometimes the door would be slammed time after time, thud, thud, thud, so that sleep was impossible. From Anderson I knew already that the room had a history extending back over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it, an ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic as I had taken very great pains to discover, so that you can imagine it was with a feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after dinner to have a look at the grey room. Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service no one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me in quite a fatherly way to wait till the morning when there would be no danger, and then he would accompany me himself. Of course I smiled a little at him and told him not to bother. I explained that I should do no more than look round a bit and perhaps affix a few seals. He need not fear. I was used to that sort of thing. But he shook his head when I said that. There isn't many ghosts like ours, sir, he assured me with mournful pride, and by Jove he was right, as you will see. I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys. He unlocked the door, but would not come inside with me. He was evidently in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my examination until daylight. Of course I laughed at him again, and told him he could stand sentry at the door and catch anything that came out. It never comes outside, sir, he said, in his funny old solemn manner. Somehow he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have the creeps right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know. I left him there and examined the room. It is a big apartment and well furnished in the grand style with a huge four-poster which stands with its head to the end wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and two on each of the three tables that were in the room. I lit the lot, and after that the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary, though, mind you, it was quite fresh and well kept in every way. After I had taken a good look round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the fireplace and the wall closets. All the time as I worked the butler stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter, though I gested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons and went here and there about my work. Every now and again he would say, You'll excuse me, I'm sure, sir, but I do wish you would come out, sir. I'm fair in a quake for you. I told him he need not wait, but he was loyal enough in his way to what he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave me all alone there. He apologized, but made it very clear that I did not realize the danger of the room, and I could see generally that he was in a pretty frightened state. All the same I had to make the room so that I should know if anything material entered it, so I asked him not to bother me unless he really heard or saw something. He was beginning to get on my nerves, and the feel of the room was bad enough without making it any nastier. For a time further I worked, stretching ribbons across the floor and sealing them, so that the nearest touch would have broken them, or anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of playing the fool. All this had taken me far longer than I had anticipated, and suddenly I heard a clock strike eleven. I had taken off my coat soon after commencing work. Now, however, as I had practically made an end of all that I intended to do, I walked across to the seti and picked it up. I was in the act of getting into it when the old butler's voice, he had not said a word for the last hour, came sharp and frightened. Come out, sir, quick! There's something going to happen!" Jove but I jumped, and then in the same moment one of the candles on the table to the left went out. Now whether it was the wind or what I do not know, but just for a moment I was enough startled to make a run for the door, though I'm glad to say that I pulled up before I reached it. I simply could not bunk out, with the butler standing there after having, as it were, read him a sort of lesson on being brave, you know, so I just turned right around, picked up the two candles off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, I saw nothing. I blew out the candle that was still a light. Then I went to those on the two tables and blew them out. Then outside the door the old man called again. Oh, sir, do be told, do be told! All right, Peter, I said, and by Jove my voice was not as steady as I should have liked. I made for the door and had a bit of work not to start running. I took some thundering long strides, as you can imagine. Near the door I had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the room. It was almost as if the window had been suddenly opened a little. I got to the door and the old butler gave back a step in a sort of instinctive way. Caller the handles, Peter, I said, pretty sharply, and shoved them into his hands. I turned and caught the handle and slammed the door shut with a crash. Somehow, do you know, as I did so, I thought I felt something pulled back on it, but it must have been only fancy. I turned the key in the lock and then again double locking the door. I felt easier then, and set to and sealed the door. In addition, I put my card over the keyhole and sealed it there, after which I pocketed the key and went downstairs, with Peter, who was nervous and silent, leading the way. Poor old beggar, it had not struck me until that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the last two or three hours. About midnight I went to bed. My room lay at the end of the corridor upon which opens the door of the grey room. I counted the doors between it in mind and found that five rooms lay between, and I am sure you can understand that I was not sorry. Then, just as I was beginning to undress, an idea came to me, and I took my candle and sealing wax and sealed the doors of all five rooms. If any door slammed in the night, I should know just which one. I returned to my room, locked the door, and went to bed. I was waked suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage. I sat up in bed and listened, but heard nothing. Then I lit my candle. I was in the very act of lighting it, when there came the bang of a door being violently slammed along the corridor. I jumped out of bed and got my revolver. I unlocked the door and went out into the passage, holding my candle high and keeping the pistol ready. Then a queer thing happened. I could not go a step towards the grey room. You all know I am not really a cowardly chap. I have gone into too many cases connected with ghostly things to be accused of that, but I tell you I funked it, simply funked it, just like any blessed kid. There was something precious unholy in the air that night. I ran back into my bedroom and shut and locked the door. Then I sat on the bed all night and listened to the dismal thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo all through the house. Daylight came at last and I washed and dressed. The door had not slammed for about an hour and I was getting back my nerve again. I felt ashamed of myself, though. In some ways it was silly, for when you're meddling with that sort of thing, your nerve is bound to go sometimes. And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until daylight. Sometimes it is more than just cowardice, I fancy. I believe at times it is something warning you and fighting for you, but all the same, I always feel mean and miserable after a time like that. When the day came properly I opened my door and, keeping my revolver handy, went quietly along the passage. I had to pass the head of the stairs along the way, and who should I see coming up at the old butler carrying a cup of coffee? He had merely tucked his nightshirt into his trousers and he had an old pair of carpet slippers on. Hello, Peter, I said, feeling suddenly cheerful, for I was as glad as any lost child to have a live human being close to me. Where are you off to with the refreshments? The old man gave a start and slopped some of the coffee. He stared up at me and I could see that he looked white and done up. He came on up the stairs and held up a little tray to me. I'm very thankful indeed, sir, to see you safe and well, he said. I feared one time you might risk going into the grey room, sir. I've lain awake all night with the sound of the door. And when it came light I thought I'd make you a cup of coffee. I knew you would want to look at the seals, and somehow it seemed safer if there's two, sir. Peter, I said, you're a brick. This is very thoughtful of you. And I drank the coffee. Come along, I told him, and handed him back the tray. I'm going to have a look at what the brutes have been up to. I simply hadn't the plucked to in the night. I'm very thankful, sir, he replied. Flesh and blood can do nothing, sir, against devils, and that's what's in the grey room after dark. I examined the seals on all the doors as I went along and found them right, but when I got to the grey room the seal was broken, though the card over the keyhole was untouched. I ripped it off and unlocked the door and went in, rather cautiously, as you can imagine, but the whole room was empty of anything to frighten one, and there was heaps of light. I examined all my seals and not a single one was disturbed. The old butler had followed me in, and suddenly he called out, The bedclothes, sir. I ran up to the bed and looked over, and surely they were lying in the corner to the left of the bed. Jove, you can imagine how queer I felt. Something had been in the room. I stared for a while, from the bed to the clothes on the floor. I had a feeling that I did not want to touch either. Old Peter, though, did not seem to be affected that way. He went over to the bed coverings and was going to pick them up, as doubtless he had done every day these twenty years back, but I stopped him. I wanted nothing touched until I had finished my examination. This I must have spent a full hour over, and then I let Peter straighten up the bed, after which we went out and I locked the door, so the room was getting on my nerves. I had a short walk and then breakfast, after which I felt more my own man, and so returned to the grey room, and, with Peter's help, and one of the maids, I had everything taken out of the room except the bed, even the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor, and ceiling, then, with probe, hammer, and magnifying glass, but found nothing suspicious, and I can assure you I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed everything up again and went out, locking and sealing the door as before. After dinner, Peter and I unpacked some of my stuff, and I fixed up my camera and flashlight opposite to the door of the grey room, with a string from the trigger of the flashlight to the door. Then, you see, if the door were really opened, the flashlight would blare out, and there would be, possibly, a very queer picture to examine in the morning. The last thing I did, before leaving, was to uncap the lens, and after that I went off to my bedroom and to bed, for I intended to be up at midnight, and to ensure this, I set my little alarm to call me, also I left my candle burning. The clock woke me at twelve, and I got up and into my dressing gown and slippers. I shoved my revolver into my right side pocket and opened the door. Then, I lit my darkroom lamp and withdrew the slide so that it would give a clear light. I carried it up the corridor, about thirty feet, and put it down on the floor, with the open side away from me, so that it would show me everything that might approach along the dark passage. Then I went back and sat in the doorway of my room, with my revolver handy, staring up the passage towards the place where I knew my camera stood outside the door of the grey room. I should think I had watched for about an hour and a half when, suddenly, I heard a faint noise away up the corridor. I was immediately conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of my head, and my hands began to sweat a little. The following instant, the whole end of the passage flipped into sight in the abrupt glare of the flashlight. There came the succeeding darkness, and I peered nervously up the corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint glow of my dark lamp, which now seemed ridiculously dim by contrast with the tremendous blaze of the flash power. And then, as I stooped forward, staring and listening, there came the crashing thud of the door of the grey room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you I felt horrible, as if my bones were water, simply beastly. Jove how I did stare and how I listened, and then it came again, thud, thud, thud, and then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door, for I kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could see not a yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly thing sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I thought I heard a sound in the passage, and quite near me. I made one backward spring into my room and slammed and locked the door. I had my revolver in my hand, but it seemed an abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side of that door. For some unknown reason I knew it was pressed up against the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most extraordinary thing to think. Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor, and there I sat in it almost until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of the grey room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a miserable, brutal night. When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually to an end, and at last I got hold of my courage, and went along the corridor in the half-light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you it took some doing, but if I had not done so my photograph would have been spoiled, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my room, and then set to, and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I had been sitting. Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my coffee. When I had drunk it we both went along to the grey room. As we went I had a look at the seals on the other doors, but they were untouched. The seal on the door of the grey room was broken, as also was the string from the trigger of the flashlight, but the card over the keyhole was still there. I ripped it off and opened the door. Nothing unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed. Then I saw that, as on the previous day, the bed-clothes had been torn off and hurled into the left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very queer, but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that not one had been broken. Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me, nodding his head. Let's get out of here, I said. It's no place for any living human to enter without proper protection. We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door again. After breakfast I developed the negative, but it showed only the door of the grey room half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life, perhaps to the spirit, for I intended to spend the coming night in the grey room. I got back in a cab about half past five with my apparatus, Peter and I carried up to the grey room, where I piled it carefully in the centre of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a cat which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door and went towards the bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said, yes, sir, and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in, which was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have worried both me and himself if he had known what I intended. But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom and hurried back to the grey room. I locked and sealed my selfie in and set to work, for I had a lot to do before it got dark. First I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor, then I carried the cat, still fastened in his basket, over towards the far wall and left it. I returned then to the centre of the room and measured out a space twenty-one feet in diameter, which I swept with a broom of hyssop. About this I drew a circle of chalk, taking care never to step over the circle. Beyond this I smudged with a bunch of garlic, a broad belt right around the chalked circle. And when this was complete, I took from among my stores in the centre a small jar of a certain water. I broke away the parchment and withdrew the stopper. Then, dipping my left forefinger in the little jar, I went round the circle again, making upon the floor just within the line of chalk the second sign of the Samah ritual and joining each sign most carefully with the left-hand crescent. I can tell you I felt easier when this was done and the water circle complete. Then I unpacked some more of the stuff that I had brought and placed a lighted candle in the valley of each crescent. After that I drew a pentacle so that each of the five points of the defensive star touched the chalk circle. In the five points of the star I placed five portions of the bread each wrapped in linen and in the five veils five opened jars of the water I had used to make the water circle. And now I had my first protective barrier complete. Now anyone except you who know something of my methods of investigation might consider all this a piece of useless and foolish superstition but you all remember the black veil case in which I believe my life was saved by a very similar form of protection whilst Astor, who sneered at it and would not come inside, died. I got the idea from Sigsend, MS, written so far as I can make out in the 14th century. At first, naturally, I imagined it was just an expression of the superstition of his time and it was not until a year later that it occurred to me to test his defense, which I did, as I've just said, in that horrible black veil business. You know how that turned out. Later I used it several times and always I came through safe until that moving fur case. It was only a partial defense, therefore, and I nearly died in the pentacle. After that I came across Professor Garder's experiments with a medium. When they surrounded the medium with a current in vacuum, he lost his power, almost as if it cut him off from the immaterial. That made me think a lot and that is how I came to make the electric pentacle, which is a most marvelous defense against certain manifestations. I used the shape of the defensive star for this protection because I have, personally, no doubt at all, but that there is some extraordinary value in the old magic figure. Curious thing for a 20th century man to admit, is it not? But then, as you all know, I never did and never will allow myself to be blinded by the little cheap laughter. I ask questions and keep my eyes open. In this last case I had little doubt that I had run up against a supernatural monster and I meant to take every possible care for the danger is abominable. I turned to now to fit the electric pentacle, setting it so that each of its points and veils coincided exactly with the points and veils of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then I connected up the battery and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum tubes shone out. I glanced about me then with something of a sigh of relief and realized suddenly that the dusk was upon me for the window was gray and unfriendly. Then round at the big empty room over the double barrier of electric and candlelight I had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of weirdness thrust upon me. In the air, you know, as it were, a sense of something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised garlic, a smell I hate. I turned now to the camera and saw that it and the flashlight were in order. Then I tested my revolver, carefully, though I had little thought that it would be needed. Yet to what extent materialization of an abnatural creature is possible given favorable conditions no one can say and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see or feel the presence of. I might in the end have to fight with a materialized monster. I did not know and could only be prepared. You see, I never forgot that three other people had been strangled in the bed close to me and the fierce slamming of the door I had heard myself. I had no doubt that I was investigating a dangerous and ugly case. By this time the night had come, though the room was very light with the burning candles and I found myself glancing behind me constantly and then all around the room. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to come. Then, suddenly, I was aware of a little cold wind sweeping over me coming from behind. I gave one great nerve thrill and a prickly feeling went all over the back of my head. Then I hoved myself round with a sort of stiff jerk and stared straight against that queer wind. It seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed, the place where both times I had found the heap of tossed bedclothes. Yet I could see nothing unusual, no opening, nothing. Abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all a flicker in that unnatural wind. I believe I just squatted there and stared in a horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. I shall never be able to let you know how disgustingly horrible it was sitting in that vile cold wind. And then, flick, flick, flick, all the candles round the outer barrier went out and there was I, locked and sealed in that room and with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the electric pentacle. A time of abominable tenseness passed and still that wind blew upon me. And then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner to the left of the bed. I was made conscious of it, rather by some inward, unused sense than by either sight or sound, for the pale, short radius glare of the pentacle gave but a very poor sight for seeing by. Yet as I stared, something began slowly to grow upon my sight, a moving shadow, a little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the thing amid the vagueness and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side with a fresh new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was directed to the bed. All the coverings were being drawn steadily off with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow dragging slither of the clothes, but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled. I was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the creep had come upon me, yet that I was cooler mentally than I had been for some minutes, sufficiently so to feel that my hands were sweating coldly and to shift my revolver half-consciously whilst I rubbed my right hand dry upon my knee, though never for an instant taking my gaze or my attention from those moving clothes. The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense silence with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet immediately afterwards I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the camera and reached round for it, but without looking away from the bed, and then, you know, all in a moment the whole of the bed coverings were torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as they were hurled into the corner. There was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of minutes, and you can imagine how horrible I felt. The bedclothes had been thrown with such savageness, and then again the brutal unnaturalness of the thing that had just been done before me. Abruptly over by the door I heard a faint noise, a sort of crickling sound, and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill swept over me, seeming to run up my spine and over the back of my head, for the seal that secured the door had just been broken, something was there. I could not see the door, at least I mean to say that it was impossible to say how much I actually saw and how much my imagination supplied. I made it out only as a continuation of the grey walls, and then it seemed to me that something dark and indistinct moved and wavered there among the shadows. Abruptly I was aware that the door was opening, and with an effort I reached again for my camera, but before I could aim it the door was slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of hollow thunder. I jumped like a frightened child. There seemed such a power behind the noise as though a vast wanton force were out. Can you understand? The door was not touched again, but directly afterwards I heard the basket in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you I fairly pringled all along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether whatever was abroad was dangerous to life. From the cat there rose suddenly a hideous catarwal that ceased abruptly, and then, too late, I snapped off the flashlight. In the great glare I saw that the basket had been overturned and the lid was wrenched open with the cat lying half in and half out upon the floor. I saw nothing else, but I was full of the knowledge that I was in the presence of some being or thing that had the power to destroy. During the next two or three minutes there was an odd, noticeable quietness in the room and you much remember I was half blinded for the time because of the flashlight so that the whole place seemed to be pitchy-dark just beyond the shine of the pentacle. I tell you it was most horrible. I just knelt there in the star and whirled around trying to see whether anything was coming at me. My power of sight came gradually and I got a little hold of myself and abruptly I saw the thing I was looking for, close to the water-circle. It was big and indistinct and wavered curiously as though the shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air just beyond the barrier. It passed swiftly round the circle and seemed to probe ever towards me but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements as might a living person if they touched the hot bar of a grate. Round and round it moved and round and round I turned. Then just opposite to one of the veils in the pentacles it seemed to pause as though preliminary to a tremendous effort. It retired almost beyond the glow of the vacuum light and then came straight towards me appearing to gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast malign determination behind the movement that must succeed. I was on my knees and I jerked back falling onto my left hand and hip in a wild endeavour to get back from the advancing thing. With my right hand I was grabbing madly from my revolver which I had let slip. The brutal thing came with one great sweep straight over the garlic and the water-circle almost to the veil of the pentacle. I believe I yelled then just as suddenly as it had swept over it seemed to be hurled back by some mighty invisible force. There must have been some moments before I realised that I was safe and then I got myself together in the middle of the pentacles feeling horribly gone and shaken and glancing round and round the barrier but the thing had vanished. Yet I had learned something for I knew now that the grey room was haunted by a monstrous hand. Suddenly as I crouched there I saw what had so nearly given the monster an opening through the barrier. Within the pentacle I must have touched one of the jars of water for just where the thing had made its attack the jar that guarded the deep of the veil had been moved to one side and this had left one of the five doorways unguarded. I put it back quickly and felt almost safe again for I had found the cause and the defence was still good and I began to hope again that I should see the morning come in. When I saw that thing so nearly succeed I had an awful weak overwhelming feeling that the barriers could never bring me safe through the night against such a force. You can understand? For a long time I could not see the hand but presently I thought I saw once or twice an odd wavering over among the shadows near the door. A little later as though in a sudden fit of malignant rage the dead body of the cat was picked up and beaten with dull, sickening blows against the solid floor. That made me feel rather queer. A minute afterwards the door was opened and slammed twice with tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift vicious dart at me from out of the shadows. Instinctively I started sideways from it and so plucked my hand from upon the electric pentacle where for a wickedly careless moment I had placed it. The monster was hurled off from the neighbourhood of the pentacles though owing to my inconceivable foolishness I had been enabled for a second time to pass the outer barriers. I can tell you I shook for a time with sheer funk. I moved right to the centre of the pentacles again and knelt there making myself as small and compact as possible. As I knelt there came to me presently a vague wonder at the two accidents which had so nearly allowed the brute to get at me was I being influenced to unconscious voluntary actions that endangered me? The thought took hold of me and I watched my every movement. Abruptly I stretched a tired leg and knocked over one of the jars of water. Some was spilled but because of my suspicious watchfulness I had it upright and back within the veil while yet some of the water remained. Even as I did so the vast black half materialised hand beat up at me out of the shadows and seemed to leap almost into my face. So nearly did it approach but for the third time it was thrown back by some altogether enormous over-mastering force. Yet apart from the dazed fright in which it left me I had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness as if some delicate beautiful inward grace had suffered which is felt only upon the two near approach of the abhuman and is more dreadful in a strange way than any physical pain that can be suffered. I knew by this more of the extent and closeness of the danger and for a long time I was simply cowed by the butt-headed brutality of that force upon my spirit. I can put it no other way. I knelt again in the centre of the pentacles watching myself with more fear almost than the monster for I knew now that unless I guarded myself from every sudden impulse that came to me I might simply work my own destruction. Do you see how horrible it was? I spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright and so tense that I could not make a single movement naturally. I was in such fear that any desire for action that came to me might be prompted by the influence that I knew was at work on me. And outside of the very that ghastly thing went round and round grabbing and grabbing in the air at me. Twice more was the body of the dead cat molested. The second time I heard every bone in its body scrunch and crack and all the time the horrible wind was blowing upon me from the corner of the room to the left of the bed. Then just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky that unnatural wind ceased in a single moment and I could see no sign of the hand. The dawn came slowly and presently the one light filled all the room and made the pale glare of the electric pentacle look more unearthly. Yet it was not until the day had fully come that I made any attempt to leave the barrier for I did not know but that there was some method abroad in the sudden stopping of that wind to entice me from the pentacles. At last when the dawn was strong and bright I took one last look around and ran for the door. I got it unlocked in a nervous and clumsy fashion then locked it hurriedly and went to my bedroom where I lay on the bed and tried to steady my nerves. Peter came presently with the coffee and when I had drunk it I told him I meant to have a sleep as I had been up all night. He took the tray and went out quietly and after I had locked my door I turned in properly and at last got to sleep. I woke about midday and after some lunch went up to the grey room. I switched off the current from the pentacle which I had left on in my hurry. Also I removed the body of the cat. You can understand I did not want anyone to see the poor brute. After that I made a very careful search of the corner where the bedclothes had been thrown. I made several holes and probed and found nothing. Then it occurred to me to try with my instrument under the skirting. I did so and heard my wire ring on metal. I turned the hook end that way and fished for the thing. At the second go I got it. It was a small object and I took it to the window. I found it to be a curious ring made of some graying material. The curious thing about it was that it was made in the form of a pentagon. That is the same shape as the inside of the magic pentacle but without the mounts which form the points of the defensive star. It was free from all chasing and engraving. You will understand that I was excited when I tell you that I felt sure I held in my hand the famous luck ring of the Anderson family which indeed was of all things the one most intimately connected with the history of the haunting. This ring was handed on from father to son through generations and always in obedience to some ancient family tradition each son had to promise never to wear the ring. The ring I may say was brought home by one of the crusaders under very peculiar circumstances but the story is too long to go into here. It appears that young Sir Halbert, an ancestor of Anderson's made a bet, in drink you know that he would wear the ring that night. He did so and in the morning his wife and child were found strangled in the bed in the very room in which I stood. Many people it would seem thought young Sir Halbert was guilty of having done the thing in drunken anger and he, in an attempt to prove his innocence, slept a second night in the room. He also was strangled. Since then, as you may imagine, no one has ever spent a night in the grey room until I did so. The ring had been lost so long that it had become almost a myth and it was most extraordinary to stand there with the actual thing in my hand as you can understand. It was whilst I stood there looking at the ring that I got an idea, supposing that it were, in a way, a doorway. You see what I mean, a sort of gap in the world hedge? It was a queer idea, I know, and probably not my own, but came to me from the outside. You see, the wind had come from that part of the room where the ring lay. I thought a lot about it, then the shape, the inside of a pentacle. It had no mounts and without mounts, as the Sigmund MS has it. The mounts which are the five hills of safety, to lack is to give power to the demon and surely to favour the evil thing. You see, the very shape of the ring was significant and I was determined to test it. I unmade the pentacle, for it must be made fresh and around the one to be protected. Then I went out and locked the door, after which I left the house to get certain matters. For neither yards nor fire nor water must be used a second time. I returned about seven-thirty and as soon as the things I had brought had been carried up to the grey room I dismissed Peter for the night, just as I had done the evening before. When he had gone downstairs I let myself into the room and locked and sealed the door. I went to the place in the centre of the room where all the stuff had been packed and set to work with all my speed to construct a barrier about me and the ring. I do not remember whether I explained it to you but I had reasoned that if the ring were in any way a medium of admission and it were enclosed with me in the electric pentacle it would be to express it loosely insulated, do you see? The force which had visible expression as a hand would have to stay beyond the barrier which separates the ab from the normal for the gateway would be removed from accessibility. As I was saying I worked with all my speed to get the barrier completed about me and the ring for it was already later than I cared to be in that room unprotected. Also I had a feeling that there would be a vast effort made that night to regain the use of the ring for I had the strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization. You will see whether I was right. I completed the barriers in about an hour and you can imagine something of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the electric pentacle once more all about me. From then onwards for about two hours I sat quietly facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock a queer knowledge came that something was near to me yet nothing happened for a whole hour after that. Then suddenly I felt the cold queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment it seemed now to come from behind me and I whipped around with a hideous quake of fear. The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to me. I stared down in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had I done now? The ring was there close beside me where I had put it. Suddenly as I stared bewildered I was aware that there was something queer about the ring, funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked at them stupidly and then abruptly I knew that the wind was blowing up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me, seeming to pour upwards through the ring and mix with the moving shadows. Suddenly I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger, for the convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape and the death-hand was forming within the pentacle. My goodness, do you realize it? I had brought the gateway into the pentacles and the brute was coming through, pouring into the material world as gas might pour out from the mouth of a pipe. I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright. Then with a mad awkward movement I snatched at the ring intending to hurl it out of the pentacle. Yet it eluded me as though some invisible living thing jerked at hither and thither. At last I gripped it, yet in the same instant it was torn from my grasp with incredible and brutal force. A great black shadow covered it and rose into the air and came at me. I saw that it was the hand, vast and nearly perfect in form. I gave one crazy yell and jumped over the pentacle in the ring of burning candles and ran despairingly for the door. I fumbled idiotically and ineffectually with the key and all the time I stared with a fear that was like insanity towards the barriers. The hand was plunging towards me, yet even as it had been unable to pass into the pentacle when the ring was without, so now that the ring was within it had no power to pass out. The monster was chained as surely as any beast would be where chains were riveted upon it. Even then I got a flash of this knowledge, but I was too utterly shaken with fright to reason. In the instant I managed to get the key turned I sprang into the passage and slammed the door with a crash. I locked it and got to my room somehow for I was trembling so that I could hardly stand as you can imagine. I locked myself in and managed to get the candle lit and I lay down on my bed and kept quiet for an hour or two and so I got steadied. I got a little sleep later but woke when Peter brought my coffee. When I had drunk it I felt altogether better and took the old man along with me whilst I had a look into the grey room. I opened the door and peeped in. The candles were still burning, one against the daylight and behind them was the pale glowing star of the electric pentacle and there in the middle was the ring, the gateway of the monster, lying to mirror and ordinary. Nothing in the room was touched and I knew that the brute had never managed to cross the pentacles. Then I went out and locked the door. After a sleep of some hours I left the house and returned in the afternoon in a cab. I had with me an oxy-hydrogen jet and two cylinders containing the gases. I carried the things into the grey room and there in the center of the electric pentacle I erected a little furnace. Five minutes later the luck ring, once the luck but now the bane of the Anderson family, was no more than a little solid splash of hot metal. Karnaki felt in his pocket and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. He passed it to me. I opened it and found a small circle of greyish metal, something like lead only harder and rather brighter. Well, I asked at length after examining it and handing it round to the others. Did that stop the haunting? Karnaki nodded. Yes, he said. I slept three nights in the grey room before I left. Old Peter nearly fainted when he knew that I meant to, but by the third night he seemed to realize that the house was just safe and ordinary. And, you know, I believe in his heart he hardly approved. Karnaki stood up and began to shake hands. Out you go, he said genially, and presently we went pondering to our various homes. End of THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER. CHAPTER I OF Karnaki THE GHOSTFINDER by William Hope Hodgson CHAPTER II OF Karnaki THE GHOSTFINDER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peake. Karnaki THE GHOSTFINDER by William Hope Hodgson CHAPTER II THE HOUSE AMONG THE LORALS This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you, said Karnaki, as after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy dining room. I have just got back from the west of Ireland, he continued. Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy in the shape of a large estate in Manor, about a mile and a half outside the village of Correnton. This place is named Gannington Manor and has been empty a great number of years, as you will find is almost always the case with houses reputed to be haunted, as it is usually termed. It seems that when Wentworth went over to take possession he found the place in very poor repair and the estate totally uncared for, and, as I know, looking very desolate and lonesome generally. He went through the big house by himself and he admitted to me that it had an uncomfortable feeling about it, but, of course, that might be nothing more than the natural dismalness of a big empty house which has been long uninhabited and through which you are wandering alone. When he had finished his look round he went down to the village, meaning to see the one-time agent of the estate and arrange for someone to go in as caretaker. The agent, who proved by the way to be a Scotchman, was very willing to take up the management of the estate once more, but he assured Wentworth that they would get no one to go in as caretaker and that his, the agent's, advice was to have the house pulled down and a new one built. This naturally astonished my friend and, as they went down to the village, he managed to get a sort of explanation from the man. It seems that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in the early days was called Landrew Castle, and that within the last seven years there had been two extraordinary deaths there. In each case they had been tramps, who were ignorant of the reputation of the house, and had probably thought the big empty place suitable for a night's free lodging. There had been absolutely no signs of violence to indicate the method by which death was caused, and on each occasion the body had been found in the great entrance hall. By this time they had reached the inn where Wentworth had put up, and he told the agent that he would prove that it was all rubbish about the haunting by staying a night or two in the manor himself. The death of the tramps was certainly curious, but did not prove that any supernatural agency had been at work. They were but isolated accidents spread over a large number of years by the memory of the villagers, which was natural enough in a little place like Correnton. Tramps had to die some time and in some place, and it proved nothing that two out of possibly hundreds who had slept in the empty house had happened to take the opportunity to die under shelter. But the agent took his remark very seriously, and both he and Dennis the landlord of the inn tried their best to persuade him not to go. For his soul's sake Irish Dennis begged him to do no such thing, and because of his life's sake the Scotchman was equally in earnest. It was late afternoon at the time, and as Wentworth told me it was warm and bright, and seemed such utter rot to hear those two talking seriously about the impossible. He felt full of pluck, and he made up his mind he would smash the story of the haunting at once by staying that very night in the manor. He made this quite clear to them, and told them that it would be more to the point, and to their credit, if they offered to come up along with him and keep him company. But poor old Dennis was quite shocked, I believe, at the suggestion, and though Tabot, the agent, took it more quietly, he was very solemn about it. It seems that Wentworth did go, and though, as he said to me, when the evening began to come on, it seemed a very different sort of thing to tackle. A whole crowd of the villagers assembled to see him off, for by this time they all knew of his intention. Wentworth had his gun with him and a big packet of candles, and he made it clear to them all that it would not be wise for anyone to play any tricks, as he intended to shoot at sight. And then, you know, he got a hint of how seriously considered the whole thing, for one of them came up to him, leading a great bull Mastiff, and offered it to him to take to keep him company. Wentworth padded his gun, but the old man who owned the dog shook his head and explained that the brute might warn him in sufficient time for him to get away from the castle, for it was obvious that he did not consider the gun would prove of any use. Wentworth took the dog and thanked the man. He told me that already he was beginning to wish that he had not said definitely that he would go, but, as it was, he was simply forced to. He went through the crowd of men and found suddenly that they had all turned in a body and were keeping him company. They stayed with him all the way to the manor, and then went right over the whole place with him. It was still daylight when this was finished, though turning to dusk, and for a while the men stood about, hesitating as if they felt ashamed to go away and leave Wentworth there all alone. He told me that by this time he would gladly have given fifty pounds to be going back with him, and then abruptly an idea came to him. He suggested that they should stay with him and keep him company through the night. For a time they refused and tried to persuade him to go back with them, but finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen bottles of whiskey, a donkey load of turf and wood, and some more candles. Then they would come back and make a great fire in the big fireplace, light all the candles, and put them round the place, open the whiskey, and make a night of it. And by jove he got them to agree. They set off back and were soon at the inn, and here, whilst the donkey was being loaded and the candles and whiskey distributed, Dennis was doing his best to keep Wentworth from going back. But he was a sensible man in his way, for when he found that it was no use he stopped. You see, he did not want to frighten the others from accompanying Wentworth. I tell you, sir, you told him. It is of no use at all that they are in to reclaim the castle. It is cursed with instant blood, and you'll be better off pulling it down and building a fine new one. But if you be intended to stay the night, keep the big door open wide and watch for the blood drip. If so much as a single drip falls, don't stay though all the gold in the world be offered ye. Wentworth asked him what he meant by the blood drip. Sure, he said, it is the blood of them as old black mick way back in the old days killed in their sleep. It was a feud as he pretended to patch up, and he invited them, the O'Hara's they was, seventy of them, and he fed them and spoke soft to them, and them thrusting him, stayed to sleep with them. Then he and them with him started in and murdered them as they was all as they were sleeping. It is from me, father's grandfathers, ye have the story, and since then, to death to any so they say, to pass the night in the castle when the blood drip comes. Twill put out candle and fire, and then in the darkness the virgin herself would be powerless to protect thee. Wentworth told me he laughed at this, chiefly because, as he put it, one must always laugh at that sort of yarn, however it makes you feel inside. He asked Old Dennis whether he expected him to believe him. Yes, O'er said Dennis, I do man you to believe it, and please God if ye believe, he may be back safe before morning. The man's serious simplicity took hold of Wentworth, and he held out his hand, but for all that he went, and I must admire his pluck. There were now about forty men, and when they got back to the manor, or castle as the villagers always call it, they were not long in getting a big fire going and lighted candles all round the great hall. They had all brought sticks, so that they would have been a pretty formidable lot to tackle by anything simply physical, and of course Wentworth had his gun. He kept the whiskey in his own charge, for he intended to keep them sober, but he gave them a good strong taut all round first, so as to make things seem cheerful and to get them yearning. If ye once let a crowd of men like that grow silent, they begin to think, and then to fancy things. The big entrance door had been left wide open by his orders, which shows that he had taken some notice of Dennis. It was a quiet night, so this did not matter, for the lights kept steady, and all went on in a jolly sort of fashion for about three hours. They opened a second lot of bottles, and everyone was feeling cheerful, so much so that one of the men called out aloud to the ghosts to come and show themselves. And then, you know, a very extraordinary thing happened. For the ponderous main door swung quietly and steadily, too, as though pushed by an invisible hand, and shut with a sharp click. Wentworth stared, feeling suddenly rather chilly. Then he remembered the men and looked round at them. Several had ceased their talk and were staring in a frightened way at the big door, but the great number had never noticed and were talking and yearning. He reached for his gun, and the following instant the great bull mast had set up a tremendous barking, which drew the attention of the whole company. The hall, I should tell you, is oblong. The south wall is all windows, but the north and east have rows of doors leading into the house, whilst the west wall is occupied by the great entrance. The rows of doors leading into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the north wall that the big dog ran. Yet he would not get very close, and suddenly the door began to move slowly open until the blackness of the passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering, and for a minute there was an absolute silence. Then Wentworth went out from the men a little and aimed his gun at the doorway. Whoever's there, come out or I shall fire, he shouted. But nothing came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark, as though the report had been a signal all the doors along the north and east walls moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened, into the black shapes of the empty doorways. Wentworth loaded his gun quickly and called to the dog, but the brute was burrowing away in among the men, and his fear on the dog's part frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out, and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners. The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded together, and to no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively ill with fright, I know the feeling. Then suddenly something splashed onto the back of his left hand. He lifted it and looked. It was covered with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman near to him saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice, the blood drip! When the old man called out they all looked, and in the same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries of the blood drip! the blood drip! And then about a dozen candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog let out a great mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad rush for the main door. They wrenched it open and tumbled out into the dark, but something slammed it with a crash after them and shut the dog in, or Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no one had the pluck to go back and let it out, which does not surprise me. Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in connection with that steeple monster case. I arrived by the night-mail and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old manor, which lies in rather a wilderness, though what struck me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house. The place was smothered with them, so that the house seemed to be growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim ancient look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly, even by daylight. The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight, for which I was not sorry. You see, I had been rather wound up by Wentworth's yarn. We found one rather funny thing, and that was the great bowl mastiff lying stiff with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious, for it showed that whether the case was supernatural or not, there was present in the house some force exceedingly dangerous to life. Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with a shotgun, I made an examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had drunk their whiskey were scattered about, and all over the place were the candles stuck upright in their own grease, but in the somewhat brief and general search I found nothing, and decided to begin my usual exact examination of every square foot of the place, not only of the hall, in this case, but of the whole interior of the castle. I spent three uncomfortable weeks searching, but without result of any kind, and, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme, for I have solved hundreds of cases of so-called hauntings at this early stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a perfectly open mind. But, as I said, I found nothing. During the whole of the examination I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded shotgun, and I was very particular that we were never caught there after dusk. I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great house, of course, protected. I spoke about it to Wentworth, but his own attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing. However I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to persuade him to be present. With this in view I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an arrangement with the chief constable I obtained the services of six policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course, and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment. When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a good feed, and after that we all set out for the manor. We had four donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters, also two great borehounds which one of the police led. When we reached the house I set the men to unload the donkeys, whilst Wentworth and I set to and sealed all the doors, except the main entrance, with wax and tape, for if the doors were really opened I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination or mesmeric influence. By the time that this was done the policemen had unloaded the donkeys and were waiting, looking about them curiously. I set two of them to lay a fire in the big grate and the others I used as I required them. I took one of the borehounds to the end of the hall furthest from the entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor to which I tied the dog with a short tether. Then round him I drew upon the floor the figure of a pentacle in chalk. Outside of the pentacle I made a circle with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound, but over more in the northeast corner of the big hall where the two rows of doors make the angle. When this was done I cleared the whole center of the hall and put one of the policemen to sweep it, after which I had all my apparatus carried into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it open so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the house before the door could be closed. After that I placed lighted candles before each of the sealed doors and one in each corner of the big room, and then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly a light I got all of the men together by the pile of things in the center of the room and I took their pipes from them, for as the zig-sand manuscript has it there must no light come from within the barrier and I was going to make sure. I got my tape measure then and measured out a circle 33 feet in diameter and immediately chalked it out. The police and Wentworth were tremendously interested and I took the opportunity to warn them that this was no piece of silly mumming on my part, but done with a definite intention of erecting a barrier between us and any abhuman thing that the night might show to us. I warned them that as they valued their lives and more than their lives it might be no one must on any account whatsoever to pass beyond the limits of the barrier that I was making. After I had drawn the circle I took a bunch of the garlic and smudged it right round the chalk circle a little outside of it. When this was complete I called for candles from my stock of material. I set the police to lighting them and as they were lit I took them and sealed them down to the floor just within the chalk circle, five inches apart. As each candle measured approximately one inch in diameter I took 66 candles to complete the circle and I need hardly say that every number and measurement has a significance. Then from candle to candle I took a gared of human hair entwining it alternately to the left and to the right until the circle was completed and the ends of the hair shod with silver and pressed into the wax of the 66th candle. It had now been dark some time and I made haste to get the defense complete. To this end I got the men well together and began to fit the electric pentacle right round us so that the five points of the defensive star came just within the hair circle. This did not take me long and a minute later I had connected up the batteries and the weak blue glare of the intertwining vacuum tube shone all round us. I felt happier then for this pentacle is, as you all know, a wonderful defense. I have told you before how the idea came to me after reading Professor Garder's experiments with a medium. He found that a current of a certain number of vibrations in vacuo insulated the medium. It is difficult to suggest an explanation non-technically and if you are really interested you should read Garder's lecture on astral vibrations compared with material-involuted vibrations below the six billion limit. As I stood up for my work I could hear outside in the night a constant drip from the laurels which, as I have said, come right up around the house very thick. By the sound I knew that a soft rain had set in and there was absolutely no wind as I could tell by the steady flames of the candles. I stood a moment or two listening and then one of the men touched my arm and asked me in a low voice what they should do. By his tone I could tell that he was feeling something of the strangeness of it all and the other men, including Wentworth, were so quiet that I was afraid they were beginning to get shaky. I sat to then and arranged them with their backs to one common center so that they were sitting flat upon the floor with their feet radiating outward. Then by compass I laid their legs to the eight chief points and afterward I drew a circle with chalk around them and opposite to their feet I made the eight signs of the Sa'ama ritual. The eighth place was of course empty but ready for me to occupy at any moment for I had admitted to make the ceiling sign at that point until I had finished all my preparations and could enter the inner star. I took a last look round the Great Hall and saw that the two big hounds were lying quietly with their noses between their paws. The fire was big and cheerful and the candles before the two rows of doors burnt steadily as well as the solitary ones in the corners. Then I went round the little star of men and warned them not to be frightened whatever happened but to trust to the defense and to let nothing tempt or drive them to cross the barriers. Also I told them to watch their movements and to keep their feet strictly to their places for the rest there was to be no shooting unless I gave the word. And now at last I went to my place and sitting down made the eighth sign just beyond my feet. Then I arranged my camera and flashlight handy and examined my revolver. Wentworth sat behind the first sign and as the numbering went round reversed that put him next to me on my left. I asked him in a low voice how he felt and he told me rather nervous but that he had confidence in my knowledge and was resolved to go through with the matter whatever happened. We settled down to wait. There was no talking except that once or twice the police bent toward one another and whispered odd remarks concerning the hall that appeared clearly audible in the intense silence. But in a while there was not even a whisper from anyone and only the monotonous drip drip of the quiet rain without the great entrance and the low dull sound of the fire in the big fireplace. It was a queer group that we made sitting there back to back with our legs starred outward and all around us the strange blue glow of the pentacle and beyond that the brilliant shining of the great ring of lighted candles. Outside of the glare of the candles the large empty hall looked a little gloomy by contrast except where the light shone before the sealed doors and the blaze of the big fire made a good honest mass of flame and the feeling of mystery. Can you picture it all? It might have been an hour later that it came to me suddenly that I was aware of an extraordinary sense of dreaminess as it were come into the air of the place. Not the nervous feeling of mystery that had been with us all the time but a new feeling as if there were something going to happen any moment. Abruptly there came a slight noise from the east end of the hall and I felt the star of men move suddenly steady keep steady I shouted and they quieted. I looked up the hall and saw that the dogs were upon their feet and staring in an extraordinary fashion toward the great entrance. I turned and stared also and felt the men move as they craned their heads to look. Suddenly the dogs set up a tremendous barking and I glanced across to them and found that they were still pointing for the great doorway. They ceased their noise just as quickly and seemed to be listening. In the same instant I heard a faint chink of metal to my left that set me staring at the hook which held the great door wide. It moved even as I looked. Some invisible thing was meddling with it. A queer sickening thrill went through me and I felt all the men about me stiffen and go rigid with intensity. I had a certainty of something impending as it might be the impression of an invisible but overwhelming presence. The hall was full of a queer silence and not a sound came from the dogs. Then I saw the hook slowly raised out of its hasp without any visible thing touching it. Then a sudden power of movement came to me. I raised my camera with a flashlight fixed and snapped it at the door. There came the great glare of the flashlight and a simultaneously roar of barking from the two dogs. The intensity of the flash made all the place seem dark for some moments and in that time of darkness I heard a jingle in the direction of the door and strained a look. The effect of the bright light passed and I could see clearly again. The great entrance door was being slowly closed. It shut with a sharp snick and there followed a long silence broken only by the whimpering of the dogs. I turned suddenly and looked at Wentworth. He was looking at me. Just as it did before, he whispered. Most extraordinary, I said, and he nodded and looked round nervously. The policemen were pretty quiet and I judged that they were feeling rather worse than Wentworth, though for that matter you must not think that I was altogether natural. Yet I have seen so much that is extraordinary that I dare say I can keep my nerve steady longer than most people. I looked over my shoulder at the men and cautioned them in a low voice not to move outside the barriers whatever happened, not even though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to them for well I knew what some of the great forces were capable of doing. Yet unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible Sa'iti manifestation, we were almost certainly of safety so long as we kept to our order within the pentacle. Perhaps an hour and a half passed quietly except when, once in a while, the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even from this and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over their noses in a most peculiar fashion and shivering visibly. The sight made me feel more serious as you can understand. Suddenly the candle in the corner of this from the main door went out. An instant later went with jerk to my arm and I saw that the candle before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready. Then one after another every candle about the hall was put out and with such speed and irregularity that I could never catch one in the actual act of being extinguished. Yet for all that I took a flashlight of the hall in general. There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the flash and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of smoked goggles which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt the men jump at the sudden light and I called out loud to them to sit quiet and to keep their feet exactly in their proper places. My voice, as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great room and altogether it was a beastly moment. Then I was able to see again and I stared here and there about the hall but there was nothing showing unusual only of course it was dark now over in the corners. Suddenly I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out visibly as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible, impossible creature sucked the life from it I could best explain the way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to watch. In the time that I watched it every vestige of fire was gone from it and there was no light outside the ring of candles around the pentacle. The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm, deliberate force present in the hall the steadfast intention to make a darkness was horrible. The extent of the power to affect the material was now the one constant anxious questioning in my brain. You can understand. Behind me I heard the men moving again and I knew that they were getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half round and told them quietly but plainly that they were safe only so long as they stayed within the pentacle in the position in which I had put them. If they once broke and went outside the barrier no knowledge of mine could state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger. I studied them up by this quiet, straight reminder but if they had known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any protection they would have suffered a great deal more and probably have broken the defence and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety. Another hour passed after this in an absolute quietness. I had a sense of awful strain and oppression as if I were a little spirit in the company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world who as yet was scarcely conscious of us. I lent across to Wentworth and asked him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the room. He looked very pale and his eyes kept always on the move. He glanced just once at me and nodded then stared away round the hall again and when I came to think I was doing the same thing. Abruptly as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them every candle in the barrier went dead out and we were left in a darkness that seemed, for little, absolute for the light from the pentacle was too weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall. I tell you for a moment I just sat there as though I had been frozen solid. I felt the creep go all over me and seemed to stop in my brain. I felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I began, however, to feel better after a while but I simply had not the pluck to move. You can understand. Presently I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and flashlight and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched a little, his head forward but though it was motionless I knew that his eyes were not. I could hear how one knows that sort of thing at times. The police were just as silent and thus a while passed. A sudden sound broke across the silence. From two sides of the room there came faint noises. I recognized them at once as the breaking of the ceiling wax. The sealed doors were opening. I raised the camera and flashlight and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall I felt the men all about me jump. The darkness fell like a clap of thunder if you can understand it seemed tenfold. Yet in the moment of brightness I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open. Suddenly all around us there sounded a drip, drip, drip upon the floor of the great hall. I thrilled with a queer realizing emotion and a sense of a very real and present danger imminent. The blood drip had commenced and the grim question was now whether the barriers could save us from whatever had come into the huge room. Through some awful minutes the blood drip continued to fall in an increasing rain and presently some began to fall within the barriers. I saw several great drops splash and star upon the pale glowing intertwining tubes of the electric pentacle but strangely enough I could not trace that any fell among us. Beyond the strange horrible noise of the drip there was no other sound and then abruptly from the borehound over in the far corner there came a terrible yelling howl of agony followed instantly by a sickening breaking noise and an immediate silence. If you have ever went out shooting broken a rabbit's neck you will know the sound in miniature. Like lightning the thought sprang into my brain it has crossed the pentacle for you will remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly with a sick apprehension of our own barriers there was something in the hall with us that had passed the barrier of the pentacle about one of the dogs. In the awful succeeding silence I positively quivered and suddenly one of the men behind me gave out a scream like any woman and bolted for the door. He fumbled and headed open in a moment. I yelled to the others not to move but they followed like sheep and I heard them kick the candles flying in their panic. One of them stepped on the electric pentacle and smashed it and there was utter darkness. In an instant I realized that I was defenseless against the powers of the unknown world and with one savage leap I was out of the useless barriers and instantly threw the great doorway and into the night. I believe I yelled with sheer funk. The men were a little ahead of me and I never ceased running and neither did they. Sometimes I glanced back over my shoulder and I kept glancing into the laurels which grew all along the drive. The beastly things kept rustling, rustling in a hollow sort of way as though something were keeping parallel with me among them. The rain had stopped and a dismal little wind kept moaning through the grounds. It was disgusting. I caught Wentworth and the police at the lodge gate. We got outside and ran all the way to the village. We found old Dennis up waiting for us and half the villagers to keep him company. He told us that he had known in his soul that we should come back that is if we came back at all which is not a bad rendering of his remark. Fortunately I had brought my camera away from the house possibly because the strap had happened to be over my head yet I did not go straight away to develop but sat with the rest of the bar where we talked for some hours trying to be coherent about the whole horrible business. Later however I went up to my room and proceeded with my photography. I was steadier now and it was just possible so I hoped that the negatives might show something. On two of the plates I found nothing unusual but on the third which was the first one that I snapped I saw something which made me quite excited. I examined it very carefully with a magnifying glass then I put it to wash and slipped a pair of rubber overshoes over my boots. The negative had showed me something very extraordinary and I had made up my mind to test the truth of what it seemed to indicate without losing another moment. It was no use telling anything to Wentworth and the police until I was certain and also I believed that I stood a greater chance to succeed by myself though for that matter I do not suppose anything would have taken them up to the manor again that night. I took my revolver and went quietly downstairs and into the dark. The rain had commenced again but that did not bother me. I walked hard. When I came to the lodge gates a sudden queer instinct stopped me from going through and I climbed the wall into the park. I kept away from the drive and approached the building through the dismal dripping laurels. You can imagine how beastly it was. Every time a leaf rustled I jumped. I made my way round to the back of the big house and got in through a little window which I had taken note of during my search for, of course, I knew the whole place from roof to cellars. I went silently up the kitchen stairs fairly quivering with funk and at the top I went to the left and then into a long corridor that opened through one of the doorways we had sealed into the big hall. I looked up it and saw a faint flicker of light away at the end and I tiptoed silently toward it holding my revolver ready. As I came near to the open door I heard men's voices and then a burst of laughing. I went on until I could see into the hall. There were several men there, all in a group. They were well-dressed and one at least I saw was armed. They were examining my barriers against the supernatural with a good deal of unkind laughter. I never felt such a fool in my life. It was plain to me that they were a gang of men who had made use of the empty manor perhaps for years for some purpose of their own. And now that Wentworth was attempting to take possession they were acting up the traditions of the place with the view of driving him away and keeping so useful a place still at their disposal. But what they were I mean whether coiners, thieves, inventors or what I could not imagine. Presently they left the pentacle and gathered round the living borehound which seemed curiously quiet as though it were half-drugged. There was some talk as to whether to let the poor brute live or not but finally they decided it would be good policy to kill it. I saw two of them force a twisted loop of rope into its mouth and the two bites of the loop were brought together in the back of the hound's neck. Then a third man thrust a thick walking stick through the two loops. The two men with the rope stooped to hold the dog so that I could not see what was done but the poor beast gave a sudden awful howl and immediately there was a repetition of the uncomfortable breaking sound I had heard earlier in the night, as you will remember. The men stood up and left the dog lying there quiet enough now as you may suppose. For my part I fully appreciated the calculated remorselessness which had decided upon the animal's death and the cold determination with which it had afterward been executed so neatly. I guessed that a man who might get into the light of these particular men would be likely to come to quite as uncomfortable an ending. A minute later one of the men called out to the rest that they should shift the wires. One of the men came toward the doorway of the corridor in which I stood and I ran quickly back into the darkness of the upper end. I saw the man reach up and take something from the top of the door and I heard the slight ringing jangle of steel wire. When he had gone I ran back again and saw the men passing, one after another through an opening in the stairs formed by one of the marble steps being raised. When the last man had vanished the slab that made the step was shut down and there was no sign of a secret door. It was the seventh step from the bottom as I took care to count and a splendid idea for it was so solid that it did not ring hollow even to a fairly heavy hammer as I found later. There is little more to tell. I got out of the house as quickly and quietly as possible and back to the inn. The police came without any coaxing when they knew the ghosts were normal flesh and blood. We entered the park and the manor in the same way that I had done. Yet when we tried to open the step we failed and had finally to smash it. This must have warned the haunters for when we descended to a secret room which we found at the end of a long and narrow passage in the thickness of the walls we found no one. The police were horribly disgusted as you can imagine but for my part I did not care either way. I had laid the ghost as you might say and that was what I set out to do. I was not particularly afraid of being laughed at by the others for they had all been thoroughly taken in and at the end I had scored without their help. We searched right through the secret ways and found that there was an exit at the end of a long tunnel which opened in the side of a well out in the grounds. The ceiling of the hall was hollow and reached by a little secret stairway inside of the big staircase. The blood drip was merely coloured water dropped through the minute crevices of the ornamented ceiling. How the candles and the fire were put out I do not know. The fire certainly did not act quite up to tradition which held that the lights would be put out by the blood drip. Perhaps it was too difficult to direct the fluid without positively squirting it which might have given the whole thing away. The candles and the fire may possibly have been extinguished by the agency of carbonic acid gas but how suspended I have no idea. The secret hiding places were of course ancient. There was also did I tell you a bell which they had rigged up to ring when anyone entered the gates at the end of the drive. If I had not climbed the wall I should have found nothing from my pains for the bell would have warned them I had gone in through the gateway. What was on the negative I ask with much curiosity? A picture of the fine wire with which they were grappling for the hook that held the entrance door open. They were doing it from one of the crevices in the ceiling. They had evidently made no preparations for lifting the hook. I suppose they never thought that anyone could use of it and so they had to improvise a grapple. The wire was too fine to be seen by the amount of light we had in the hall but the flashlight picked it out. Do you see? The opening of the inner doors was managed by wires as you will have guessed which they unshipped after use or else I should soon have found them when I made my search. I think I have now explained everything. The hound was killed of course by the men direct. You see they made the place as dark as possible first. Of course if I had managed to take a flashlight just at that instant the whole secret of the haunting would have been exposed but fate just ordered it the other way. And the tramps I ask? Oh you mean the two tramps who were found dead in the manor said Karnaki. Well of course it is impossible to be sure one way or the other. Perhaps they happened to find out something and were given a hypodermic or it is just as probable that they had come to the time of their dying and died naturally. It is conceivable that a great many tramps had slept in the old house at one time or another. Karnaki stood up and knocked out his pipe. We rose also and went for our coats and hats. Out you go said Karnaki genially using the recognized formula and we went out onto the embankment and presently through the darkness to our various homes. End of chapter 2