By the same Author
Thb Sceptic (Psychic Play)
IlBraA-noNS of a Spirit Medium (Jomt Editor with E. J. Dingwall)
Com Light on Spiritualistic ‘Phenomena’
Sthua C.: an Account of Some Original Experi- ments in Psychical Research Illusionbmo (Enaclopedia Itahana)
Rudi Schneideh: a Scientific Examination of Ha Mediums hip
Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship
An Account of Some Further Experiments with Rudi Schneider
Leaves from a Psychht’s Cash-Book The Haunting of Cashbn’s Gap: a Modern ‘Miracle’ Investigated (m Collaboration with R. S.Lambert) Faith and Firb-Waixinc (Encyclopctdu, Britannic*)
A Report on Two Experimental Fire-Walks
valkmg over red-hot embers during first fire-walk r held m Great Britain, September 9, 1935.
(S« pap 369)
CONFESSIONS OF A GHOST-HUNTER
BY
HARRY PRICE
HONORARY BBC JUT ARY, UNIVBMITY 07 LONDON COUNCIL FOR PSYCHICAL INVESTIGATION
PUTNAM
COVFNT GARDFN TONDON
First Published February If>y6
Contents
Foreword - -- -- -- 7
I. The Ghost that Stumbled ij
II. The Most Haunted House in England - 25
HI. Some Adventures in Haunted Houses 36
IV. The Strange Exploits of a London Polter-
geist ------ - 55
V. ‘Grand Hotel’ and Other Mysteries 65
VI. The Talking Mongoose 85
VII. Some Curious Claims to Mediumship 98
VIII. From Kensington to the Planet Mars - - 117
IX. The Strange Case of Madame X - - 131
X. How to Test a Medium - - - - 140
XI. Secrets of ‘Spirit’ Photography - - - 168
XII. Convincing Experiments with a French
ClAIRVOYANTE ------ 209
Xm. Rudi Schneider: the Last Phase 226
XTV. New Light on the Abrams ‘Magic Box’? - 237
XV. Stage Telepathy and Vaudeville ‘Pheno-
mena’ ------- 253
XVI. A Clever American Hyper^sthetb - 278
XVH. A Tyrolean Night’s Entertainment - - 286
XVm. Adventures with a Showman-Hypnotist - 297
XEX. ‘The Man with the X-ray Eyes’ - 312
XX. Pale Black Magic ----- 322
4 Contents
XXL *1 Have Seen the Indian Rope Trick’ - - 344
XXIL How I Brought the Fire-Walk to England - 355
Index - -- -- -- -383
List of Illustrations
Kuda Bux walking over red-hot embers daring first fire-walk ever held in Great Britain, September 9, 1935 -------- Frontispiece
The author’s ghost-hunting kit ----- 32
Madame Eugenie Picquart in the impersonations of (1) ‘Coquehn’; (2) an old French judge; (3) Mephistophelcs; (4) Egyptian mummy - 102
‘Spirit’ photographs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, etc., showing cut-out effect ------ 178
Effect of radio-active minerals on a sealed box of photographic plates ______ 204
Marion ‘finding’ a pre-selected playing card - - 254
Marion psychometrising a letter ----- 262
‘Sentry-box’ apparatus used m Marion experiments - 266
Marion making a ‘trial’ of a tin box as to whether it contains a hidden object _____ 272
Plywood shroud and visor, constructed for tests with Marion ________ 276
Kuda Bux, blindfolded, duplicating shorthand characters drawn on a blackboard ------ 316
Mr. Harry Price on the site of the Brocken Goethejahr experiment --------338
Karachi and his son, Kyder, performing the Indian rope trick - -- -- -- -- 348
Kuda Bux’s feet being medically examined by physician immediately before final fire-walk, September 17, i93j - 364
6 List of Illustrations
Mr. Digby Moynagh attempting the fire-walk at final
test, September 17, 1935 - 364
Kuda Box’s feet, quite uninjured, after first fire-walk, September 9, 1935 ------- 370
Kuda Bux performing the fire-walk at final test, Sep- tember 17, 1935 ------- 374
Illustrations in the Text
The Martian alphabet, complete - 126
Signature of Oomaruru ------ 126
‘Thank you!’ in Martian ------ 126
Head of Pawleenoos, ‘cultured Martian giant’ - - 127
‘Symphonic chant’ of the Martians - 127
Detector used m radio experiments - - - - 243
Kuda Bux’s signatures, in Kashmiri characters - - 313
Collection of eighteenth-century Sussex love-tokens, charms, or witch-scarers (reduced) - 325
Reproduction of handbill of James Hallett, the Sussex charlatan. Note the reference to the cure of Witch- craft. Chichester, 1795-97 ----- 327
Reproduction of halfpenny bronze token of James Hallett, the Sussex charlatan ----- 328
Foreword
The science of investigating alleged abnormal phenomena has, like most other sciences, advanced by leaps and bounds during die last few years. Before the War a back parlour, a red lamp, a circle of credulous sitters and a vivid imagination were all that was thought necessary in order to ‘investigate’ a medium. Of course, psychic science made no progress. The methods of these researchers were derided by official science and orthodoxy refused to listen to them.
But with the War came a change. A wave of interest in the possibility of an after-life swept the country like a tornado. This interest was purely emotional, based as it was on the fact that tens of thousands of the flower of our manhood were being shot down. Relatives mourned them, but with their grief was the hope — almost the belief— that their sons, though dead, would survive in another world. The ranks of the spiritualists over- flowed with those who hoped
But the great wave of emotion that swept the country carried on its crest a few sane people who, while admitting the possi- bility of an after-life, demanded that the alleged phenomena said to be produced in the stance-room should be scientifically investigated by qualified and unbiased persons. To meet this de- mand I founded (1925) the National Laboratory of Psychical Research which, in June 1934, was taken over by the Univer- sity of London Council for Psychical Investigation. Most of the cases recorded in these Confessions were investigated by me as Director of the National Laboratory.
Where shall we go when we die? I am afraid there is nothing in this volume that will supply an answer. The answer may be
8 Foreword
there, but perhaps I cannot read it. For thirty yean I have been engaged upon an intensive quest as to what happens after death, and the solution of the eternal problem still eludes me. The spiritualists will tell you that they have evidence that die soul, ego, or personality not only survives the grave, but that the dis- camate endues of their loved ones ‘come back* and converse with diem through a person of abnormal sensibility who is called a ‘medium*. My reply to die spiritualists is that, though I admit some of the phenomena which they obtain at stances, there is no scientific proof of survival. The evidence upon which the supporters of the spirit hypothesis base their claims is obtained principally through ‘mental* mediums (such as clair- voyants) who purport to interpret supemormally the voices of those who, as they term it, have ‘passed over*. Let me say at once that much of the evidence obtained through clairvoyants and trance mediums is very impressive; that is, impressive as to the abnormality of the communications which they deliver m a state of what is called a trance — though what a mediumistic trance is, no one knows, and it cannot be tested.
But I cross swords with the spiritualists as to the causation of the phenomena which we both admit. I am told that the 'messages’, etc., obtained through an entranced psychic are ‘evidential*. I agree, but evidential of what? They are evidential only of their abnormality — not that they were uttered by, or inspired by, the spirits of those who were once living.
Our knowledge of the conscious mind is really very limited; our ignorance of the subconscious mind is profound. Is it, then, very remarkable that science suggests that these so-called spirit messages (even when uttered by mediums who are honest) may come from die subconscious mind of the entranced medium, or (by telepathy) from the conscious or subconscious mind of the sitters? Unfortunately, we have no scientific evidence that even telepathy is a fret. But, the spiritualists argue, the mediums tell us things which were unknown both to themselves and their
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 9
sitters. This I am prepared to admit, but does that prove spirit origin? Of course it does nothing of the kind; it proves merely that the medium has, in some obscure way, obtained knowledge unknown to any person present at the stance. It does not prove survival
Assuming that the information obtained abnormally was known only to a dead person, that, too, would not prove sur- vival or that there are spirits: but it might prove the existence of what has been termed the ‘psychic factor’.1 The psychic factor has been suggested as an intangible ‘something’ possessed by a person which may survive the grave. The theory is that, at death, this psychic factor (not to be confused with the soul or personalty) may linger on awhile and, under certain conditions, combine with the mind of an entranced medium. From this combination — it is suggested — emerges another mind, made up partly from the mind of the medium and partly from that ‘something’ which once belonged to the dead person. This theory has been termed the ‘emergent theory’. Assuming that there is any truth in the ‘emergent theory’, it is very easy to see how an entranced medium’s utterances may include frets known only to a dead person; but it does not prove the survival of the soul ego, or personality. And obviously it does not prove that the dead can return to earth, and behave like the living.
In my work, Leaves from a Psychist's Case-Book ,* I gave sev- eral instances of how the most extraordinary information, alleged to emanate from the spirits of dead persons, was re- ceived by a medium in trance. The most striking incident was where the alleged spirit of Lieutenant Irwin came back within forty-eight hours of the crashing of the Rioi airship and gave
1Sce The Mind and Its Place in Nature, by C. D. Broad, London, 1925. (The Tamer Lectures, delivered in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1923.) The author suggests an ‘emergent theory’ based on an assumed ‘psychic factor’.
•Gollancz, London, 1933.
io Foreword
a circumstantial, detailed, and highly technical account1 of the disaster. The psychic was Mrs. Garrett, the British trance medium, who does not know one end of an airship from the other. The sitters present at the stance were also quite ignorant of such a highly-specialised business as navigating an airship; yet ’Lieutenant Irwin’ gave particulars of the Rioi which were semi-official secrets, and which were afterwards confirmed at the public inquiry. Where did the information come from? From the spirit of Irwin? Perhaps, but we cannot prove it.
Another problem that confronts the dispassionate investiga- tor is the contradictory accounts of how and where spirits dwell. Sir Oliver Lodge’s ‘Raymond’* gives us a picture of life in the Summerland that appears very little different from our condition on earth. He describes the same pains and pleasures experienced by mortals, and no normal person would make undue haste to join him. And it must be admitted that Ray- mond imparts to us no knowledge that can be regarded as transcendental. Another ‘spirit’ will give us a totally different description of obviously, a totally different place. It will talk of ‘spheres’, where the discamate advance in stages towards some goal. Some other medium will tell an entirely different story as to what happens when we ‘pass on’. And the accounts of Sum- merland as we hear them to-day differ from those which were recorded fifty years ago. Can we doubt that these descriptions of die after-life are drawn from the conscious or subconscious mind of the medium who happens to be relating the story?
I repeat that nothing transcendental has ever been received from any spirit who has ‘returned’. We have discovered no dis- camate Shakespeare or Michelangelo; not one iota has been
1See Leaves from a Psyckist’s Case-Book, by Harry Price, London, 1933, pp. 118-32.
•See: Raymond: or. Life Afeer Death, by Sir Oliver Lodge, London [1916]; abo Raymond: Some Criticisms, by Viicount Halifax, London, 1917; and Some Revelations as to ‘ Raymond f; an Authoritative Statement by a Plain Citizen, London [c. 1916]
II
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter added to our art, literature, or learning. On die contrary, most of the stuff that trance mediums pour forth is the veriest twaddle. Even the spiritualists themselves are beginning to realise this, just as the more reputable spiritualist journals are now ruthlessly exposing the fraudulent medium who battens on the credulity of the ignorant and the wretchedness of die bereaved.
Although I have emphasised that we have no scientific proof of ‘survival’, I must admit that the spirit hypothesis can be made to explain many of those mysteries, both in and out of the stance-room, which have intrigued me for so many years. Some of the cases recorded m this volume become more intelli- gible if the reader is a spiritualist. Such curious incidents as ‘die ghost that stumbled’, the London Poltergeist , the most haunted house, the ghost of the Unter den Linden, my disturbed night m the sleeping-car, and the adventures in haunted houses, can all be explained if one is prepared to admit that the dead can return and manifest in the same way as the living. But is that the answer? I wonder. As yet there is no answer, though a number of scientists and others, and certain universities, are trying to supply one.
I have endeavoured to make these Confessions as diverse as possible. I have also tried to make them readable. For those who want more detailed, technical and analytical reports of certain of the cases (some of which were published in The Listener dur- ing the summer of 1935), the original protocols are available. But they are of more interest to the student than the general reader. Almost the entire gamut of alleged abnormal manifesta- tions can be found within the two covers of this volume. From fire-walking to hysteriacs, and from a ‘talking mongoose’ to a trip to Mars (via the stance-room) the reader has a wide choice of ‘miracles’ to choose from. I have purposely refrained from stressing the seamy side of spiritualism. The public is sick and tired of the fraudulent ‘psychic’ and his rather stale tricks. If I
ra Foreword
have devoted little space to die charlatan, I have described at some length the attractive entertainments of the vaudeville ‘medium* whose clever and instructive performances have been rather neglected by experimenters. The work of such men as Marion, Kuda Box, Dr. Mdvor-Tyndall, Maloitz, etc., will, I am sure, be a revelation to the uninitiated. Finally, I hope the chapter on how to test a medium will prove of real value to those readers whose interest in psychical research is active rather than academic.
H. P.
CONFESSIONS OF A GHOST-HUNTER
I. The Ghost that Stumbled
My first ‘ghost’ was made of cardboard. I will hasten to explain that it was the ‘property’ spectre of a three-act psychic play, ‘The Sceptic’, which I wrote and produced1 when I was still a schoolboy. Of course I took the principal part my- self, and I am sure I played the hero with considerable histrionic verve!
The reason I mention my early attempt at portraying the supernatural is because ‘The Scepnc’ was the dramatised record of a remarkable experience which befell me when I investigated my first haunted house.
As a member of an old Shropshire family, I spent nearly all my holidays and school vacations in a little village — m fact, a hamlet— which I will call Parton Magna. In Parton Magna is the old Manor House, circa a.d. 1600. It had been purchased by a retired canon of the Church of England, and his wife. There were rumours that the place was haunted— but popular tradi- tion provides a ghost for every old country house, especially if a tragedy has taken place within it.
Within a very few weeks of the canon’s settling down with lus household in their new home, reports were received of curi- ous happenings in the stables and out-buildmgs. Though fas- tened securely overnight, stable doors were found ajar in the morning. Animals were discovered untethcred and wandering; pans of milk were overturned in the dairy, and utensils scat- tered about. The woodshed received the attentions of the nocturnal visitant nearly every night. Piles of logs neady
*At die Amenham Hall, Lewisham, on Friday, Dec. 2, 1898. For doenp- non, »ec South London Press, Dec, 10, 1 898.
1 6 The Ghost that Stumbled
stacked were found scattered in the morning, in spite of the fact that the door of the shed was kept locked. The manifesta- tions in the woodshed became so frequent and troublesome that it was decided to keep watch. This was done on several eve- nings, a farm-hand secreting himself behind a stack of logs. Upon every occasion when a watch was kept on the wood, nothing happened inside the shed. On those nights when the shed was watched from within, pebbles were flung on to the corrugated iron roofing, the noise they made rolling down the metal being plainly heard. Then a watch was kept both inside and outside of the shed, but no one was seen, though the peb- bles were heard as before. The experienced reader will recog- nise m my narrative a Poltergeist case running true to type.
The disturbances around the house continued with unabated vigour week after week until even local mterest waned some- what. Then, quite suddenly, they almost ceased, the disturbing entity transferring its activities to the inside of the mansion, which I will now describe.
The Manor House was built for comfort, though it has been restored at various times. From the large hall a wide staircase leads to a landing. At the top of the stairs (of which there are about fifteen — but I am speaking from memory) is, or was, a solid oak gate placed across to prevent dogs from roaming over the whole house. The staircase I have mentioned leads to the more important rooms opening out of a short gallery.
The first indication received by the canon and his family that the entity had turned its attention to the interior of the house was a soft ‘pattering’ sound, as of a child’s bare feet running up and down the wide passage or gallery. The noises were at first taken to be those caused by a large bird or small animal out of the fields; a watch was kept, but investigation proved fruitless. These same noises were heard night after night, but nothing could be discovered. Then the maids commenced complaining that the kitchen utensils were being disturbed, usually during
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 17
their absence, in the daytime especially. Pots and pans would fall off shelves for no ascertainable reason when a maid was within a few feet of them, but always when her back was turned. I do not remember its being proved that a person actually saw a phenomenal happening of any description, though many were heard. Another curious circumstance connected with this case was the disturbing entity’s fondness for raking out the fires dur- ing the night. The danger of fire from this cause was so obvious that, before retiring to rest, the canon’s wife had water poured on the dying embers.
Like every old country house worthy of the name, the Manor, Parton Magna, had a ‘history’ which at the period of my story was being sedulously discussed by the villagers. The story is that the house was built by a rich recluse who, through an unfortunate affaire de coeur, decided to retire from the world and its disappointments. A niece, who acted as chatelaine, looked after the old man and managed his servants. One night, some few years after their settlement at the Manor House, the recluse became suddenly demented, went to his niece’s apart- ment and, with almost superhuman strength, strangled the girl in bed. After this most unavuncular act the old man left the house, spent the night in the neighbouring woods and at day- break threw himself into the river that runs through the fields near die house. The legend, like the Poltergeist, also runs true to type. Like most traditions, there is a gram of truth in the story, the fact being that many years previously a girl named Mary Hulse had died at the Manor under suspicious circum- stances.
It can be imagined that the canon’s health was suffering under the anxiety caused by the disturbing events I have recorded above, and he was persuaded to leave the house for at least a short period. This was in the early autumn. On my way bade to school for the Michaelmas term I broke my journey at Parton Magna in order to stay a few days with our friends, who then
18 The Ghost that Stumbled
made me acquainted with the state of affairs at the Manor House; in fact, it was the principal topic of conversation. The canon and his household had by then vacated their home tem- porarily, the premises being looked after by the wife of one of the cowmen. What really drove the family out was the fact that the nocturnal noises were becoming greater; in particular, a steady thump, thump, thump (as of someone m heavy boots stamping about the house), disturbing the rest of the inmates night after night. I decided I would investigate, and invited a boy friend to jom me m the adventure.
Permission to spend a night in the Manor was easily obtained from the woman (who lived m a cottage near the house) who was looking after the place, and doubtless she regarded us as a couple of mad schoolboys who would have been much better in bed.
I must confess that I had not the slightest idea what we were going to do, or going to see, or what I ought to take with me in the way of apparatus. But the last question was very soon settled because all I had with me was a J-plate Lancaster stand camera. On the morning of the adventure I cycled mto the near- est town and bought some magnesium powder, a bell switch, a hank of flex wire, two Darnell’s batteries and some sulphuric acid. A big hole was made m my term’s pocket money! In the afternoon I assembled my batteries and switch and prepared the flash powder by means of which I hoped to photograph — some- thing! So that there should be no unwillingness on the part of the magnesium to ‘go off’ at the psychological moment, I ex- tracted the white smokeless gunpowder from four or five sporting cartridges and mixed it with the magnesium powder. By a lucky chance I had with me a delicate chemical balance which I was taking back to school. With the weights was a platinum wire ‘rider’ which I inserted in the electrical circuit in order to ignite the magnesium flash-powder. With the above- mentioned impedimenta, a box of matches, some candles, a
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 19
stable lantern, a piece of chalk, a ball of string, a box of rapid plates, a parcel of food, the camera and accessories and (forbid- den luxury!) some cigarettes, we bade a tender farewell to our friends and made our way across the fields to the Manor House, where we arrived at about 9.30 p.m.
The first thing we did when we reached our destination was to search every room and attic, and close and fasten every win- dow. We locked the doors of those rooms which were capable of being treated in this manner and removed the keys. The doors leading to the exterior of the house were locked, bolted and barred, and chairs or other obstacles piled in front of them. We were determined that no material being should enter the portals without our cognisance. After we had searched every nook and cranny of the building, we established ourselves in die morning-room, locked the door and waited for something — or somebody — to ‘turn up’. Our only illumination was the light of the stable lantern which we placed on the table.
At about half-past eleven, when we were beginning to get very sleepy and wishing (though we did not admit it) that we were in our nice warm beds, my friend thought he heard a noise in the room overhead (the traditional apartment of the unfortunate Mary Hulsc). I, too, had heard a noise, but con- cluded it was caused by a wandering rodent or the wind. It did not sound an unusual noise. A few minutes later there was a ‘thud’ in the room above which left nothing to the imagination. It sounded as if someone had stumbled over a chair. I will not attempt to describe our feelings at the discovery that we were not alone in the house: for a moment or so we were almost paralysed with fear. But, remembering what we were there for, we braced up our nerves and waited. Just before midnight we again heard a noise m the room above; it was as if a heavy person were stamping about in clogs. A minute or so later the footfalls sounded as if they had left the room and were travers- ing die short gallery. Then they approached the head of die
*> The Ghost that Stumbled
ttun, yxostb at the dog-gate (which we had securely fastened with string), and commenced descending the stairs. We dis- tinctly counted the fifteen ‘thumps’ corresponding to the num- ber of stairs— and I need hard Jy mention that our hearts were ‘thumping’ in unison. ‘It’ seemed to pause in the hall when die bottom of the stain was reached, and we were wondering what was going to happen next. The fact that only a door intervened between us and the mysterious intruder made us take a lively in- terest in what its next move would be. We were not kept long in suspense. The entity, having paused in the hall for about three minutes, turned tail and stumped up the stairs again, every step being plainly heard. We again counted the number of ‘thumps’, and were satisfied that ‘it’ was at the top of the flight — where again a halt was made at the dog-gate. But no further noise was heard when this gate bar! been reached. My friend and I waited at the door for a few minutes more, and then we decided to investigate the neighbourhood of the dog- gate and Mary Hulse’s room. But we had barely formed this resolution before we heard the ‘thumps’ descending the stairs again. With quickened pulse I again counted the fifteen heavy footsteps, which were getting nearer and nearer and louder and louder. There was another pause in the hall, and again the foot- falls commenced their upward journey. But by this time the excitement of the adventure was making us bolder; we were acquiring a little of that contempt which is bred by familiarity. We decided to have a look at our quarry, if it were tangibly so with my courage in one hand and the camera in the other, I opened the door. My friend was close behind with the stable lantern. By this time the ‘ghost’ was on about the fifth stair, but with the opening of the door leading into the hall die noise of its ascent stopped dead.
Realising that the ‘ghost’ was as frightened of meeting us as we were of seeing it (although that is what we had come for), we thought we would again examine die stairs and the upper
21
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter
part of the house. This we did very thoroughly, but found nothing disturbed. The dog-gate was still latched and tied with string. To this day I am wondering whether ‘it’ climbed over the gate (easily accomplished by a mortal), or whether it slipped through the bars. I dunk we were disappointed at not seeing anything we could photograph, so decided to make an attempt at a flashlight picture if the Poltergeist would descend the stairs again.
For my stand for the flash-powder I utilised some household steps about six feet high which we found in the kitchen. I opened out the steps and placed them about twelve feet from the bottom of the stairs. On the top of the steps in an old Waterbury watch-case I placed a heaped-up eggcupful of the magnesium-cwm-gunpowder mixture — enough to photograph every ghost in the county ! But in my simple enthusiasm I was running no risks of under-exposure. I placed the Daniell’s bat- teries in the morning-room, and connected them up with the magnesium powder on the steps and the bell-push on the floor of the room, the wire flex entering the room under the door. In the heap of powder I had buried my platinum ‘rider’ which was interposed in the electrical circuit.
The exact position as to where we should photograph the entity presented some difficulty. We were not quite sure what happened to it when it reached the hall, so we decided to make an attempt at photographing it when it was ascending or de- scending the stain. We decided on the former position, arguing (which shows how simple we were!) that the ‘ghost’ would have become less suspicious of us by the time it was on its return journey! I stationed my friend on the seventh or eighth stair (I forget which), and he held a lighted match which I accurately focused on the ground-glass of my Lancaster Le Mbitoire camera, which I placed on one of the treads of the steps. I inserted die dark-slide, withdrew the flap, uncapped die lens, and then all was ready. The whole thing was rather mad.
22 The Ghost that Stumbled
of course, but the reader must remember that we were very
young, with no experience of Poltergeist photography.
By the time we had fixed up the camera and examined the connections it was about half-past one. During the time we were moving about the hall not a sound was heard from above- stairs. Having arranged everything to our satisfaction, we re- turned to the morning-room, locked the door again and ex- tinguished the lantern. Then we lay upon the carpet near the door, with the pear-push in my hand, and commenced our vigil.
It must have been nearly an hour before we heard anything, and again it was from the Mary Hulse room that the noises emanated. The sounds were identical to those we had previ- ously heard: as if someone in clogs were treading heavily. Shortly after, the ‘thumps’ could be heard approaching the dog- gate and again ‘it’ paused at the top of the stairs. The pause was greater than the previous one, and for a minute or so we thought the Poltergeist had come to the end of its journey; but no, it passed over — or through — the dog-gate and commenced stumping down the stairs again. Having reached the hall the visitant stopped, and in my mind’s eye I could picture it exam- ining the arrangements we had made for securing its photo- graph. Then we thought we heard the steps moved. In order to get the camera square with the stairs I had taken a large book — using it as a set-square — and drawn on the tiled floor a chalk line parallel with the stairs. Exactly against this line I had placed the two front feet of the steps.
During the next five or six minutes we heard no movement in the halL Then suddenly ‘it’ started its return journey. With our hearts beating wildly and with suppressed excitement we lay on the floor counting the slow, measured ‘thumps' as they ascended the stairs. At the seventh ‘thump’ I pressed the button of my pear-push and — a most extraordinary thing happened, which is rather difficult to describe on paper. At the moment of
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 23
the explosion the ‘ghost’ was so startled that it involuntarily stumbled on the stairs, as we could plainly hear, and then there was silence. At the same moment there was a clattering down the stairs as if the spontaneous disintegration of the disturbing entity had taken place. The flash from the ignition of the pow- der was so vivid that even the morning-room from which we were directing operations was lit up by the rays coming from under the door, which was rather lll-fkting.
It would be difficult to say who was the more startled — the Poltergeist or myself, and for some moments we did nothing. After our astonishment had subsided somewhat, we opened the door and found the hall filled with a dense white smoke in which we could hardly breathe. We re-capped the camera, re- lit our lantern, and made a tour of inspection. The first thing we noticed was that the steps were shifted slightly out of the square. Whether ‘it’ moved the steps (as we thought at the time), or whether the shock of the explosion was responsible (which is doubtful), we could not determine. The Waterbury watch-case had disappeared with my platinum ‘rider’, and I have never seen the latter from that day to this. The watch-case we found eventually on the second stair from the bottom. What happened to it was apparently this: through die ex- tremely rapid conversion of the gunpowder and magnesium mto gases, and the concavity of the interior periphery of the case tending to retain the gases, the case was converted mto a projectile, the very active propellant shooting it towards the stairs (the force of the explosion happening to send it in that direction), which it must have hit at about the spot where the entity was ascending — surely the only recorded instance of a ‘ghost’ having a watch-case fired at it, and it has been suggested that I call this narrative ‘How I “shot” my first Poltergeist’ l The sound of the watch-case filling was the rattling noise we heard when we thought we should find our quarry lying in pieces at the foot of the staircase. We immediately developed the plate.
a* The Ghost that Stumbled
bat nothing bat an over-exposed picture of the staircase was on
the negative.
The Manor House continued to be the centre of psychic activity for some months after our curious adventure, but the disturbances became gradually less frequent, and eventually ceased. Fate decreed that some years later I should spend very many happy weeks in the house. If sometimes during that per- iod my heart beat fester than its accustomed rate, the tany was not a supernatural one! Suffice it to say that I did not see or hear anything of the alleged spirit of Mary Hulse, though I will can- didly admit that I was not looking for her— my interest in the diaphanous maiden having been transferred by that time to one of a much more objective nature !
II. The Most Haunted House in England
On Tuesday, June n, 1929, 1 was lunching with a friend, when his telephone bell rang. The call was for me, from die editor of a great London daily. He had been trying to find me all the morning. He told me an extraordinary story. It ap- peared that one of his representatives had sent in a report of a most unusual Poltergeist case that was disturbing the inmates of a country house somewhere in the Home Counties. He sought my co-operation in unravelling the mystery. His man had been at the house for two days and was impressed by what he had seen and heard. Would I take up the case? I eagerly accepted his invitation.
That same afternoon I telegraphed to the tenant saying I would be with him the next day. His reply was: ‘Thank God — come quickly. Will expect you to lunch.’ The next morning found my secretary and me speeding through the countryside full of hope as to what we were going to see. As we took turns at the wheel, we discussed what the trouble might be. My ex- perience told me to look for a mischievous adolescent, rats, practical jokers — or the village idiot. I have wasted very many weeks in acquiring this knowledge. But, I argued, a London reporter is not easily impressed; usually he is hard-headed, sceptical, and prone to scoff at such things as ‘ghosts’. If the re- presentative of the Daily was convinced of something
abnormal, obviously the affair was worth inquiring into. We had been so busily discussing the case that, before we realised it,
we discovered we were on the outskirts of W , a market
town. With considerable difficulty, we found our way to K Manor, which is situated in a tiny hamlet, seven miles off
26
The Most Haunted House in England the main road, and near nowhere in particular. We found that the laige entrance gates had been opened for us and, as I swung my car up the drive, we could see our host, Mr. H. Robinson,1 and his wife waiting to welcome us. We jumped out and crossed the threshold of what I am certain is the most haunted house in England; a house in which I have seen and heard the most convincing Poltergeist phenomena; and a house which, if it were in the market, I would purchase in order to study in situ manifestations of an absolutely abnormal nature. Not only is
K Manor the perfect conception of a haunted house (as
regards both situation and variety of phenomena), but its psychic history goes back many years and is fully documented.
At lunch we heard the complete history of the house and its traditions, together with a detailed account of those mamfesta- ftons which had brought us to such an out-of-the-way spot. The account which follows is from the verbatim notes which my secretary made during luncL
K Manor is a large house with nine acres of ground,
through which runs a little stream that empties itself m a pond. The grounds are well wooded, and one path, known as the ‘Nun’s Walk’, leads to the little church and churchyard. Con- tiguous to the walk on one side is a lawn. The house is not an old one, having been built about 1863. It was erected on the site of a twelfth-century monastery, the crypt of which is still preserved. For many years the property has belonged to the Perdval family. The mansion was built by Mr. Thomas Percival, who resided there. He died there m 1897. His son, Mr. Walter Percival, then became the occupier. He succumbed to a painful and lingering illness in 1927. He died m the ‘Blue Room’. A succession of owners occupied the mansion, but it was alleged that none would stop more than a few months, owing to the disturbances. In the spring of 1929 Mr. H. Robin- son rented the house, and spent ^200 on doing the place up;
1For obvious reasons, some of the names in this report are fictitious.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 27
his occupation was the signal for a display of supernormal hap- penings which, eventually, drove him out. But I am antici- pating.
Now for the traditions, because K Manor has several. At
the period when the monastery was in its heyday, a coachman belonging to the establishment fell in love with a nun attached to a convent nearby. Their clandestine meetings culminated in an attempted elopement in a black coach drawn by two bay horses, driven by a lay brother. The tno were missed, over- taken, and brought back. The three were tried by their respec- tive superiors. The maiden was walled up alive and the coach- men beheaded. So much for the principal legend — which has several variants. A more modem story tells how the apparition of Mr. Walter Percival is frequently seen, dressed in the old grey bed-jacket in which he died.
It is not clear whether the traditions have been built up on what a number of people undoubtedly think they have seen, or whether the ‘appearances’ are really the apparitions of the un- fortunate mediaeval lovers and the late owner. But there is no doubt whatever that many people claim to have seen a coach
and pair careering through the grounds of K Manor, and,
much more frequently, the figure of a nun slowly walking past the lawn towards the churchyard; that is how the ‘Nun’s Walk’ got its name. But the nun and her male friends play only a very small part in the amazing story of K .
By the time we had finished our coffee, I had heard the his- tory of K and its ghostly inhabitants. But what interested
me most was Mr. Robinson’s story of his own experiences. Of
course he heard all about the K legend before he took the
place, but did not believe a word of it; he regarded as fantastic the stories that previous owners had departed on account of a ‘ghost’. His incredulity rapidly gave place to something akin to fear.
The first ‘incident’ was the ringing of the front-door bell— a
28 The Most Haunted House in England
big, sonorous, clanging bell that reverberated all over die house. It was soon after the Robinsons moved in and they were just re- tiring to rest. It was a terrible night. There was a storm raging and it would be difficult to imagine a worse evening for anyone to be abroad. Mr. Robinson looked at his wife in wonderment. Thinking it was a neighbour in dire trouble, he hurried to the door and withdrew the bolts. The bell stopped ringing. With the lamp in one hand, he peered into the darkness: there was no one there. Sheltering the lamp from the gusts of wind and rain that threatened to extinguish it, he walked a few paces down the drive m search of his visitor. Nothing was to be seen. He went into the roadway, but not a soul was visible. He re- turned to the house and went to bed. Twenty-five minutes later (at about 114s) die bell rang out again: not an ordinary ring, but a clangorous solo which lasted until he could get a dressing-gown on and reach the door. No one was there. The rain had then ceased, and thinking the intruder was a small boy playing a joke, he explored a considerable part of the garden and roadway: he found no one. There was no further disturb- ance that night, but the nocturnal clangour of the door bell rang in an orgy of ringing1 which persists to this day.
The bells were the start of the trouble. Only a part of the house was furnished, but bell-ropes in empty rooms were pulled as frequently as those in the apartments in use. And then the door-keys commenced to fall out of the locks. Every key would be in its place overnight; in the morning, many of them would be found on the floor. Eventually, every one disappeared.
With die key phenomena came die sounds of slippered foot- falls, in all parts of the house, by day and by night. Especially when they were undressing for bed, the Robinsons would hear soft steps in the passage outside their room. More than once Mr.
1For the classic case of supernormal bell-ringing, see Beatings Bells: an Account of the Mysterious Ringing of Bells at Great Beatings, Sujfolk, in 1834, by Edward Moor, Woodbndge, 1841.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 29
Robinson waited in the dark with a hockey stick and made lunges at ‘something’ that passed him. He never struck anything. Then stones were thrown: small round pebbles (origin un- known) were hurtled through the air, or came rolling down the stairs. Things became so bad that the villagers were frightened. A reporter arrived on the scene — and that is how I came to be connected with the case.
The night previous to my arrival, a new phenomenon was witnessed. It was reported by several people that a light had been seen at the window of one of the empty and disused rooms. It did not remain stationary, but appeared to travel in an elliptical path which was always visible from the garden. The reporter, who had by then established himself in the village, saw the light plainly and suggested to Mr. Robinson that the latter should go to the room with another light and explore. This was done and, for the space of about a minute, the watchers from the garden saw two lights side by side, one (our host’s) being waved about, the other quite stationary. But Mr. Robinson neither saw nor heard anything m the room.
That was the latest story that was current when I arrived at the Manor on June 12. Having finished lunch, I asked to see the staff of the house. It consisted of a young village girl (who slept at home) and a daily gardener. Of course the girl knew all about the traditions of the place and solemnly assured me that she had seen ‘an old-fashioned coach’ on the lawn, ‘drawn by two horses’. She said she had also seen the ‘nun’ leaning over a gate near the house. I then learnt that when the Robinsons moved in they brought with them from London a young maid who stayed for exactly forty-eight hours. Questioned about her sad- den departure, she declared that near some trees in the garden she had seen a ‘nun who had frightened her’. She had not been told about the tradition, but nothing would induce her to stop. I interviewed the old gardener, who informed me he had never seen the apparitions but had that very week dug up a skull
30 The Most Haunted House in England
(supposed to be a relic of the Great Plague) when removing some turf, and re-buried it in the churchyard.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening ex- ploring every inch of the house, gardens, cellar, crypt, out- houses and stables (over which were some disused rooms). My secretary and I, in our minute examination of every bell wire, which we traced from the pull to the bell itself (they were the old-fashioned variety, on springs), climbed under the eaves and wormed our way between the top rafters and the tiles. Wc found a plaque on which the original bell-hangers had written their names, ages, and date, but discovered nothing else. Every wire seemed quite ordinary. We could find nothing suspicious in the house or grounds, so, after a meal, we settled down to wait for dusk.
It is at dusk that the ‘nun’ is supposed to be most active, so the Pressman and I decided to spend the evenmg in the garden. My secretary was to report what took place m the house, where she was on guard. We arranged that I should keep my eyes glued on the back windows of the building in wait for the ‘light’, while the reporter watched the ‘Nun’s Walk’. As it was getting chilly, we stood in the doorway of a large summer- house. We had been there nearly an hour when the reporter suddenly gripped my arm and whispered: ‘There she is!’ I looked towards the ‘Nun’s Walk’ and sure enough there ap- peared to be a shadowy figure gliding down the path under the trees. As he spoke, the newspaper man dashed across the lawn. When he returned, he informed me that the figure became more distinct as he approached it, but vanished as he reached the spot. He told me that it just ‘melted away’. I did not see this disappearance, as the reporter was between the figure and me. Concluding that the ‘nun’ would not be seen again that night, we decided to enter die house. As we passed under the porch, there was a terrific crash and a pane of glass from the roof hurtled to the ground.
Confessions oj a Ghost-Hunter 31
The glass missed as by 2 few feet. It may have been coinci- dence that a pane of glass fell (for no ascertainable reason) just as we entered the porch, but it was very disconcerting. But that was not the worst. We entered the house and searched the place from roof to cellar. Just as we were coming downstairs after the investigation, a red glass candlestick, from the ‘Blue Room’, was flung down the staircase well and struck an iron stove in the hall. I was splashed with splinters. Immediately after, a mothball came tumbling down the well. The only per- sons in the house were downstairs. (The maid had gone home.)
I then decided to seal every door and window in the house. I fetched from my car the fitted case1 which I carry on these occasions, and inserted screw-eyes in doors, posts, and window frames. Tapes were threaded through the eyes, knotted, and the knots sealed with post-office leaden seals. Then we adjourned to the ‘Blue Room’ to see what would happen. It was suggested by Mr. Robinson that we should hold a stance in this room, where Mr. Walter Percival had died. I was rather averse to the proposal, as we were not there to encourage the alleged ‘spirits’, but rather to disperse them. However, I gave way, but insisted upon the stance being held by the light of the powerful duplex paraffin lamp which we had earned upstairs. We seated our- selves on the bed and on the two chairs which the room con- tamed, and I made a short speech, addressing my remarks to the four walls of the room. I protested that the manifestations were
1The reader may be interested to know what a ghost-hunter’s kit consists of. My bag contained: pair of soft felt overshoes, steel measuring tape; screw-eyes, lead seals and sealing tool; white rape; tool-pad and nails; bank of flex, small electric bells, dry batteries and switches (for secret electrical contacts); camera, films and flash-bulbs; note-book, red, blue and black pencils; sketching block and case of drawing instruments; bandages, iodine and surgical adhesive tape; ball of string, sock of chalk, matches, electric torch and candle; flask of brandy; bowl of mercury to detect tremors in room or passage; cinematograph camera with electrical release. For a long stay in house with supply of electricity, I would take with me infra-red filters, lamps, and ani films sensitive to infra-red cays, so that I could photo- graph objects in almost complete darkness.
3* The Most Haunted House in England
undermining the health of our host and his wife, and implored the disturbing entities, whether evil or benevolent, to depart. I then asked: ‘Is Mr. Walter Percival present?’ To our amaze- ment, we were answered by a decided rap which appeared to come from the back of a large mirror which stood on the dress- ing table. It was then about one o’clock in the morning.
For three hours we questioned whatever it was that was rap- ping out answers. Once for ‘yes’, twice for ‘no* and three times for ‘doubtful’ was the code which we suggested and which, apparently, the entity understood perfectly. We asked innum- erable questions, which were prompted by a member of the Percival family, who was present. ‘Walter Perdval’ discussed his will, his marriage and his relatives; and the answers we re- ceived— via the mirror — were always intelligent and relevant. We were informed that quite a number of ‘family secrets’ had been revealed.
Just before we closed this novel and extraordinary stance, a cake of soap on the washstand was lifted and thrown heavily on to a china jug which was standing on the floor with such force that the soap was deeply marked. All of us were on the other side of the room when this happened. We dispersed soon after, and I snatched a few hours’ sleep on the bed m the ‘Blue Room’. I was not disturbed: haunted and haunters were at peace.
Next morning I went into the town of W and inter- viewed the owners of K Manor. They were three sis ten,
two of whom I saw. They assured me that in 1900, during a garden party, on a sunny afternoon, the three sisters and a maid saw a nun, dressed completely in black, and with bowed head, slowly walking down the path. One of them said, ‘I’ll speak to her!’ and ran across the lawn. As she approached, the figure turned its head and vanished. This story was confirmed by the other sister. The Misses Percival also informed me that their brother, Mr. Walter Perdval, frequently saw the coach and
The author’s ‘ghost-hunting’ kit, consisting of reflex and cinematograph cameras, tot for sealing doors and windows, apparatus for secret electrical controls, steel tape, drawn instruments, torch, bottle of mercurv, powdered graphite for developing finger-prints, cl
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 33
nun. This was confirmed by a friend of the late owner who
wrote to the Daily and stated that on several occasions Mr.
Percival had admitted to him that he had seen both nun and coach; and that, when dead, he would, if possible, manifest in the same way. Did he partly fulfil this promise early that same morning when we were assembled in the ‘Blue Room’?
I received other evidence as to the haunting of K Manor.
While I was in W 1 called on a man who was once groom-
gardener at the house and who had lived in the rooms over the stables. Every night for eight months he and his wife, when in bed, heard steps in the living-room adjoining. The noises were as if a huge dog had jumped from some considerable height and had then started running round the room. One night there was heard a temffic crash as if the sideboard had toppled over, smashing the ornaments m its fall. The groom jumped out of bed, ht a candle, and went to explore. Not a thing was dis- placed— and the ‘dog’ was heard no more. During my investi- gation I received a letter from another old servant who, forty- three years previously, was an under-nursemaid at the Manor. She told me that it was common talk that the place was haunted. When she had been there a fortnight, she was awak- ened in the dead of night by someone moving outside her bed- room door. It sounded as if a person were shuffling about in slippers. The experience so unnerved her that her father re- moved her from the place. There is much good evidence for the haunting of K Manor.
During my first visit to K 1 stopped three nights, and dis- turbances were witnessed each evening. My secretary stayed over the week-end and the phenomena continued. A week or so later, Mr. Robinson and his wife moved to an adjoining village: they simply could not stand the strain any longer. They re- moved their furniture and locked the place up. On July 22, 1929, Mr. Robinson wrote me: ‘Visiting the house last Sunday we discovered that the windows had been unlocked from
34 The Most Haunted House in England
within, and one thrown up!’ I visited the place several times when it was empty and though the manifestations were not nearly so violent, we still witnessed phenomena. I could fill
many pages with what I have seen and heard at K . But,
short of living in the house, I found I could do little more there. Mr. Robinson took another abode and, despairing of finding a new tenant, the owners shut the place up.
* * ★ * *
Two years elapsed before I heard any more of K . One
day the Misses Perdval called upon me and said that the Manor was again occupied. The new tenant’s name was Mr. B. Morri- son. The disturbances, in a much more violent form, had broken out again within a week of his moving in. Mr. Morrison had kept a diary of the phenomena. Would I like to investigate again? I said I would and immediately got m touch with the new tenant, who kindly sent me his diary for perusal. It was an amazing document.
Between February and July 193 1 literally hundreds of pheno- mena were witnessed — thirty-one typescript pages of them! Stones, books and bricks were thrown; bells were rung night and day; ‘Walter Percival’ was seen many times; perfumes scented the rooms; things (including a gold bracelet) disap- peared, but many objects (including a wedding ring), never seen before, put m an appearance; sounds of footsteps were heard; both husband and wife were injured — the latter seri- ously, four tunes; once, Mr. Morrison was just enjoying his first sleep when he was awakened by a hard crack on the head with his own hair brush; water from the ewer was slowly poured over the sleeping tenant and his wife, and bedroom utensils marched round the room; bits of paper and the walls were scribbled on; pepper was thrown in their eyes; the wife was half smothered by a mattress, etc. All these incidents are detailed in Mr. Morrison’s diary. I decided to visit the place
35
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter It was early in October 193 1 that I paid my last visit to K- I was accompanied by Mrs. Henry Richards and Mrs. A. Peel Goldney (two members of the council of the National Labora- tory of Psychical Research). We spent two nights investigating, and had an amazing story to tell when we returned. We saw red wine turn mto ink, and white wine take on the flavour of eau de Cologne ; an empty wine bottle was hurled at me from above-stairs, missing me by a few inches; bells rang for no apparent reason; Mrs. Richards’ chauffeur saw a black hand creep over the door of the kitchen, where he was smoking his pipe; we witnessed a locked door ‘miraculously’ unlocked by means of a holy relic; we took part in a service of exorcism; we chanted a reliquary prayer; we helped to carry a lady up to
bed We saw even stranger things; so strange, in fact, that —
for the moment — my lips are scaled concerning them. But we came to the conclusion that the supernormal played no part in the ‘wonders’ we had witnessed.
III. Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
It is not generally realised that one can libel a house as surely as one can libel a person. If I were to assert in these Confessions that a certain house was haunted, damages could be claimed. But only if I originated the libel. A few years ago I was con- sulted by a daily newspaper which had published a paragraph that a certain country house was the centre of Poltergeist disturb- ances. The owner (not the tenant, who rather enjoyed a bit of ghost-hunting) happened to see the notice and prompdy issued a writ for alleged libel. The editor appealed to me to help him. Had I any record that the house was supposed to be haunted? I searched our files and archives, but could find no trace of the place, of which I had never heard. If I could have produced two lines of printed matter referring to the house as being ‘haunted’, or a person who could have proved that it was ‘common know- ledge’ the place was possessed by spirits, I could have saved the Daily — , But the newspaper had originated the story, and the pro- prietors had to pay. The case was settled out of court for £800.
I have made this rather interesting digression in order to em- phasise how difficult it is for a ‘ghost-hunter’ fully to report and publish all the facts about the houses he investigates. He has to be careful with his names of persons and places. This is a pity, as I believe in publishing the fullest details of a case in which I have been concerned, in order to authenticate it. I have acted on this principle throughout these Confessions, with one or two exceptions. But in the account of my adventures which form die subject of this chapter, I have been compelled to withhold certain information by means of which some of the places could be identified.
36
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 37
Ghost-hunting (even professional ghost-hunting) is of an- cient origin and was fully discussed as long ago as 1572 when Lavater’s famous book, Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght,1 was published. In many respects, the book might have been written yesterday, instead of in the sixteenth century, and it is a fart that Shakespeare drew largely from the work when he wrote Hamlet. The first chapter ‘Concerning certaine wordes which are often used in this Treatise of Spirits’ deals with the terms spectrum, defined as ‘a substance without a body, which beeing hcarde or scene, maketh men afrayde’, visions, and apparitions. The author then warns his readers to be critical of the evidence for spirits: ‘ Melancholike persons, and madde men, imagin many things which in verie deede are not. Men which are dull of semg and hearing imagine many things which in very deed are not so.’ Lavater’s words should be emblazoned m neon lights over the portals of every stance- zoom. Lavater then proceeds to describe various fraudulent phenomena and again warns us ‘That many naturall things are taken to be ghosts, as for example, when they heare the crying of rats, cats, weasles, martins, or any other beast, or when they heare a horse beate his feete on the plankes in the stable at mid- night, by and by they sweate for feare, supposing some buggs to walke in the dead of the mght. ... If a worme whiche fret- teth wood, or that breadeth in trees chaunce to gnawe a wall or waynescot, or other tymber, many will judge they heare one softly knocking uppon an andvill with a sledge.’ Lavater knew his ‘sitters’, who were much the same three hundred and sixty years ago as they are to-day. The remainder of the work deals with apparently genuine phenomena, and die author discusses
*Of ghostes and spirites walking by nyght, and of strange noyses, cracker, and sundry forewamynges, which commonly happen before the death of memte, great slaughters, & alterations of Kyngdomes. One Booke, Written by Lewes Lavaterus of Tigurine [Zurich], London, 1572. This is a translation of De Spectris, by Ludwig Lavater, Geneva, 1570. The English edition is excessively rare; the original edition less so.
38 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
survival from every angle. Considering its antiquity, Lavater’s IS an amazing work.
Lavater was wise in warning his readers against mistaking normal noises for supernormal ones, and two incidents which came within my own experience are worth recording. The first happened on New Year’s Eve, when I was staying at a house in a Shropshire village. I had retired to rest soon after ten o’clock, leaving my bedroom window open according to my usual custom. At about 1145 I was awakened by the church bells ringing in the New Year. The little church was only about two hundred yards from the house m which I was staying. As I lay awake listening to them, I fancied that with their clangour I could hear sweet music coming from the dining-room, which was immediately below my bedchamber. As I listened, I could distinctly hear faint chords as from a harp or zither. Then I re- membered that in the apartment below me was a piano, and it occurred to me that someone might be twanging the strings, producing a sort of pizzicato effect. It sounded most weird, and one could easily have imagined a ghostly harpist in the room below. I decided to investigate and made my way to the lower storey. I quickly solved the mystery. Actually, the explanation was quite simple. I discovered that certain notes from the piano recurred always during a particular peal from the bells, and this gave me the clue to the ‘ghostly music’. The wires of the piano were vibrating in sympathy with the noisy bells. This ‘sym- pathetic vibration’ is well known to physicists. In the same way Caruso, the famous tenor, could emit a note that would crack a wine glass m the immediate vicinity.
The second incident I referred to occurred on January 21, 1926, when the rooms of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research were thrown open for public inspection. The building had been newly furnished and certain alterations had been car- ried out. After the crowds had departed, I decided to stay and work all night at some particular experiment on which I was
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 39
engaged. The laboratory suite was on the top floor of the building and no one but the caretakers, who occupied the base- ment flat, five floors below, were in the house. Yet throughout the night I could hear noises such as raps and footsteps coming from the rooms below ours. At first I thought they were caused by one of the caretakers, but then I argued that these people would not be moving about so late at night. I decided to in- vestigate.
I did so, and traced one noise to its source. In the lecture hall, three floors below the laboratory, there had been installed during the day a low stage or platform made of new wood. The rooms had been very much heated in the evening, and in the early hours of the morning were rapidly becoming cooler. As the room cooled, the woodwork contracted, and the strain^ ing of the joints emitted noises which were magnified mto what sounded like hammer blows. I transferred a transmitting ther- mograph from the laboratory to the lecture hall, and noticed that as the temperature of the apartment fell, so the sounds in- creased. The maximum drop m the thermograph coincided with the cessation of the noises, the new wood being no longer affected by the fall m the temperature.
Having now recorded how I ran to earth certain ‘ghostly’ noises, I will relate some adventures m haunted houses in which, I am convinced, genuine phenomena occurred. In parti- cular, the derelict mansion in Somersetshire much impressed me. This house had stood empty, on and off, for over thirty years. No agent could let it and even caretakers were afraid of remaining in the place. The villagers declared that ‘fiendish faces’, apparently suspended in the air, peered through the win- dows of the top floor. Footsteps were heard in locked rooms which had not been opened for twenty years, and the noise of boxes being dragged about the room scared every caretaker who attempted to live in the place. This latter noise was a very curious one. People who declared they had heard the manifesta-
40 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
dons said it was as if a heavy box or chest had been dropped
from a height, and then slowly dragged across the room.
Other manifestations included an epidemic of broken win- dows (caused probably by small boys); and a curious sound re- sembling the ‘whirr* of the wings of a giant bird of prey which was heard in various parts of the building. I ascribed most of these alleged phenomena to fear on the part of the few care- takers who had resided m the place, or to local gossip in the village. But the ‘whirring wings’ phenomenon was real enough, as I discovered when I investigated the case.
I spent two whole days, and one night, in the Somersetshire mansion. Previous to my visit, I interviewed several people m the village (including two persons who had acted as caretakers at different times) and received first-hand accounts of the haunting. The stones more or less tallied and were similar to those contained m the report of the place which I had received in London. I took with me to the house one of the men who had acted as custodian there about ten years previously, and who knew every nook and comer of the place.
With my guide, I explored the house from top to bottom. Everything seemed normal, except that the place was in a shocking state of disrepair. What were once fine Italian moulded ceilings littered the floor, and m many of the rooms the wall- papers were in nbbons. Damp was slowly consuming the place.
It was in February when I visited the mansion, and by six o’clock it was quite dark. We had had some provisions sent in from the village urn, and after a sort of high tea we decided to explore the place again. This time I was rewarded for the trouble and expense I had been put to in investigating the affair, and I added to my case-book the details of one of the strangest phenomena I have ever experienced.
It was on the fourth (top) floor where we heard the curious noise which had been likened to that of a flying bird. But to me it sounded like something between the humming whirr a
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 41
circular saw makes when in motion and a strong wind rushing through a gully or narrow passage. The place had been used as a box room and there was neither chimney nor ventilator in the room. There was a fairly large window which, after some trouble, my companion succeeded in opening. The ‘whirring* stopped instantly. We closed the window and again die pheno- menon was heard. Then we closed both door and window, but the ‘whirring* sound persisted. Whether the door was open or closed made no difference to the phenomenon. But imme- diately we opened the window, the ‘rushing wind’ effect was not apparent.
The sceptic will naturally conclude that the noise we heard was caused by the wind outside forcing its way through cracks and crevices into the box room, thus deceiving us mto believing that we were witnessing something abnormal. Well, the scep- tic will be wrong, because it happened to be a cold, frosty night with not even a slight breeze. It was also very clear and starry, and from the open window of the box room we could see the lights of Minchead many miles away.
We made ourselves comfortable on some old rugs we had brought with us, and spent the night on the floor, trying to keep warm and hoping that something would happen. Actu- ally, nothing further did happen. Twice during the night I went to the box room, and the whirring could be heard on each occasion. I spent the whole of the next day — which was wet — in the house, and heard nothing until it was nearly dark, when the wind phenomenon recommenced. I returned to London. I think it was this particular manifestation which gave the house its sinister reputation.
A year or so after my visit I was motoring in Somerset and made a detour in order to have another look at the mansion. To my surprise, the builders were hard at work reconstructing the premises. It is now a ‘boarding establishment for young ladies* and is occasionally advertised in the scholastic press. I
42 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
smile when I read the advertisements, and wonder if the ‘bird’ still holds its own against seventy healthy schoolgirls. I am afraid not.
Whether the rebuilding of a ‘haunted’ house is an infallible method of dislodging a disturbing entity is open to doubt, as I have records of sites upon which have been erected a succession of buildings, all of which have acquired the same reputation of possessing Poltergeists. But it is probable that the traditions were merely handed down from generation to generation. For example, I once spent a night in a house near Hayward’s Heath concerning which a story was current that Cromwell’s soldiers had once been quartered in a previous building on the same site, and that, night after night, the sounds of revelry and strange oaths were still to be heard. I visited the house on two occasions, but could not make sure that I heard anything abnor- mal. It is curious that the great majority of alleged haunted houses owe their reputations to the fra that the manifestations are aural and not visual. At this same Sussex ‘haunt’ it was alleged that the tramp of soldiers could be heard at certain times of the year. The villagers are convinced that the dead Crom- wellian soldiers have stamped their personality upon the place.
I know of another cottage built on a part of the site of the ancient Roman city of Uriconium, or Viroconium, the capital of Britannia Secunda (near Wroxeter, Shropshire), which, in its day, was one of the most important Roman settlements in England.1 Pompeii, at the height of its power and prosperity, was inferior in size and importance to Uriconium in its prime. It was burned by die West Saxons in a.d. 584. Yet there is little to be seen there to-day except the remains of the south wall of die basilica, which refuses to disintegrate, and the ruins of the public baths, which axe of purely archaeological interest. Antiquarian subjects have always interested me, and, hearing
1See Uriconium: a Historical Account of die Ancient Roman City, by Thomas Wright, London, 187a.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 43
that there was a haunted cottage on the old Roman site, I visited the place and made some inquiries. I happened to be spending a vacation in Shropshire, so it was convenient for me to combine a little ghost-hunting with my holiday.
From the description of the place which I received, I had no difficulty in finding the cottage, which was occupied by a young cattle dealer, his wife and a little girl aged three years. They did not know I was coming and I refrained from writing in case the village turned out en masse to welcome me. I hve in a village myself, and news travels quickly in such places.
The dealer was surprised to see me, and astonished when I told him the reason for my visit at such a late hour. It was nearly ten o’clock on a June evening. Fortunately, Summer Time — that bane of ghost-hunters — had not been invented. I was invited into the kitchen-parlour, and for more than an hour I plied my host and his wife with questions concerning the alleged disturbances. Yes, they had often seen a young girl, clad m a Roman stola (this is not the word he used) of white linen, slowly climbing the few stairs which led to the upper rooms of the cottage. The apparition was never seen at any other spot except on the stairs — always climbing and never descending. She invariably vanished as she reached the small landing at the head of the stairs. Both husband and wife had met ‘the girl’, but the man had seen nothing else. But his wife — it was alleged — had frequently encountered various figures m togas, crowding outside the cottage door, and always when it was dusk or nearly dusk. The woman declared that on many occasions, as she opened the door, she had seen a number of men dressed as Roman civilians (whom she described in detail) standing out- side the door as if about to crowd into the cottage. But they always vanished before the door could be fully opened. Her husband declared that his wife (a Scotswoman) possessed ‘second sight’ — a faculty which was shared by other members of her family.
44 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
Questioned as to whether they ever heard anything, both the dealer and his wife said that raps, footsteps, and ‘a rumbling sound as of heavy wheels rolling over cobbles’ had been heard infrequently. I was about to take my departure when the dealer asked me if I cared to spend the night in the house. Although I had intended staying at the Heber Arms (I think that was the name of the inn), at Wroxeter, I accepted my host’s invitation, and the only spare bedroom was placed at my disposal. After a substantial meal of fat pickled pork, red cabbage and home- brewed beer, we drank the time-honoured toast to ‘all friends round the Wrekin’ in some excellent sloe gin, and I retired to my room. I did not undress, but sat reading by the light of two candles and a stable lantern. The only disturbance that night was caused by a bat which flew through my open window and knocked a candle over. There were the usual sounds that one hears at night: the call of birds, owls hooting, timbers creaking, etc., but I could not persuade myself that the noises were abnormal. Curiously enough, I did not feel sleepy, which was very unusual. Soon after five o’clock I heard the dealer moving about the house, so I had a wash and joined him. He was not surprised that I had neither seen nor heard anything, and sug- gested my spending another night in the cottage. ‘If you sleep on the stairs’, he said, ‘you will be bound to see the girl sooner or later.’ But I was due back in Shrewsbury and could spare no more time on the Roman ghosts. After breakfast — which, like the supper, consisted of bacon and beer— I took my departure. My visit was not quite without result, as I was put m the way of acquiring a Roman amphora, in perfect condition, which had been found somewhere in the neighbourhood.
Speaking of cottages reminds me that in 1925 I investigated one in Surrey, and in many ways the case is unique. The cottage itself was not haunted, but the tenants continually heard foot- steps on the gravel path which encircled the building. The manifestations commenced as soon as the place was occupied.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 45
During the first week, the woman twice went to the door, thinking it was the postman, but no one was there. The path had been newly gravelled and the lightest step upon it could be heard within the house, which was off the main road and quite isolated. The only occupants of the cottage were the husband and wife, the former being out all day.
A peculiarity of this particular ‘haunt’ was that the footsteps were heard punctually at 8 .30 on most mornings, but especially towards the end of the week, though never on a Sunday. A watch was kept in the garden from certain sheds that com- manded a view of the pathway, but the perambulating ghost was never seen, and never heard except from within the cottage.
Unaware that the entity never ‘walked’ on a Sunday, I first visited the cottage on a Saturday night, hoping to hear the footsteps on the following morning. Learning that this was highly improbable, on the Sunday I busied myself with making four wide and shallow trenches across the path. I filled these trenches with a mixture of flour and silver sand which I made perfectly smooth with a newspaper in die hope that the ghost’s footprints would be impressed upon it. Next morning I was up early, had breakfast, and waited for the intangible visitor. On the stroke of half-past eight, the steps could be heard approach^ ing. They appeared to come from the back of the cottage. There was nothing peculiar about the steps — it was just as if a man, with rather a firm tread, were approaching the house. I ran into the small hall and peered through the letter-box. Noth- ing was seen to pass, but I could hear the footsteps as they came nearer and nearer, and gradually died away. I rushed out of the cottage, but could find no one. I searched the buildings without success. The man belonging to the house had left for work soon after seven o’clock and no servant was employed. There were no animals in the immediate neighbourhood. The nearest habi- tation was nearly half a mile away. I was convinced that no person was playing a trick on me. I examined my trenches, but
46 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
they were quite unmarked. I was disappointed that no impres- sions of footprints were visible — even the mark of a cloven hoof would have been acceptable! I visited the cottage three times in all, but heard the footsteps on the first occasion only. The cottage became vacant a few months after my last visit; the place was taken by two maiden ladies who turned the house into a tea garden. It did not pay, but whether the ‘footsteps' or the lack of custom was responsible for their vacating the cottage, I never ascertained. But the place is still empty.
One does not usually associate a London playhouse with the occult; and the dressing-room of a popular musical comedy actress is the last place one would expect to be haunted. But it was to the Adelphi Theatre that I was called a few years ago in order to investigate an alleged ‘ghost’.
It was at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 that William Terriss was murdered, and it was into the dressing- room afterwards occupied by the actress in question that his body was carried. I interviewed a number of dressers, firemen and stage-hands, and they all claimed to have heard the strange noises. The actress informed me that time after time, when resting on a certain couch, between the afternoon and evening performances, she had been awakened by loud noises in her room, and thumps coming from under the couch. Friends who had been with her on these occasions verified her statements. Once she awoke with a scream and afterwards said her arm felt as if it had been gripped by a hand. Later — I was informed — four weals appeared on her arm, exactly as if four fingers had tightly gripped the flesh. This story was confirmed by a friend of the actress. I was asked if I knew a medium who could get into touch with whatever was causing the disturbance. I said I did not, but I happened to have arranged for that evening a sitting with Stella C.,1 the famous physical medium. I said I would bring her to die theatre.
1See Stella C. ; an Account of Some Original Experiments in Psychical Re- search, by Harry Pncc, London, 1925.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 47
I held a stance in the dressing-room with Stella which lasted until 2.30 in the morning; but the conditions — an atmosphere of Pressmen and tobacco smoke — were not very favourable for die experiments. Nevertheless, we did get a few phenomena, though these were undoubtedly due to Stella’s presence. I asked the actress to sit on the couch, and later she declared that she felt the familiar thumps beneath it. One really curious incident happened: during the stance a sudden crash came from the direction of the mirror over the mantelpiece. Everyone heard it, and we speculated as to what it could be; it sounded as if some- thing had fallen heavily, although the crash seemed to come from behind the glass. The mirror itself was untouched. This was certainly strange, but the late hour prevented my making further experiments. I heard nothing more about the ‘haunted dressing-room’, which, if it did nothing else, provided con- siderable publicity for a number of people.
My adventures in haunted houses have not been confined to British soil. In 1928 I heard from the late Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notring that a most extraordinary Poltergeist case in a house at Munich was occupying his attention. He invited me to co-operate in its elucidation. The haunting was unique inas- much that, in addition to the usual Poltergeist phenomena, there were other strange occurrences outside the house, which ap- peared to have a bearing on the case.
I decided to accept Baron von Schrenck’s invitation, but I was delayed in various ways and, just as I was about to start for Munich, I heard that the manifestations had suddenly ceased. However, the case is so interesting that I make no apology for including it in this chapter.
In Munich, as m most Continental cities, the majority of the residents live in flats. It was in one of these, in an appartement of four rooms on the second floor of a building in the Augusten- strasse, that the curious happenings took place.
The flat had for many years been occupied by an elderly lady,
48 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
die widow of a doctor. She had let one room to a chemical student and, eight days before die commencement of die extra- ordinary events I am about to relate, she had dismissed her servant on account of ‘malevolence’, and had engaged as a new maid a girl of fourteen years.
The lady went out for a little while one afternoon and only die maid and the lodger were left at home. Suddenly the front- door bell rang. The girl opened the door and saw a tall man with a dark cloak and blue hat standing before her. For some reason that she could never explain, she no sooner set eyes on him than she felt afraid. The girl answered the door perhaps twenty times a day, but this man was ‘different’ from all other visitors. It seemed to her there was something uncanny about him. She was a little frightened by his dark and old-world clothes and his staring eyes, though he merely asked politely for die servant who had just been dismissed. At this the girl began to tremble, and when she informed the stranger that the person he wanted was no longer in the house, he became abusive. The maid plucked up sufficient courage to close and lock the door m his free, and then reported the incident to the lodger, who at once went to look for the mysterious intruder. He could not be found.
Two hours later, after the widow had returned, strange things began to happen m the flat. At first, the door bell rang violently. The ringing lasted an hour, yet no one was to be seen at the door. There followed a violent ‘drumming’ on the door, though the drummer remained invisible. This continued for some time, and then the family were thrown into a state of panic, for it seemed as if the disturbing entity had entered the flat. Glasses, plates, vases, tumblers, spoons and various other articles were flung in all directions by an unseen hand. Doors and windows opened by themselves, and the wardrobe mirror was smashed to pieces by some invisible object. A reel of thread was thrown through the letter-box of the door and as suddenly disappeared.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 49
Furniture moved of its own volition. Nothing would stay in its place for five consecutive minutes. Overcoats hanging in the hall were mysteriously transported to other rooms. The maid would dose a drawer one moment, and it would be opened and die contents turned out by unseen hands the next The manifes- tations became so alarming that finally the police were sum- moned.
During the examination of the rooms and their contents, the manifestations went on without interruption. In the widow’s bedroom a tumbler of water filled itself, flew across die room, and the contents splashed on her bed. When she picked up the tumbler and placed it on a table, it flew off and smashed itself against the wall. In the student’s bed were found a bowl filled with water, shoes and plates; on the maidservant’s bed were found a bottle of water and a sprig of a fir-tree which be- longed to a bunch in the hall. In her trunk was discovered the missing reel of thread which had so mysteriously found its way through the letter-box. Behind a curtain were found several valuable vases which in some inexplicable manner had been removed from their usual positions. Whilst these discoveries were being made the strange displacement of objects con- tinued.
On another occasion, when the police were actually in the flat, a fire broke out in one of the rooms without any apparent cause. A knife was thrown at, and struck one of the policemen, and a glass fell on his head. It is said that the mysterious stranger was again seen at the flat early in the morning on the day after his first visit, but quickly disappeared on being detected. No explanation of the extraordinary occurrences was forthcoming. The spiritualists claimed that the stranger was a ghost who was seeking some object. Whether there was any truth in this, I cannot say. A more likely explanation is that the manifestations were caused by the maidservant. Even the police had to confess themselves baffled, which, to say the least of it, is very unusual
50 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
in such affairs. Eventually, as in most Poltergeist cases, die mani- festations completely subsided.
I remember yet another peculiar ‘haunting’ I investigated on die Continent. This was in a house at Hall, near Innsbruck, which was alleged to be occupied by a particularly vindictive ‘spirit’. Several observers stated that if any person attempted to enter the place after nightfall, a very powerful ‘something’ flung him out with great force. It appeared that the ‘thing’ had a particular antipathy even to inanimate objects, for if a hat were thrown into die open doorway, it would return like a boomerang.
Personally, I saw nothing of these wonders, for I managed to enter the house without hindrance, though appearances indi- cated there was something wrong. Not only did the atmos- phere appear especially oppressive, but also, on several occa- sions, objects moved without apparent physical contact. Once or twice when I was there, rooms were scaled up, yet when they were opened, chairs, carefully placed in a certain order, were found to have moved. I will not weary the reader with further details of these manifestations, since they had much m common with many others that I have described in these Con- fessions. The case possessed all the usual features associated with a Poltergeist — even the stories of ‘miracles’ which never hap- pened!
The ‘highest’ haunting I have ever known was also due to an alleged Poltergeist, which manifested m die Concordia Hutte on the Concordia-Platz, one of the chief mountaineering centres in Switzerland. Huts, as the reader is aware, are erected all over the Alps by the Swiss Alpine Club and are intended to serve as refuges for persons who require shelter, die interion being fully equipped with food, firing, bedding, and all die necessities for a comfortable night.
One day, in the Concordia Hut on the Great Alctsch Glacier near the Jungfraujoch, nearly 12,000 feet above sea-level, a man
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 51
was found dead. He had been to the Lotschen-Lucke Pass, had apparently lost his way, and had staggered into the hut, too ex- hausted even to light a fire: die paralysing cold of an Alpine night crept upon him and he perished before a rescue party could arrive.
The following summer, a party of tourists also had occasion to seek the shelter of the hut. They had been there but a few hours when they felt that something was the matter with die place, and they were thoroughly scared. I was informed that not a thing in the hut would stay in its place. The tourists lit a lantern, and ‘invisible hands’ extinguished it; they tried to pre- pare a meal, and the mischievous Geist scattered the utensils; they attempted to sleep, and the unseen and unwelcome tenant of the hut violendy disarranged the blankets! The whole party spent a miserable night and, just as dawn was breaking, they derided to quit the place, and descended mto Interlaken. I hap- pened to be staying at this beautiful Swiss resort at the time, and when they arrived I was consulted. I had to say that (assuming their story to be true in every particular) the strange manifesta- tions could be accounted for only by the presence of a Polter- geist induced, the spiritualists would declare, by the dead moun- taineer who had been found in the hut a few months previously.
I will continue my adventures in foreign haunted houses with an account of one I investigated at the beautiful spa of Baden-bei-Wien. I was staying in Vienna at the time, and read in one of the papers that much excitement prevailed in Baden owing to an alleged ghost that was haunting a cheap pension not far from the Theresienstrasse. I took an electric tram to Baden, where I arrived about seven o’clock in the evening. I made my way to the house, presented my card, and heard the story of the haunting. It appears that on the morning of the previous day, a young girl staying at the pension had committed suicide by throwing herself from one of die upper windows. The body had been removed to the mortuary.
52 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
Twenty-four hours later, passers-by declared they saw her staring out of the identical window from which she had leapt to her death. Boarders in the house were convinced that they could hear screams coming from the room she had occupied. I spent some hours in the pension and must admit that I, too, thought I heard very faint screams coming from die girl’s room. But when I entered the apartment, I could neither see nor hear anything unusual. By the time I had finished my investigation, it was very late and I was fortunate in finding a taxi to take me back to Vienna. Next day I again visited the place, and stood for some hours outside the pension in the hope of seeing the ‘face at die window’. I was unfortunate, and saw nothing — except the gaping crowds which impeded the traffic. I returned to Vienna. The Baden ghost died a natural death — if I can use such an expression — and I am still wondering whether I really heard those faint screams outside the dead girl’s room. Imagina- tion plays a major part in these cases.
I will close this chapter by relating an experience in my most picturesque haunted house. The ‘house’ happens to be a German castle, the Burg Falkenstein, in the Harz Mountains. On October i, 1935, Fraulein Gerda Knoche, a law student from Gottingen University, Mr. R. S. Lambert and I decided to ex- plore the Schloss Falkenstein. We were staying at Halbcrstadt, and an hour’s car ride took us to Ballenstedt, in the Eastern Harz, above which is Falkenstein Castle. After a stiff climb through pine woods, we arrived at the castle. It is 1050 feet above sea-level, and is situated on a lofty rock. It dates back to the eleventh century, and is, I think, one of the most beautiful specimens of a mediaeval residence I have ever seen. It is com- pletely equipped with contemporary furniture, trophies of the chase, and other antiquities. It is a veritable museum.
At certain times of the year the owner, the Graf von Asse- bourg, resides in the Schloss, which is usually occupied by care- takers only. We were conducted over the castle and shown in-
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 53
numerable objects of interest We saw the room where, be- tween 1198 and 1235, the jurist Eyke von Repkow wrote the Sachsenspiegel !, the oldest German legal code. We were shown die rooms occupied by Bismarck, and visited die chapel in which Martin Luther used to preach. Leading out of this chapel is a door, with a massive iron lock. We were told that that door has not been opened for five hundred years and no one knows what is in the room (which has no windows) beyond it. If ever die door is opened, disaster will befall the owners, and the house will perish. I must admit that I was sceptical concerning the story. Five hundred years is a long time, and it seemed fantastic that no one has been curious enough, or bold enough, to brave the ‘curse’ during this period.
But what interested me most was the fact that the Schloss contained a ‘haunted bed’. It is a high, narrow affair of carved wood, in a large apartment hung with tapestries. Ancient furni- ture and bedroom utensils are in keeping with the ‘White Lady’ who is alleged to haunt the chamber. I could obtain no precise information as to who the lady was, except that she is supposed to be an ancestress of the present owner of the Schloss. The caretakers have seen her many times, at dusk, always hov- ering round the bed, as if she were protecting someone or something in it. The bed itself looked quite comfortable. Though antique, the linen sheets appeared modem, if some- what damp and cold. Mr. Lambert and I asked permission to spend the night with the ‘White Lady of Falkenstein’, and were informed that this might be possible if we could obtain the con- sent of die owner of die Schloss. Wc said we would try.
The Herr Graf von Assebourg has a large mansion on the edge of a forest a few miles from Falkenstein, and we were for- tunate in finding the family in residence, though the Count binwlf was hunting deer in the forest. We were introduced to his daughter, who laughed heartily when she heard our strange request. Of course, she had heard of the ‘White Lady’, but as
54 Some Adventures in Haunted Houses
she had never slept in the haunted bed, she had not seen her. She confirmed the custodian’s story that the ‘curse room’ had not been opened for five hundred years. ‘I am not superstitious’, she said, ‘but I should not like to open the door, and I do not know what the room contains.’ She could not give us permis- sion to investigate the ‘White Lady’, and asked us to telephone the Herr Graf when he returned from the chase. This we did, but were informed that he could not allow the room — or the ‘White Lady’ — to be disturbed. He pointed out that the custo- dians of the Schloss had no facilities for entertaining visitors; that the bed linen was damp; and that we should be miserable if we attempted to spend a night in the place. We were disap- pointed, but consoled ourselves with the fact that we had had a thoroughly ‘mediaeval’ day, and had witnessed the strange phenomenon of a German aristocrat and his retainers still hunting the deer m his own forest, just as his ancestors did nine hundred years ago. The swastika has wrought many changes, but the Harz remains inviolate.
IV. The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist
K Ion is so infrequently visited by an alleged Poltergeist that hen one does put in an appearance, so to speak, it natur- ally causes considerable excitement. This is what happened a few years ago, the disturbances — very real, whether normal or supernormal — lasting nearly two months.
The focus of the manifestations was centred in a small villa in a South London suburb, a bustling working-class district with no attractions, one would have thought, for a Poltergeist.
The villa was inhabited by a Mr. Edward Smith,1 an invalid of eighty-six, who had lived there twenty-five years, and who was removed to the infirmary at the request of the family when the disturbances commenced. With Mr. Smith, senior, lived his son Walter, a tutor aged twenty-seven, and his three sisters: Miss Lucy Smith; Miss Anne Smith; and Mrs. Harold West, a widow, who had a fourteen-year-old son Cyril. The Misses Smith were school teachers.
The house in Bury Road is of a type of which tens of thou- sands can be found scattered all round the Metropolis. It has two floors and a small garden at front and rear. It is the typical abode of the London artisan. From the garden of the Bury Road house can be seen the back windows of some premises occupied by a medical practitioner who keeps a private asylum or mental home. I was told that men suffering from shell-shock were his principal patients. From the doctor’s windows to the back of the ’mystery house’, as the Press dubbed it, is about eighty yards. It would be possible for a person standing at the
tAs this cate is so recent, I have disgniscd the names of die inmates of die house.
56 The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist windows of the private asylum to propel, by means of a cata- pult, small objects such as coins, pieces of coal, etc., with suffi- cient force to break die windows of the bouses in Bury Road.
It was just before Christmas 1927 that I first heard of the strange happenings in Bury Road, but I attached no import- ance to the report, which differed litde from many others which I am continually receiving. Later, I received further informa- tion from a private source.
On Thursday, January 19, 1928, at 9.30 a.m., I paid my first visit. I found the family at breakfast, and my first impression was distinctly favourable as regards the family and also as to the improbability of die inmates of the house being responsible for the destruction of their own home. For I at once saw that some- one or something had caused considerable damage to the Smith manage. Broken windows, smashed furniture, and the dibris of ornaments were much in evidence. After a few minutes’ chat I withdrew and promised to call again.
On returning to my office I found a message from the editor of the Evening News asking if I would allow a reporter of that paper to accompany me to the house. I consented, and at three o’clock the same afternoon a car was sent for me, and for the second time that day I found myself in Bury Road — this tune with a Press representative.
Miss Anne Smith and Mr. Walter Smith were the only members of the family who were in the house on the afternoon of January 19, and from them we obtained the complete story of the disturbances.
‘Except for Cyril’, said Mr. Smith, ‘we have lived in the house for twenty-five years, happily and peacefully. Then on November 29 lumps of coal, pieces of soda and pennies began to fall on the conservatory — a lean-to building at the back of the house.
‘Things became so serious’, Mr. Smith continued, ‘that I decided to call the police. I had no other idea except that some
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 57
person was throwing things over the garden wall. A constable came along, and together we stood in the back garden and kept watch. Pieces of coal and pennies crashed on to the conserva- tory root but we could not trace their flight. One lump of coal hit the constable’s helmet. He ran to the garden wall, but there was nobody there. On December 19 our washerwoman said she would not work any longer in the house. She came to me in a state of terror and pointed to a heap of red-hot cinders in the outhouse. There was no fire there. How could they have got there? Again I called a constable, and we decided to watch in the kitchen. Two potatoes were hurled m while we were sitting there. It was on Monday that the climax came — at nine o’clock in the morning — and for an hour we were terror-stricken. There were loud bangings m all parts of the house. My sister ran to tell the magistrate. The window panel in my father’s bedroom was smashed, and I decided, as he was in such a state of fear, to remove him from the house.1 1 called in a man from the street, and together we carried him from the room. Just as we were taking him out a heavy chest of drawers crashed to the floor in his bedroom. Previously my sister had seen the hall- stand swaying and had called me. I caught it before it fell, but some strange power seemed to tear it from my hands, and it fell against the stairs, breaking in two parts.’
After we had heard the history of the disturbances from their beginning, the reporter and I made a tour of the house and carefully inspected the damage, which was considerable. Sev- eral of the windows were broken, some with small holes in them as if stones had been fired at them by means of a catapult. Some of the panes of glass of the conservatory roof were also shattered, and lying on the roof were pebbles, pennies, lumps of coal, potatoes, pieces of soda, etc., which had been thrown there. A door inside the house had also one of its glass panels broken.
1Mr. Smith, senior, died before the ^mnrkanry, ceased
58 The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist
In die back bedroom we found the panels of the door shat- tered; a heavy chest of drawers was splintered as if from a fall; and the remains of several smashed ornaments were scattered about, hi the hall we saw a smashed hat-stand in two pieces and we viewed the remains of two broken bedroom doors, a tea tray with one of its sides ripped off, and numbers of pictures which had fallen to die ground. In the small garden were strewn lumps of soda, coal, etc., and Mr. Smith pointed out two win- dows of neighbouring houses which had received the unwel- come attention of the alleged Geist: both had small holes in them as if caused by stones shot from a catapult.
After our tour of inspection we returned to the kitchen, where die four of us — Miss Anne Smith, Mr. Walter Smith, the Evening News representative, and myself— stood chatting. We were die sole occupants of die house. The reporter and I were just about to take our departure when some hard object fell with a resounding thwack in the passage at the back of us. The kitchen is connected with the scullery by a short passage. The scullery leads directly to the garden by a door which we had just dosed.
Upon the fall of the object we four at once proceeded into the passage and found that a metal ferro-cenum gas-lighter, weighing two ounces, with a wooden handle (over-all length about eight inches), was lying midway between the kitchen and scullery. Undoubtedly, it had been projected from behind us and had, apparently, struck the wall in its flight. We imme- diately retraced our steps through the scullery and into the garden, but no one was visible. Nothing further occurred that day.
Next morning I was rung up by the editor of the Evening News, who told me that the authorities had removed young Smith for observation as to his mental state. I was astounded at this fresh development. I had had an hour’s conversation with Walter Smith on die previous day and had found him quite
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 59
normal and very intelligent. It appears that the police had formed a theory that Mr. Smith, junior, was responsible for die manifestations and decided to examine him at a local hospital
I again visited the house on Monday afternoon (January 23) and had a long interview with Mrs. West, the widowed sister. The Evening News reporter again accompanied me.
The fact that Mr. Walter Smith was not now in die house made no difference to the alleged phenomena. Mrs. West told us that during the week-end the manifestations had been both varied and violent; besides the usual arrival of pieces of coal etc., there had been ‘great activity amongst the furniture’. Chairs, of their own volition, ‘had marched down the hall smgle file’, and three times Mrs. West attempted to lay the table for Saturday’s dinner. On each occasion the chairs had piled themselves up on the table, making it impossible for the woman to proceed with the preparation of the meal At die third time she went out into the road and asked a police officer who was on duty there to enter the house and examine the ‘phenomena’ himself. He naturally accused Mrs. West of piling up the furniture herself. A London policeman has litde imagin- ation!
Three persons appear to have witnessed the alleged spon- taneous movement of the furniture, viz. Mrs. West, Miss Smith, and Cyril West, the fourteen-year-old boy, who was so frightened — it was stated — that he could hardly be induced to sit on a chair in case it should move. He was afterwards sent to the country to recuperate.
After we had heard the story of what had happened during the week-end we made another examination of the house. It appeared to be in much the same state as when we left it on the previous Friday. We then returned to the kitchen, and the four of us (Mrs. West, Mis Smith, die reporter and myself) stood chatting in die kitchen, when suddenly there was a sound as if a heavy object had fallen behind us, in die kitchen, but near the
60 The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist passage leading to the scullery, the door of which was shut. To me, Ac noise sounded like the fall of a heavy boot or brush and I at once began to look for such an article; so did the Evening News representative. In a minute or so I saw something dark under a chair in the comer and putting my hand on it I found it was a pair of lady’s black shoes. Actually I put my hand on a hard object which was in the right shoe and brought it to light. It was a small bronze ornament in the form of a cherub, weighing about four ounces.
The cries of astonishment — real or simulated — with which the ladies greeted my ‘find’ were renewed when it was dis- covered that Ac ornament was missing from Ac mantelpiece of the front sitting-room where, I was informed, it had reposed (together wiA its fellow-cherub) for twenty-five yean. We were assured that Aese cherubim had never been removed from the front room. I continued my search of Ae kitchen, but could discover nothing else which could have fallen.
We searched Ae house once more but satisfied ourselves that we were Ae only occupants. The reporter and I arranged to spend Ac next night in Ae house. The following day I was in- formed that the Bury Road house had been shut up, so that I gave up the idea of staying all night. The strange occurrences were driving Ae family to distraction. WiA boA of its male members away, one daughter ill, and the little boy dispatched to Ae country, Ae two remaining sisters determined to quit the house of evil associations. The crowds, too, were frightening them. During Ae week-end, mounted police were necessary in order to keep back the gaping mob which all day and night stood in the road and gazed open-mouthed, at nothing more thrilling Aan a couple of broken panes of glass. As I was leaving on Ae Monday a burly ruffian wiA a Russian accent accosted me and asked if he could ‘mind the place’ for me. He would have looked— and felt — much more at home in a vodka bar at Minsk. I declined his services — wiAout thanks.
6i
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter
During die early part of the week Miss Smith and her sister decided to return to the house. On the Tuesday the editor of the Daily Express asked me if I would make the experiment of taking a medium to the house in order to see if she could get any ‘impressions’. I consented. The psychic was a Miss X, the daughter of a well-known London professional man and, of course, an amateur.
The Daily Express representative was Mr. F. G. H. Salusbury, whom I knew. We visited Bury Road on Wednesday after- noon, January 25, 1928, arriving at the house about three o’clock. Mrs. West was there — the only member of the Smith family who entered the place that afternoon.
We took Miss X to every room in the house in order to dis- cover if she received any ‘impression’. She at once declared that the place made her feel ‘miserable’. This was not particularly illuminating, as most suburban houses have the same effect upon me. But in the kitchen Miss X declared that she felt ‘chilly’. There was a good fire burning in the room — in fact, the kitchen was the only apartment which was heated. Neither Mr. Salusbury nor I felt cool m this room; on the contrary, we felt much warmer. But Miss X continued to get colder and positively shivered. Her respiration slowed down and her hands were distinctly cold. We left her sitting by the fire watching Mrs. West do her household duties. We then continued our search of the house, carefully closing the kitchen door behind us.
We again examined the upper rooms of the house, inspecting and examining minutely every article of furniture, ornaments, etc., and noting their exact positions. The rooms on the top floor of the Bury Road house are divided by a passage which runs from the back to the front of the building. During our inspection of these rooms we must have traversed this narrow and well-lighted passage at least six or seven times. Neither of us noticed anything on the floor of the passage. We were in the front room when we both heard an object fell in some part of
da The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist die house. We immediately turned to go once more to the lower part of the building and simultaneously saw in the pas- sage, with the light filling full on it, a piece of common yellow soap such as is used for washing clothes. It was lying right in our path, about six feet from the door of the room we had just entered. We both declared that it was utterly impossible for us to have passed that soap once without seeing it; to have done so seven times without noticing it or treading on it would have been a miracle.
Without touching the soap we made our way downstairs to the kitchen, the door of which was still closed. Both Mrs. West and Miss X declared that neither had moved during our tour of inspection: the door of the kitchen had not been opened and no one could enter the house except by the front door (which opened only on the inside) or through the garden, scullery and kitchen.
Mrs. West accompanied us to the top floor again and exam- ined the soap, which she said belonged to the scullery. It showed no signs of having had a blow or of filling heavily. Miss X was still very cold and shivering, though she had just come from a warm kitchen. We stayed in the house for another half-hour, but nothing further happened.
Mr. Walter Smith returned home a few days after the inci- dent of the soap. As I prophesied, he was found to be perfectly normal, and it was preposterous that he should have been com- pelled to leave his home. That was the end of the Bury Road affair, and die house was vacated soon afterwards.
* ★ * ★ *
It is obvious that the occurrences which I have described were either genuine phenomena or were due to some mischievous person or persons with a very powerful motive for disturbing the peace of the locality.
My own first impression was that the ex-soldiers at the mental home had discovered that the Bury Road house was an
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 63
excellent target for their missiles. The angle at which portions of the house were struck originated this theory in my mind. There had also been ‘friction’ between the Smiths and the in- mates of the mental home. But no normal external force could have smashed the crockery and broken the furniture inside the house. I was then faced with the alternative of suspecting the Smith family of deliberately destroying the home which had sheltered them for twenty-five years, or attributing die pheno- mena to a supernormal origin.
I at once acquitted the boy, Cyril, ofhaving any guilty know- ledge of the disturbances, assuming they were caused normally, hi the first place, he was absent when many of the phenomena occurred; secondly, he had not the physical strength to inflict the damage which some of the furniture sustained. And with a house full of people any suspicious action on his part would have been noticed instandy. And on the one occasion when I saw him, he looked thoroughly scared. Though phenomena of the so-called Poltergeist type are often associated (as with Eleonore Zugun1) with adolescents, I was convinced that in the case under review there was no connection between the boy and the manifestations.
It has been suggested that the disturbances were deliberately planned by some of the members of the Bury Road family in order to frighten Smith pbe out of the house— for what reason is not stated. But that theory will not bear analysis. Though the most violent of the alleged phenomena occurred when Mr. Smith, senior, was in residence, the manifestations were after- wards so numerous and disturbing that, as we have seen, Mr. Smith, junior, was suspected of originating them and was sub- jected to considerable annoyance and personal discomfort after his father had left the house. And no family would deliberately smash up their home for the purpose of driving out one of their
1See Leaves from a Psychic’s Case-Bock, by Harry Price, London, 1933, pp. 237-72.
64 The Strange Exploits of a London Poltergeist number, especially when that member is the head of die family and the responsible tenant. And it was after Mr. Smith senior’s departure that the remainder of the family were subjected to die distracting attention of the public, police and Press.
The incidents of the gas-lighter, the cherub and the soap still puzzle me. On die three occasions when these objects were pre- cipitated near me, I could never be quite certain that a normal explanation could not be found for the supposed phenomena. It must be admitted that the case presents some very unusual features. The removal of the two members of the household, together with the suggestion that the early disturbances were caused by the inmates of the sanitorium at the rear of the house, marks the Bury Road mystery as being decidedly out of die ordinary run of such cases. I feel convinced that the original trouble was caused by some of the soldiers who were receiving treatment at the private mental home. That the worry and anxiety caused by these disturbances reacted on some of the Smith family seems almost certain. Whether this reaction was a normal or extra-normal one is, in the absence of further evi- dence, a matter for speculation. But I consider that the evidence for the abnormality of some of the occurrences is rather stronger than that for the theory that the Smith family was responsible for all the trouble. And there, I am afraid, we must leave it.
V. ' Grand Hotel * and Other Mysteries
Some of the most curious adventures which have fallen to my lot have been, so to speak, thrust upon me. In parti- cular, the ‘ghost of the Unter den Linden’ (as I call it) was de- cidedly not of my seeking and proved to be die most un- pleasant incident of a psychic (if really psychic) nature I have ever experienced.
A year or so after the War I decided to visit some of the larger German cities in order to hunt for boob on magic. Owing to the very favourable Valuta (the mark was tumbling every day) I thought I could acquire them cheaply, and I was not mistaken. I visited Leipzig, Dresden, Hanover, Cologne and Berlin and picked up nearly two hundred worb on magic for less than a pound sterling.
I arrived in Berlin on a Monday afternoon in September, and took a taxi to that hotel in the Unter den Linden made famous by Vicki Baum in her Grand Hotel. Those who have read this diverting story will be able to visualise the sort of place ‘Grand Hotel’ is, and the type of client it attracts. I need only remark that it is— or was— the most fashionable hotel in Berlin, and probably the largest. It was my first visit: normally, the hotel is too expensive for me and I usually stay at die Hotel Central, opposite the Friedrichstrasse Station, as it is more con- venient for the railway and shops. But I was tempted to stay at ‘Grand Hotel’ on this particular visit owing, as I have re- marked, to the fact that die rate of exchange was so much in my favour.
After a wash and the filling up of innumerable police forms, I thought I would stroll as far as the Cafif Bauer at the comer of a 65
66 * Grand Hotel and Other Mysteries
the Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse and have -what then
did duty for a cocktail before I returned to the hotel for dinner.
I commenced my walk and, in doing so, stopped at the cor- ner of the Pariser Platz, which is close by, in order to purchase from a newsboy a copy of the Berliner Lokal-Anzeigcr to ascer- tain what plays were running. I paid for my paper, looked up, and saw the most revolting travesty of a man it has ever been my misfortune to behold. He, too, was about to buy a paper.
How he came to be by my side I do not know to this day. Though the Unter den Linden was crowded, except for the boy and myself, every person was in motion. The impression I re- ceived was that the man appeared from nowhere, instantane- ously, as if through a trap door. Even in a crowded thorough- fare one instincnvely feels if a person stops by one’s side. I will swear that there were only two of us when I put my hand in my pocket for the note; when I received the paper — a matter of a second — there were three of us.
I should like to describe accurately the appearance of the stranger. But I can no more do so than I can convey to the reader the exact effect the man had on me. He was about five feet eleven inches in height, thin build, and very upright. He was dressed entirely in black, with a long black overcoat and a round, clerical hat. His coat collar was turned up and buttoned round his neck.
There was nothing extraordinary about his attire: it was simply strange. It was his face that was terrifying, and the sudden shock of seeing it made me almost physically sick.
His face was long and thin, with gaunt features and ears that appeared much too large for him. It was of an even redness, the colour of new bricks, and appeared to have no skin on it; it might have been carved out of a joint of raw beef His eyes were deep set, glassy, vacant-looking and expressionless. I could not see his hair and he appeared to have no eyebrows. I thought of the ‘raw-head and bloody bones’ of my nursery days.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 67
As the newsboy handed me the paper, something compelled me to look up, and I was confronted with those terrible eyes. Not only was I startled at seeing anyone there, but those eyes almost petrified me. I appeared to look not at them, but through them, as if they were holes in his head instead of eyes. What struck me as extraordinary was the fret that, although I was looking at him full in the free, he did not appear to see me: his eyes were absolutely vacant and lifeless.
I hurried away from the human monstrosity as fest as I could, and it took a stiff glass of brandy to restore me to something like my normal self. By the time I arrived at the Cafe Bauer I was stone cold and shivering. I was not frightened, but the meeting with the living apparition had produced an extraordi- nary physiological effect upon me.
Next morning I had arranged to go to Potsdam. As I wanted to make a call at Spandau en route, I took a train to this suburb from the Lehrte Station, with the intention of joining the steamer that plies between Spandau and Potsdam. Spandau is at the confluence of the Spree and Havel, which latter river is much visited during the summer months.
My business in Spandau occupied very little time and by eleven o’clock I was ready for my steamer trip to Potsdam. I made my way to the Charlotten-Brucke and boarded the steamboat which I found alongside.
The steamers on the Havel are quite small, and the one I joined was, owing to the lateness of the season, almost empty, not more than a dozen people being on board. While waiting for the boat to start I wandered round the deck, and, to my horror, saw the ‘ghost of the Unter den Linden’ leaning against the iron ladder that led to the bridge, on the farther side of the vessel. He was reading a paper and, as I passed, he looked up and, for the second time, our eyes met. They were the same glassy, lifeless eyes and raw free that I had beheld at the comer of the Pariser Platz the previous afternoon. The man looked so
68 ‘ Grand HoteT and Other Mysteries
ghastly that I simply would not travel with him a yard if it could be helped. So I hurried off the boat, and caught another steamer, going in the opposite direction, across the broad Havel to die pleasure resort of Tegelort, where I spent the day. I could not help thinking it was a curious coincidence that I should have met the ‘ghost’ twice within eighteen hours.
The next day (Wednesday) was spent among the book deal- ers and various people I knew, and proved quite uneventful. The following evening (Thursday) I decided to spend at the Wmtergarten theatre of varieties in the Oorotheenstrasse. This is a music-hall at which one can dine while watching the enter- tainment. I had already booked a table on the balcony over- looking the auditorium, and arrived just before nine o’clock. I enjoyed die meal and was just sipping my coffee when, happen- ing to look straight ahead along the front row of tables, I saw that terrible creature for the third time. He was three tables ahead of me, apparendy enjoying his meal, though he was eating like an automaton. He was in a faultless dinner jacket, which seemed to throw into prominence that terrible face and those awful staring eyes. He appeared to be entirely bald and his scalp was of the same brick-red hue as his face. As I gazed at him he raised his head and our eyes met. At least my eyes met his, and again I got the impression of looking into two holes in his head. Though we stared at each other, he appeared as if stone blind: not a vestige of expression was in those eyes, which might have belonged to a mummy. I could not help comparing him to one of those dombies1 or animated corpses, revitalised by magic, which are made to work in the fields of Haiti, if we can believe the travellers who tell us these stories.
Almost sick at the sight of the horror in front of me, I changed my position and sat on the chair on the other side of the table, so that I now had my back to the stranger. I found that I could not see the entertainment from this angle, 1See The Magic Island, by W. B. Seabrook, London [1929].
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 69
so called a waiter and told him to remove my coffee, etc., to a table on the second tier; just above me. When I had settled down again I beckoned the head waiter and asked him if he knew the man who had caused me to change my seat. I stood up in order to point out the position of the table and found to my surprise that the stranger had already left the theatre. The head waiter made some inquiries concerning die diner, though no one seemed to know him. Curiously enough, the waiter who served the ‘automaton had noticed nothing peculiar in the man who, it was admitted, had departed sud- denly for no apparent reason.
The ‘ghost of the Unter den Linden’ was beginning to get on my nerves. Though quite without fear in these matters, the sight of the man was nauseating and I could not help wondering to myself whether the ‘corpse’ deliberately put himself in my way— a possibility which sent cold shivers down my spine. Fortunately, I was leaving for home the next morning and, for the only time in my life, I was glad to get out of Berlin.
Friday morning I spent shopping; returned to ‘Grand Hotel’ for lunch; asked for my bill; had my bag brought down, and ordered a taxi. I was catching a train from the Friedrichstrasse Station that left just after two o’clock.
I was standing in the vestibule or lounge of the hotel waiting for the head waiter to bring the change from the notes I had given him when, for the fourth — and last — time, I saw the ‘automaton’. He passed through the heavy swing doors like a robot, walked straight past me (it was the first time I had seen him walking), crossed the lounge and proceeded down a pas- sage which, I think, led to several public rooms and (I am speaking from memory) a palm court. Just at that moment the head waiter returned and I at once asked him if he knew die man. As he could see only the back of the retreating figure, he said he did not recognise him. I replied that I particularly wished to know the name of the man. An under-manager of
70 ‘ Grand Hotel ’ and Other Mysteries
die hotel was standing near and I repeated my request to him. The head waiter was told to ascertain who the guest was, and proceeded in the direction of the palm court. He returned in a few minutes with the information that the man he had seen just previously was nowhere to be found. I replied that that was absurd as he had just passed us. The under-manager then ac- companied the waiter in a further search and returned in ten minutes with the positive declaration that there was no trace of the man. Every room in that quarter of the hotel had been explored; the public rooms, palm court and every nook and comer had been examined. I was told that it was impossible for anyone to have left the building from that side of the hotel, and that no escape could have been made by a window. The head waiter was just as astonished as myself, as he had seen the back of the tall military-looking figure as he passed down the passage. Un- happily, I had to catch my train or I would have searched the hotel myself. I left Berlin with the great mystery unsolved.
Looking at this case in retrospect, I am inclined to think that the whole affair is capable of a normal explanation. Many people have curious and unpleasant faces, and my meeting with die ‘automaton’ four times may have been accidental and an extraordinary coincidence. His disappearance m the hotel might have been explained normally if I had had time to unravel the mystery. That the man was objective (and not a mere hallucina- tion) is proved by the fact that he was seen by two waiters (one of whom spoke to him) who admitted this fact.
I used to think that the case of the Berlin automaton must be unique, until, quite recendy, I acquired a rare tract which de- scribes a meeting with a similar unpleasant personage: A Strange, True and Dreadful Relation of the Devils appearing to Thomas Cox a Hackney-Coach-Man ; . . . First, in the habit of a Gentleman with a Roll of Parchment in his hand, and then in the shape of a Bear, which afterwards vanished away in a flash of Fire . . . , London, 1684. It was an extraordinary affair, but Thomas rather spoils the story
Confusions of a Ghost-Hunter 71
by admitting that just previous to his adventure he ‘called in at a Victualling house, where he drank a Pot or two of drink*. I cannot plead guilty to any such indiscretion !
I have had many curious experiences abroad; and, because I have done so much night travelling, I can make myself thor- oughly comfortable in a sleeping-car or ship’s cabin and enjoy a good night’s rest. As a matter of fact, I am a very sound sleeper. Once, when a boy, I slept through a fire that con- sumed the house opposite; and the feet that the road was full of fire engines, police, and people, and our own house was har- bouring what could be saved from the conflagration across the road, felled to disturb my sister or me. I make this digression to emphasise the feet that I do not easily awaken unless there is some very good reason for it, or something startles me into consciousness — as m the affair of the Orient Express, and the ‘haunted sleeping-car’.
Early in May 1926 1 was returning from Vienna, where I had been lecturing at the University and investigating the case of Eleonore Zugun (who afterwards became famous as the 'Poltergeist girl’)1 at the invitation of Professor Dr. Hans Thirrmg of Vienna University.
After an enjoyable stay in the Austrian capital, I joined the Orient Express at Vienna West, the train leaving, if I remember nghtly, at about two o’clock m the afternoon. I had already booked my place in the Schlajwagen and, having settled down in my compartment, I extracted a note-book from my dressing- case and proceeded to write up the extraordinary affair of the Rumanian Poltergeist girl and her friend Dracu.
The afternoon and evening passed without untoward inci- dent. What with meals and my literary labours, I discovered to my surprise that it was past eleven o’clock and time to turn in.
1See Leaves from a Psy dust's Case-Book, by Harry Price, London, 1933, pp. 22-7-72
72 ‘ Grand Hotel' and Other Mysteries
Hie compartment I was occupying consisted of two berths, but only one of the beds had been made up. I occupied the lower berth. I had chosen a compartment in the middle of the coach in order that a minimum of jolting would enable me to write in comfort. I was too experienced a traveller to find any difficulty in making myself comfortable in the somewhat con- fined space which was my bed, and in a very short time I was in a deep sleep. Before turning in I had switched off all the lights in die compartment except a deep blue one which was installed m case of emergency.
I had been asleep for what seemed only a few minutes when I was awakened as suddenly as if someone had fired a pistol shot by my side. I jumped up, and, for a moment, thought we had struck something. But die rhythmic hum of the wheels as they ghded over the metals reassured me that, mechanically at any rate, everything was in order. I looked at my watch, discovered it was nearly two o’clock and realised that we must be nearing Frankfurt (Main). I slipped out of my berth, opened the door leading into the corridor and looked up and down the coach. Everything and everybody were quiet. I would have rung for the attendant but I knew that this tired and overworked official was snatching an hour’s rest in some unoccupied compartment and I did not like to disturb him. But I was convinced that something had happened.
1 turned in again, and at last fell mto a fitful dream-broken sleep. For the second time in that memorable night I awoke as suddenly as if 1 had been shaken. Not only did 1 awake, hut I had an unpleasant feeling that I was not alone in the compart- ment. I am not psychic — thank God! — but I am extremely sen- sitive to influences (especially hostile influences) around me, and I felt that something was wrong with that compartment. My watch informed me that it was nearly five o’clock and that we were approaching Cologne. It was already daylight, but I switched on all the electric lights I could find and searched my
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 73
compartment, the corridor, and die compartments — which I knew were unoccupied — contiguous to my own. I could find nothing amiss, but I still had that curious feeling that something had awakened me. I rang for the attendant.
When the official appeared I asked him point-blank what was wrong with the coach and, especially, my compartment. He declared that everything was in order, and that he bad heard nothing. He suggested that I had been disturbed by the train going over the points. I retorted that in that case I should have got no sleep at all, as the coach must have crossed hundreds of points during the night. I refused to argue the matter further, ordered some tea and shaving water, and began dressing. Just as I finished my toilet we ran into Cologne Hauptbahnhof and I alighted to stretch my legs. The disturbances of the night still puzzled me.
The Orient Express arrived at Ostend punctually soon after ten o’clock, and the attendant came to know if I wanted my baggage conveyed to the boat. I handed him a tip and was pre- paring to leave the tram when the man hesitated, beckoned me back into the compartment, and confessed that the particular coach we were in had a ‘history’. This is the story:
About three years previously a representative of an Amster- dam diamond firm had been m Budapest with a large parcel of cut stones which he had instructions to submit to a certain Central European notability who was in the market for some specimen brilliants. It appears that the customer in question did not keep die appointment owing to a telegram having been wrongly delivered, and the representative found himself in the Hungarian capital with no client and a parcel of diamonds worth many thousands of pounds. He succumbed to tempta- tion. He ‘framed’ a bogus assault and robbery, reported to the police that the diamonds had been stolen and telegraphed his firm to the same effect. During the police investigation he fled from Budapest, joined the Orient Express, which left at eight
74 ‘ Grand HoteV and Other Mysteries
o’clock in the morning, and got dear into Austria. He had booked through to Brussels, where, it is presumed, he hoped to sell the stones.
From the subsequent history of the case it appears that imme- diately he left Budapest a hue and cry was raised, but inter- national red tape prevented his speedy arrest. A warrant was issued in Austria and at the frontier town of Passau he escaped, by a few minutes, the net that had been spread for him.
The Orient Express stops at Wurzburg, and it was here that a friend of the fugitive met him, it is thought, by appointment. The friend was a woman, and for the minute or so that the train was in the station the couple were seen to converse excitedly in the compartment the man occupied — the identical compartment I was destined to sleep in three years later.
What transpired during that interview will never be known, as the woman was not traced. But it is thought that she in- formed him that the insurance company had obtained a warrant for his arrest and that a posse of Belgian police was waiting for him at the frontier town of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). This is only surmise, but what is known for certain is that the diamond traveller blew out his brains within two hours of the train leav- ing Wurzburg. The attendant heard the pistol shot — as I thought I did, and at about the same tune and place — and rushed to the compartment. But the man was dead. The body was put out at Frankfurt. The diamonds were found intact.
That is the attendant’s story, and I believe every word of it. He told me that several people had complained about my compartment and he never put passengers in there if it could be avoided. But I had booked my sleeper in Vienna, had insisted upon a central position, and it just happened that I had been allotted the fetal wagon-lit.
Adventure dogged me after I left the ‘haunted’ coach. Upon my arrival at Ostend quay I found that a general strike had been declared in London and, for some extraordinary reason.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 75
die Belgian steamers to Dover had been suspended. I tele- phoned to Amsterdam to try and persuade the Amsterdam- London airplane to pick me up at Os tend: every seat was booked. Finally, I had to hire a car to take me across the sand- dunes to Calais, where, next morning, I caught a steamer for Dover, arriving home twenty-four hours late.
The affair of the ‘haunted’ sleeper reminds me that Mr. C. E. M. Joad and I once slept in an alleged haunted bed in a private museum at Chiswick. It was a great sixteenth-century bed of carved walnut, bearing a coat of arms in many colours. The owner of the bed purchased it in France for a ‘song’, be- cause the dealer said it was ‘unlucky’. She had it shipped to England.
Because the bed was so ornamental, its new owner decided to use it. The first mght, she told us, she was hurled to the floor, striking her head against the wall as she felL The indentation in the wall can be seen to this day. But she still insisted upon sleeping in the bed, and the ‘falls’ gave way to some less painful ‘visions’, one of which was that of a richly dressed man who was strangled and then placed in the bed. Other people also attempted to sleep in the bed, and were either thrown out or kept awake by some ‘dreadful presence’. The owner decided to seek my aid.
As a feature of the case was the catapulting of the sleeper upon the floor, it occurred to me that there might be a strong spring under the bed that could, in some way, project a person touching it. I examined the bed very carefully by daylight, but could find no hidden mechanism.
Joad and I arrived at the museum about eleven o'clock on the night of September 15, 1932, and took up our vigil in the ‘haunted bed’-room. It was a most extraordinary place. The room was packed with valuable antiques. I sealed the windows and door. I installed an electrical photographic set-up, with two
7 6 ‘ Grand Hotel * W Of/icr Mysteries
cameras focused on the bed, with a lead and switch which I could hold under the clothes. A press of the button, and two photographs would be taken.
We turned in at about 11.30. From my side of the bed I could see the first copy of the warrant which sent Charles I to his death. Near the foot of the bed was a print of Cromwell gazing mto King Charles’s coffin. In a comer of the room was a sixteenth- century oak chest with a carving depicting a lion about to devour a negro. It was all very macabre. I switched off the lights and awaited events.
The night passed peacefully, with one amusing interlude. An antique censer was suspended near the head of the bed. At about daybreak we saw it begin swinging slowly, and at once exclaimed: ‘A phenomenon at last!’ But we discovered that the movement was caused by the vibration of the tube trains which ran beneath the house. We experienced no further excitement that night. We were not thrown out of bed; we saw no visions; we had no bad dreams. In fact, nothing happened. Having taken a picture of ourselves in bed, we dressed and let ourselves out just as the milk was arriving. We heard nothing further about the haunted bed. Joad and I are first-rate exorcists 1
Another foreign adventure which I must record occurred in Paris. Before me, as I write, are two unusual, though ordinary, objects: a copper disc m two pieces, and a two-inch cube of white wax. But if the objects themselves are ordinary, they have an extraordinary history.
It is a tradition that if one sits on the terrasse of the Caf£ de la Paix long enough, eventually one sees every person one knows; it is a much rarer occurrence to be accosted by name by a per- son one has never known, or even heard of. But this is what happened to me one cold evening a few days before Christmas 1930.
I had just arrived from London and was stretching my legs
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter T7
on the Grands Boulevards after dinner, before turning in for the night. Tired, I sank into a chair outside the Caffc de la Paix and ordered coffee and a liqueur. For nearly an hour I watched the living panorama that sways backwards and forwards, by day and by night, along the Boulevard des Capucines. Although a cold night, the terrasse was full and I was compelled to seat myself at a table on the very edge of the surging crowd — a prey to the weary advances of the prowling priestesses of Venus (one of them had a wooden leg) whose ‘beat’ took them past the ca £6 and who, quite mechanically, accosted me with their eyes, if not with their tongues.
I called for my addition and was about to depart hotelwards when a genial old soul in a long black cape and a boulevardier beard halted by my table, looked at me, hesitated, looked again and finally exclaimed in excellent English: ‘A thousand par- dons, sir, but have I the honour of addressing Monsieur Henri Preece?’ I told him he had and that the honour was entirely his.
As I regarded him with some astonishment he hastened to explain the mystery. The stranger told me that he had just been reading an article of mine m Nash’s Magazine1 concerning a stance I had had with Mrs. Eileen Garrett, the medium, at which the alleged spirit of Conan Doyle had manifested. He had re- cognised me as the original of the excellent photograph repro- duced in Nash’s, and had ventured to accost me. I complimented him on his perspicacity and invited him to take the vacant chair at my table, at the same time recalling the waiter. The stranger introduced himself as Monsieur Roux.
After chatting for some tune about mediums in general and Heinrich Nusslem’s famous ‘automatic’ paintings* m particular, conversation drifted to the subject of my article, and we dis- cussed my theory that what Mrs. Garrett had ‘tuned in’ to was iPublished rim ul taneo uily in Nash's Magazine (London) and Cosmo- politan (New York) for Jan. 1931. On tale Dec. ij, 1930.
•See ‘The Automatic Art of Hemnch Nualem’, by Harry Price, in Psychic Research, Journal of the American S.P.R., Nov. 1928.
7* ‘ Grand Hotel' and Other Mysteries
not the spirit of Doyle but his personality which had persisted after death. M. Roux then confided to me that although he was not psychic himself, he had a gift or faculty of ‘externalis- ing’ his own vitality or energy, transforming it into heat, and projecting it. He said he could externalise the heat of his body, and convey that heat to an inanimate object a short distance away by some mental process he could not explain, but which demanded great concentration. I said I was interested, although I am afraid I looked rather bored: I was tired and had heard similar stories so many times.
M. Roux went on to inform me that he had raised the tem- perature of a glass of cold water to the extent of three degrees Centigrade, by merely looking at it for half an hour. He said the thermometer could not lie. I agreed. He declared that if he gazed steadily at a lighted wax candle it would be consumed more quickly to the extent of five millimetres per hour. I was not in a position to deny it. He described further experiments of a similar nature in an attempt to convince me of what he called ‘exterionsation of energy’.
The boulevardier then asked me what I thought of it all. I suggested that an ocular demonstration would be more con- vincing than sitting there in the cold talking about the alleged miracles, and he agreed. He apologised for not asking me to his* one-room flatlet, in the Rue de l’Abbaye, and suggested that we might meet at the same caft on the morrow. I said I would be there at five o’clock.
The next afternoon found me at the Caf£ de la Paix at the time named. I want to be quite truthful and inform the reader that when alone in Paris I am usually to be found at the Cafi de la Paix at five o’clock; I was not, therefore, risking a wasted journey. Candidly, I did not expect to see M. Roux again, but I did him an injustice.
Punctually to the minute the cheery maker of miracles sailed up to my table, and before he had removed his gloves he pulled
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 79
out of his purse a copper disc, slightly larger than a penny, and nearly twice as thick. Both sides of the disc shone like a mirror.
When I had ordered his parfait amour (which I am sure tastes as good as it sounds) we got to business. He asked me to examine the disc carefully (all conjurers start like that) and to ‘ring’ it on the table. I did so, and was satisfied that it contained no hidden mechanism. Then I was told to hold the disc in the palm of my right hand, within a metre of his eyes. This I did, resting my elbow on the table. Without touching the disc or my hand, my friend gazed steadily at the piece of shining copper for, I should think, nearly ten minutes. At the end of that period he asked me if the disc felt warmer to my hand. I had to admit that I thought it did.
Of course, a copper coin gets warmer if held in or on the hand, as the heat of the body is conveyed to it; but I had to acknowledge the fret that the disc really did seem warmer than when normally held in the hand and, as an experiment, I closed my hand over the copper piece. It then appeared to get cooler.
I told M. Roux that I was really interested, and asked him to lend me the disc until the same hour next day, when I promised to return it to him. He acquiesced with delight, knowing that he had puzzled ‘Henri Preece’.
I have been in the psychic business much too long to be un- aware of the fret that suggestion and self-deception are respon- sible for many so-called miracles — especially m the case of cures claimed by ‘psychic’ healers. And I wondered to what extent suggestion had been responsible for the fancied hotting up of the disc. When I returned to my hotel I held the disc in my fist for nearly an hour in the hope that I should imagine it was getting warmer. My imagination was not equal to the task, and the disc obstinately refused to raise whatever latent heat it possessed. What suggestion had done — I argued— auto- suggestion failed to do.
Thinking the matter over in bed that night, I decided to try
8o
‘Grand Hotel * and Other Mysteries an experiment on M. Roux. Next morning I made my way to the Boulevard St. Germain and purchased from the chemists, Poulenc Frfcres, a block of hard white wax, about two inches square and two inches deep. It had a fairly high melting-point.1
Punctually at five o’clock the Caft de la Paix found M. Roux and myself seated at a comer table and, not without some mis- givings, I produced my cube of wax. Could M. Roux melt it before my eyes? M. Roux was sorry, but he could not; but he would like to try an experiment ofhis own.
I was requested to hold the cube on the palm of my right hand and to place the copper disc on top of the wax. This I did. M. Roux then removed his gloves, placed the palms of his hands flat on the table, and calmly gazed at that disc for, I should imagine, fifteen minutes (I ought to have rimed him but omitted to do so).
Was it my fancy, or was the disc sinking into the wax? Yes, the old man’s claims appeared to be justified; the copper had, apparently , sunk into the cube to the extent of half a millimetre! I took the measurement at leisure in my laboratory (the impres- sion the disc made looked deeper at the time), and thus con- firmed M. Roux’s claim that he could, apparently, externalise some sort of heat, energy, or vitality. M. Roux kindly pre- sented me with the disc (which I cut in halves with a hack saw when I returned to London: it was all copper and nothing but copper), which I have to this day, together with the block of wax which — like myself— was so curiously impressed. I tried to get M. Roux to London for some scientific experiments, but he said he was too old, too poor, and hated to leave his beloved Boulevards, where he had spent every evening for more than thirty years. He was glad he had met me, asked me to give a message to ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’ (whom he admired) ‘at the next stance', had another parfait amour, shook hands with
iparaffin wax melts at 114° Fahrenheit, beeswax melts at 14a0 Fahrenheit The meltmg-pomt of the wax I purchased would be about 125° Fahrenheit
8i
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter me, raised his hat — and departed. I was left with one more mystery to solve.
The above case reminds me of another occasion when a per- fect stranger accosted me in a public thoroughfare. It is one of my most curious experiences.
One morning, in the middle of August 1925, 1 was walking down the Strand and stopped to look m an optician’s window. Almost at the same moment a gentleman, accompanied by a lady and a youth, asked me if I could direct him to another optician m the Strand who was advertising a particular make of prismatic field-glass. I gave him the desired information, and we had a little chat about the technical details of various types of binoculars. Suddenly he exclaimed: ‘Are you connected with the optical trade?’ I replied that I took merely an academic interest in the science of optics, and remarked that he would never guess what I was particularly interested in. He said, ‘Don’t be too sure — I’m a thought-reader, and if I am not mis- taken, you too are interested in psychic matters!’ To say I was surprised at his reply is to put it very mildly indeed — I was astounded.
My new acquaintance, who turned out to be a Mr. A. S. Aldrich, junior, ofTakapau, New Zealand, was touring Europe with his wife and son, and he told me that he felt impelled to speak to me as I was looking in the optician’s window. He said ke knew instantly that I was engaged in the investigation of the occult, and could not resist the opportunity of proving it. Since he was eight years old Mr. Aldrich has been clairvoyant, but he is now losing the faculty. He related some very curious inci- dents illustrating his gift — stories which were vouched for by his wife and son. I will relate one episode which comes under the category of what Professor Richet would call ‘accidental cryptesthesia’, and which really is a case of premonition or prevision.
Mr. Aldrich — who is a large landowner in New Zealand —
82 4 Grand HoteV and Other Mysteries
one day saw clairvoyandy a relative of his (a niece, I think) laid out as if for burial, and, as is his custom, wrote in his diary a detailed account of the vision. They had recently heard from die girl, and there was then no suggestion that she was not in good health. Three days after Mr. Aldrich saw the vision, they received a wire to say that the girl had that day met with an accident (I think she was thrown off a horse) and had died. Really, after our extraordinary meeting in the Strand, the inci- dent I have related does not seem so very strange. If ever Mr. Aldrich reads this account of our meeting, I hope he will com- municate with me.
In my capacity of Foreign Research Officer to the American Society for Psychical Research I scoured Europe in investigat- ing the facts, frauds and fallacies of psychical research. From Oslo to Athens and from Lisbon to Bukarest I found many psychic adventures — but some of the major mysteries were encountered on British soil; one, in my own bedroom. For want of a better title, this particular mystery is down in my case-book as ‘the psychic child’ — but I have no evidence that it was a child, psychic or human.
I have already emphasised the fact that I am a sound sleeper, and seldom awake until about 6 a.m., my usual hour for rising. It was all die more extraordinary, then, that the soft pattering of a child’s feet round my bedroom should have awakened me so thoroughly.
I live in a quiet Sussex village, and before the mighty grid spun its metallic web across the county, I habitually kept a powerful electric lantern by the side of my bed. One evening I retired to rest after a strenuous day and feeling as if I could sleep die clock round. Actually, I awoke in a very few hours. I did not merely ‘wake up’: something happened that instan- taneously roused me to the full waking state. I was as wide owaU'‘ as if someone h«d thrown me out of bed.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 83
With the knowledge that I was wide awake came the dis- covery that somebody or something was in my bedroom, the door of which was, of course, closed. I could hear the soft patter of naked feet round my room as if a little child were running round the bed. Sometimes the pattering sounds came from under the bed, proving that whatever the intruder was, it was not of a great height.
My dressing-room leads out of my bedroom and the win- dow of the former apartment is always open a few inches at night, even in the winter. The only entrance to the dressing- room is through my bedroom. As I lay in bed I considered what animal could possibly have climbed mto my room, nearly forty feet from the ground. I knew that my dog was fas t asleep in his bed by the kitchen fire, and I possessed no other animal. But the sound of the pattering was not that which could be caused by any animal with which I was acquainted, and no animal could have climbed in my dressing-room window, the only free entrance to my sleeping apartment.
For ten minutes I listened to the pattering round my room and turned over m my mind every possible thing that could produce such sounds, which, I reiterate, exactly resembled those made by a child of three running round the room in its bare feet. At any moment I could have told the precise position in the room of whatever was responsible for the disturbance. At last I decided to switch on my lantern. Choosing a moment when the sounds appeared nearest to me, I suddenly flooded the room with light — and the pattering stopped instantane- ously. I jumped out of bed: it was exactly a quarter to four and (in January) quite dark.
The first thing I did was to look under the bed: there was nothing there. Then I examined the rest of my apartment, in- cluding the dressing-room: I drew blank. Determined to solve the mystery, if possible, I moved every article of furniture in the room — and found nothing. The window of my dressing-
84 'Grand Hotel * and Other Mysteries
room -was open three and a quarter inches, my bedroom door and windows being closed- 1 explored the house without result. No one was about and my retriever was sound asleep in his basket in the kitchen, the door of which was closed. I returned to my room and, as it was by then nearly five o’clock, I dressed instead of gomg back to bed.
In my career as an investigator there have been few mysteries for which I could not find some sort of solution — but I must admit that the ‘baby feet’ in my bedroom puzzle me to this day. If it is possible for spirits to return to this earth, and demon- strate exactly as humans, then my ‘psychic child’ is capable of this explanation.
VI. The Talking Mongoose
I have been asked to do some queer things during my thirty years’ investigation of the alleged supernormal. For example, when lecturing in Paris, I was invited to take up my perch on top of the Eiffel Tower and investigate a ‘haunted’ kiosk, where ivories, cheap jewellery, and similar souvenirs ‘simply vanished into thin air’, and it was thought that the thief must be a psychic one. Again, a poor woman came to see me one day and stated that for three consecutive nights she had dreamt that a near relative, recently buried, was not dead, but m a trance. Could I procure for her an exhumation order and make some tests? Then there was the man who had secured a quantity of peyott1 (a plant from which an hallucinating drug is made) and suggested that, if I consumed enough of it, I could project my astral’ and record my experience. Curious as these requests may appear, they are commonplace compared with one I received in the winter of 1932 from a lady in the Isle of Man. My corre- spondent informed me that a farmer friend of hers, a Mr. James T. Irving, had discovered in his house an animal which, after a little coaxing, had developed the power of speech, and was practically human, except in form. Would I care to inter- view the little beast? I replied that further data would be desir- able before I decided to investigate the Manx prodigy. I wrote to the farmer.
I found Mr. Irving very helpful, and he confirmed all his friend had told me. In a letter he described the animal as being of a yellowish tinge, like a ferret. ‘The tail is long and bushy and tinged with brown. In size, it is about the length of a three- lEdmouctus William.
86 The Talking Mongoose
parts grown rat in the body, without the tail.’ The mongoose (for that is what the creature said he was when he became on friendly terms with his host) first became audible by making ‘animal noises’ behind die stained matchboarding with which the rooms in Mr. Irving’s house are panelled. The noises con- sisted of ‘barking, growling, spitting, and persistent blowing’, which kept the family awake at night. Of course, this rather annoyed the fanner and he took steps to rout his unwanted guest. He used gun, trap, and poison m turn, but the knowing creature eluded them alL
About this period Mr. Irving had a bright idea. As the animal could make such curious noises, perhaps it could imitate a human being. So the farmer gave imitations of the calls of various creatures, domestic and others, and was astonished to find them accurately reproduced. ‘In a few days’ (I am still quoting from his original letter to me) ‘we had only to name die particular animal or bird, and instandy, always without error, it gave the correct call.’
Mr. Irving has a daughter Voirrey, who, at the time my story opens, was about thirteen years old. It occurred to Voirrey to try the animal with nursery rhymes. This test was carried out and ‘no trouble was experienced in having them repeated’. From that day onwards the ‘talking mongoose’ be- came an intimate and valued member of the Irving family. The voice is stated to be two octaves above the human voice, and very clear and distinct.
As time went on, it was quite obvious that the ‘animal’ (who is now entided to quotation marks) had been capable of talking, laughing, singing, etc., from the day he took up his abode with ftip Irvings, and that the ‘animal noises’ and mimirlnng were intended as a humorous introductory ‘leg-puli’. It is not quite clear whether the mongoose said his name was Gef, but that is what the Irvings called him and he said he liked it.
From a perch high up in the rafters, or from behind a con-
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 87
valient skirting-board, Gef told the farmer a good deal about himself. He said he came from India, where ‘he had been chased by natives’. Apparently he belongs to the well-known Herpestes mungo family, first cousins of the ichneumons of North Africa. Some ‘poor relations’ in Egypt are known as ‘Pharaoh’s rats’.
When Mr. Irving and Gef became on more intimate terms, the latter mentioned the little matter of the shooting, etc. Mr. Irving explained that he thought Gef was just an ordinary animal out of the fields. Of course, he apologised; then they had a good laugh over it, and the incident closed.
A curious feature of the ‘talking mongoose’ case is that the creature is seldom seen by Mr. Irving. Very rarely, something dashes along a beam, or he glimpses the tip of a tail rounding a comer, and that is about all. On the other hand, his wife and daughter have often seen him face to face, and Voirrey has even attempted to photograph him. Once, Gef posed on the wall for her, but just as she was about to press the button, he darted off and was not heard for days. Gef explained chat he is afraid of being caught — not by the camera, but by a trap. Hence his timidity. Sometimes Gef follows them to the nearest town when they go marketing, but always keeps on the far side of the hedge, though he chats gaily all the time.
Mr. Irving invited me to hear the phenomenon for myself and kindly offered me the hospitality of his home during my visit. But I hesitated. In the first place, I was fully occupied with Rudi Schneider,1 whom I was then investigating in my laboratory; secondly, the story I had heard sounded so pre- posterous that I simply could not take it seriously. Then I argued to myself that there might be something in it. After all, talking animals are fairly common — in print. The pages of
1See 'An Account of Some Further Experiment} with Ruth Schneider*, by Hairy Price, Bulktin IV of die National Laboratory ofPsyducal Retearch, London, 1933.
88 The Talking Mongoose
A Thousand and One Nights, Aisop’s Fables, Sir J. G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough 1 and scores of books on mythology are full of talking beasts which are human in everything but shape. To- day, the Australian natives believe that the wild dog has the power of speech; and the Breton peasants credit all birds with language, which they try to interpret. The bear in Norway is regarded as almost a man, and the Red Indians consult the native bear Kur-bo-roo when they are in distress, and the Iowas converse with serpents. Even in psychical research talking animals are not unknown. Who has not heard of the Elberfeld horses,* Muhamed, Zanf, Hanschen and Barto? Certainly, these equine wonders spoke with their hoofs, and not with their mouths — but they made themselves understood just the same. And poor blind Barto was said to be more intelligent than many who came to gape at him! Then there was Rolf,* the Mannheim ‘talking dog’, Black Bear,4 the BriarchfF ‘thinking pony’, and many others. And we have all kept talking parrots. I came to the conclusion that perhaps a talking mongoose was not so very extraordinary, and decided to investigate. I asked a friend. Captain X — very shrewd and not easily hoodwinked — to make some preliminary inquiries on the spot.
X arrived at the Isle of Man on February 26, 1932, and in due course presented me with his report. It is an extraordinary document. On the first night he kept watch at the farm until about 1 1.4s, and as there was nothing moving he decided to
lScc The Golden Bough a Study in Magic and Religion, by Sir James George Frazer, London, 1911-2$ (3rd edition, revued, in 12 vols.).
•See The Unknown Guest, by Maurice Maeterlinck, London, 1914.
•See ‘Rolf of Mannheim: a Great Psychological Problem’, by Dr. William Mackenzie, in Proceedings, American S.P.R., VoL XHL, Aug 1919.
•See: “The Bnarchff Pony’, by J. Malcolm Bird, Journal of the American
by Mantis J. Zaayer, Journal of die American S.P.R., New York, Jan. 1929.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 89
return to his hotel. He left the house accompanied by the farmer, but just as he reached the door he heard a very shrill voice scream out: ‘Go away! who is that man?’ Mr. Irving gripped his arm and said, ‘That’s it!’ Then came some more talk, but X could not understand what was said. X decided to remain in the house, and returned to the other room, when the voice at once ceased. He stayed for another fifteen minutes and then returned to his hotel
The next day X was at the farm early and was greeted with the news that Gef had been talking a lot since the previous night, and had promised to speak to him if he sat in a certain spot. Incidentally, Gef informed the farmer that he had taken a sly glance at X and did not like him! So X was told that he would have to shout out: ‘I do believe m you, Gef!’ if he wanted to hear the mongoose! X did this and patiently waited all day for the shrill voice. While they were having tea, Gef threw a packing-case needle into the room and it hit the tea- pot. X was told that Gef was always throwing things about.
At 7.45 there was a shrill scream from above-stairs, and X could hear Gef talking to Mrs. Irving and Voirrey. X shouted up the stairs: ‘Won’t you come down? I believe in you!' Gef replied, ‘No, I don’t mean to stay long, as I don’t like you!’ As the mongoose was still talking, X quietly approached the stain and began to creep up to the bedroom. But, unfortunately, the top stair had a loose tread which X stepped on — and slithered down the staircase, making a terrible noise! Gef shrieked out: ‘He is coming!’ — and vanished. Nothing more happened, and X returned to London.
The most extraordinary part of this amazing case is that Mr. Irving has kept a sort of diary — in the form of letters — of Gef ’s doings, and it rivals the Arabian Nights in the fantastic improba- bilities which the record contains. Before me are two hundred quarto typed sheets, and every page describes a miracle: I will mention some of the most interesting incidents.
po The Talking Mongoose
In June 1932 Gef told the farmer that he had been chased in India by natives, and frequently shot at. In the same month Gef became tamer and allowed the farmer’s wife and daughter to stroke him and feel his teeth— while he was on a beam. They fed him on bacon, sausages, bananas, chocolate, etc., but he would not touch milk and water. Then he began lolling rabbits for the family. He strangled them and thoughtfully left them outside in a convenient position, with their legs in the air. During the next year or so, he slaughtered scores of them — and the faunal equilibrium of the district was in danger of being upset ! Then he commenced speaking a language supposed to be Russian. Ne pani amato aporusko was one sentence which was recorded phonetically. In August he sang two verses of a Spanish song, and recited four lines of a Welsh poem. Then he spoke Arabic, and revealed the feet that he could understand the deaf and dumb alphabet.
In 1934. Gef began making little trips to the nearest town and on his return told the farmer what certain people had been doing. This was proved to be correct. Then he became clair- voyant and told the farmer what was happening ten miles away— without leaving the farm. Sometimes he was seen out of doors. Questioned as to whether he was a ‘spirit’, Gef said: ‘I am an earth-bound spirit.’
In June 1934 the farmer asked Gef if X could visit him again. ‘Yes,’ was the reply, ‘but not Price. He’s got his doubting cap on!’ In July he began doing little tricks for the farmer’s friends. A person would go outside in the porch and place some pennies on a stone. Gef, with his eye to a squint-hole, would then say whether they were heads or tails. Sometimes he was right.
In October 1934 another reference was made to me. Gef said he liked X, ‘but not Harry Price. He’s the man who puts the kybosh on the spirits !’ In December 193 1 he became so violent in his speech and in his threats towards Voirrey that the girl’s
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 91
bed was moved into her parents’ room. He became friendly again, and in May 1932 Voirrey returned to her own room.
In March 1935 X received some fur and hairs which Gefhad kindly plucked from his back and tail. Having removed the hair, Gef deposited it in an ornament on the mantelpiece, and told the farmer where to find it. As the hair was sent for identi- fication purposes, I forwarded it to Professor Julian Huxley, who handed it to Mr. F. Martin Duncan, F.Z.S., the authority on hair and fur. Mr. Duncan went to much trouble in an attempt to identify the hair. In a letter to me, he says:
‘I have carefully examined them microscopically and com- pared them with hairs of known origin. As a result I can very definitely state that the specimen hairs never grew upon a mon- goose, nor are they those of a rat, rabbit, hare, squirrel, or other rodent; or from a sheep, goat or cow. I am inclined to dunk that these hairs have probably been taken from a longish-haired dog or dogs.’
Mr. Duncan based his opinion upon a comparison of the hairs of various animals, including a wolf and of a collie dog. He found ‘that both these, in the shape and pattern of the cuticular scales, and of the medulla, had a marked resemblance to the cuticular scales, and medulla of your specimens, suffi- ciently dose to make me dunk that very probably yours are of canine origin.’ Mr. Duncan also considered that they had been cut from the animal, as he ‘could not detect a smgle hair show- ing a root-bulb’. Later, he kindly made some photomicro- graphs of Gef’s hairs and, for comparison, some taken from a golden cocker spaniel and a red setter.
I could fill many pages of these Confessions with extracts from Mr. Irving's record, but what I have written is some indication of the amazing things Gef is alleged to have said and done. As he became acquainted with the family, he developed a wit which at times was a bit rude. He called Mr. Irving ‘Jim’ and nick-named him ‘Pots’. When Gef was hungry, he would say,
92 The Talking Mongoose
‘Well, Jim, what about some grubbo?’ and his nonsense would sometimes keep the family awake at night. As his manifesta- tions became so frequent, my friend X decided to pay another visit to the island. He arrived there on May 20, 1935. He heard Gef scream and say, ‘Coo-ee ! coo-ee !’ in the dark, on the way to his hotel. Gef also did the coin trick for him. There were several other puzzling incidents, which X related to me on his return; so puzzling, in feet, that I decided I would see Gef myself.
Mr. Irving wrote that he would be delighted to see me and would make all arrangements for my visit. Unfortunately, on receipt of the letter announcing my decision, Gef suddenly dis- appeared. I waited for a week or so, but the mongoose was still missing. It was not an unusual occurrence for Gef to slip away for a few days, but an absence of two weeks was unusual. At the end of a month he was still missing, but I decided not to alter my plans and arranged to travel to the Isle of Man on Tuesday, July 30, 1935. As I wanted a witness m case Gef should put in an appearance, I asked Mr. R. S. Lambert, the editor of The Listener , if he would accompany me. He kindly consented.
We arrived at Douglas at 6.45 p.m. and were met by Mr. Irving with a car. After a long drive into the interior, we reached a famous beauty spot, where we found a comfortable inn and a welcome meal. During dinner Mr. Irving related the complete story of the talking mongoose, which, alas! was still missing. After our repast we decided to visit the haunt of Gef. This was easier said than done, as Mr. Irving lives in an isolated farmstead seven hundred and twenty-five feet above sea-level, on the summit of what is almost a mountain. There is no proper road to the house, but after an hour’s stiff climb up a precipitous and slippery mule track, we reached the desolate upland where Mr. Irving lives. It was almost dark, and had not Mr. Irving piloted us die entire distance, we should have been hopelessly lost. As we approached the house Mr. Lambert and I were
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 93
startled by an animal suddenly bounding into our midst: it was ‘Mona’, die Irvings’ three-year-old collie sheepdog, who had heard his master’s voice.
We at last reached the house and were introduced to Mrs. Irving and Voirrey — now a good-looking girl of seventeen — whom we found very intelligent, shy, and rather quiet. Mrs. Irving is a charming and dignified lady who gave us a friendly welcome and asked us to make ourselves at home. The Irvings do not belong to the farmer class. Mr. Irving was a successful Liverpool business man who, at about the beginning of the War, bought the lonely farmstead, hoping to make a living by sheep-breeding, etc.
As we sat round the paraffin lamp in the small, dark-panelled living-room, we heard the Gef story all over again. Mr. Lam- bert and I plied the Irvings with innumerable questions con- cerning their prodigy, and received answers which invariably tallied with what Mr. Irving had recorded in his letters. The family was heartbroken at Gef’s continued absence. Mrs. Irving was convinced that the mongoose was still about the house, probably listening to every word we were saying. She addressed a few words to him m the hope that her appeal would touch a sympathetic chord somewhere. There was no response. Then I addressed a little speech to the four walls of the room, hoping Gef would hear me. I pointed out that we had come a long, long way on his account and that we were entitled to some manifestation: a few words, a little laugh, a scream, a squeak, or just a simple scratch behind the panelling. I even invited him to throw something at me. But all to no purpose: Gef was definitely not in a talking mood. Mrs. Irving said she sail thought he was about somewhere. Although he had not been heard for a month, about a fortnight previous to our visit a saucepan of water mysteriously fell off the range in the living-room and swamped Irving’s shoes. No one was in the room, and it was thought that Gef was responsible. We heard a
94 The Talking Mongoose
good deal of GeTs doings: how he travels to the nearest town on the back axles of motor-cars and buses; how he gets to know the names of many of the drivers, and how he picks up bits of scandal which he hears in the town. We also learnt GeT s age: he was eighty-three on June 7, 1935- All these details of GeT s life — and many more — we heard as we sat round the oil lamp waiting for him to manifest. Then midnight struck and we decided to return to the village. By the light of two electric torches we groped and stumbled our way down the mountain path, again accompanied by Mr. Irving, and finally reached our inn.
Neither Mr. Lambert nor I slept very well. The mongoose problem obsessed our minds and made sleep difficult. Was the whole affair a fraud from A to Z? Was it a plot (lasting four years) to fool the countryside? If so, what was the motive? Were the Irvings engaged in a clever and picturesque conspir- acy? Was there any sort of animal at all? Was there any real evidence whatsoever that Gef had been heard? These and similar questions raced through my brain. If a plot, then the Irvings were consummate actors. There was no apparent mo- tive, and no financial gain. In the early days it was said that Voirrey was a ‘natural ventriloquist’ — whatever that is — and responsible for the Gef impersonation. But the Irvings state that Gef has been heard while Voirrey was under observation; in fact, the three members of the Irving family have, in turn, been absent from home while Gef was said to manifest. Irving himself is an amiable and very intelligent business man of about sixty years of age. Could any intelligent person remain in a house for four years without becoming aware of the fart that a hoax was being played on him and the public by another member of his household? I fell into a fitful sleep before I had answered one of these questions satisfactorily.
I awoke just before eight o’clock. I say ‘awoke’, but actually I was in that hypnopompic state between sleeping and waking,
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 95
when a thin, shrill voice (which appeared to come from the end of the bed) said: ‘Hullo! hullo! come along! come along!’ and some chattering which I could not interpret. With thoughts of Gef still uppermost in my mind, the ‘voice’ startled me into complete consciousness. But, alas! it was only mine host’s parrot whose matutinal mutterings had Boated in through my open window from the kitchen across the road.
After a tour of the Island and a good lunch, Mr. Lambert and I again climbed the mountain in search of Gef. We reached the Irvings’ home just before four o’clock and were able to take stock of the place by sunlight. The farmstead appeared even more lonely than it did by night. For mile after mile there was nothing to be seen except the undulating hills covered with short turf, scrubby gorse, and sod hedges. There were no trees and few birds — hardly a living thing1 except an occasional hawk winging its solitary flight across the mountain. But the views were superb. To the west was a glorious vista of moun- tain, glen and sea, bathed m sunlight which made St. Patrick’s Channel look like a sheet of glass. Still farther west, the Moun- tains of Moume were silhouetted against an azure sky. A litde above Irving’s place is a prominence from which, without leaving the spot, can be seen England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. By daylight we saw that the house was a small two- storey affair, made of Manx slate slabs cemented together. The outside walls were faced with cement, which gave it a grey colour. A projecting porch, with a small, deep window, made the place seem larger. Inside the house the walls are panelled, with a space of about three inches between walls and wood- work. The ground floor consists of a small porch, a parlour, the principal living-room, and a pantry-kitchen. Upper floor con- sists of two bedrooms. There is panelling everywhere.
The Irvings were kindness personified, and did everything
1There are no snakes, toads, badgers, moles, squirrels, voles or foxes m the Isle of Man.
S>6 The Talking Mongoose
for us — except produce Gef! However, Mr. Irving personally conducted us over the house and pointed out GeT s haunts. We saw numerous peep-holes; cracks through which Gef threw things at ‘doubting’ visitors; squint-holes through which the mongoose watches the Irvings and interrupts the conversation with facetious and sometimes rude remarks. We saw the runs behind the panelling by means of which Gef can skip, unseen, from one room to another, upstairs or down. In Voirrey’s room we were shown ‘GeT s sanctum’, really a boxed partition, on top of which Gef dances to the gramophone and bounces his favourite ball. The fret that every room is panelled makes the whole house one great speaking-tube, with walls like sounding- boards. By speaking mto one of the many apertures in the panels, it should be possible to convey the voice to various parts of the house. Apparendy, Gef does this.
We spent the evening with the Irvings; we took photographs and played with Mona, and walked round the outbuildings and the nearby fields, where we were shown the spots where Gef deposits the rabbits which he kills for his hosts — as some sort of recompense for his board and lodging ! Speaking of Mona, it is curious that Mr. Martin Duncan thought that Gefs hairs had come from a collie dog. Is it possible that Gef surreptitiously clipped the hairs from various parts of Mona’s anatomy, and foisted them on to the Irvings as specimens of his own hirsute covering?
About midnight we decided that Gef had no intention of coining into the open, and that we had better go home. We had spent many pleasant hours under the hospitable roof of the Irving farmstead, but we could not determine whether, in our rSle of investigators, we had taken part in a farce or a tragedy. No dramatist could have invented a more amazing plot or a mise en sebte better suited to the characters of the play which is being enacted on the windswept uplands of the Isle of Man. We have been told that we discovered nothing during our
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 97
quest of die ‘talking mongoose’. But that is not true: we dis- covered why witches were hanged in the seventeenth century, and why Lord Chief Justice Hale publicly avowed his belief in broomsticks as a reasonable and usual means of locomotion.
Gef returned to the form on the same evening as we left it —perhaps we passed him on our way down the mountain! He told Mr. Irving that, although he had ‘had a few days' holiday’, he was present at the house during our visit, and heard all we said. He gave various excuses for not showing himself, and one of them was that Mr. Lambert was a ‘doubter’. He admitted knocking over the saucepan of water in the living-room. After our return home this clever mongoose made impressions of his paws and teeth in plasticine, and Mr. Irving sent them to me. He (Gef) also dictated to the farmer a complete description of himself, and from these particulars a drawing was made and published.1 Our adventures created extraordinary interest in London and the B.B.C. asked me to broadcast the story* As these Confessions go to press, Gef is still exchanging wisecracks with Irvmg; still dancing to the gramophone on top of his ‘sanctum’; soil screwing rabbits’ necks for the Irving table; and, I am afraid, still impressing a number of rather credulous people.
*For a complete, illustrated account of this extraordinary affair, see The Haunting of Cashen's Gap: a Modem 'Miracle* Investigated, by Harry Pnce and R. S. Lambert, Methuen, 1936.
‘Broadcast from the North Regional Station, Saturday, October 12, 1935.
VII. Some Curious Claims to Mediumship
Anyone can be a ‘medium’; whereas, if you keep a dog, run ill fried-fish stall, or drive a motor-car, you must have a license. But you can practise ‘mediumship’ with impunity. The law does not ‘inspect’ you; you are not required to fill up forms or sign on dotted lines, or even include the amount of your ‘spoils’ in your Income Tax return— because professional mediumship is illegal. You can gaze into a crystal, call up ‘spirits’, produce voices from a tm trumpet, go into a trance, ‘psychometrise’, materialise ‘ectoplasm’, see visions, take spirit photographs, or read the stars — and you are absolutely immune from every kind of tax or official supervision. The reason for this is that the law does not recognise such a thing as medium- ship. The psychic not only has no legal status, but his profession is actually illegal under the old laws, which have never been repealed. Legally, he is a ‘rogue and a vagabond’ and is some- times prosecuted as such.
Though I have stated that a medium is immune from official supervision, he can very easily become entangled in the meshes of the law. He definitely breaks the law if, for a consideration, he predicts the future: he is prosecuted under the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts1 and can be fined or imprisoned. One fre- quently reads in the Press of such prosecutions, and usually the offenders are convicted either for pretending to tell fortunes or for obtaining money under false pretences. The difference be- tween a certain type of medium and a ‘fortune-teller’ is so subtle that the burly policeman and his wife (disguised as ‘sitters’), when they visit the psychic’s parlour, can hardly be ^Vagrancy Act, j Geo. IV. c. 83, and Witchcraft Act, 9 Geo. D. c. j.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 99
expected to recognise it. The result is a fine of forty shillings, or seven days. It is sad to think that these modem representatives of Delphi and Dodona should have sunk to the level of a vagrancy act!
Just as the medium has no standing in law, so he has no status among his brethren. He receives no training, and no degrees. There are no ‘tests’ for a medium except the tests of a labora- tory properly equipped for scientific observation. And this usually applies only to a physical medium. If you go to a clair- voyante — or other mental medium— and she tells you that over your left shoulder she sees the spirit of your aunt Emma, in a blue dress with pink spots, you cannot contradict her! True, you may never have had an aunt Emma, but that does not matter. You pay your guinea all the same and go home won- dering.
I have made these few introductory remarks in order to em- phasise how difficult it is for an investigator to choose his material. As, apparently, mediums — like poets — are bom and not made, one cannot determine the genuineness or otherwise of a psychic without the expenditure of a great amount of rime, money and energy. A man has only to advertise himself as a medium in the spiritualist Press, and the credulous flock to him. As these people seldom admit that there is such a thing as a ‘fraudulent medium’, of course the fakers prosper. Even Sir Ohver Lodge, m the witness-box during the Meurig Morris action against the Daily Mail, said (I am quoting from The Times report1): ‘I hear about fraudulent mediums, but I have not come across them.’ If only I could boast of Sir Oliver’s experience!
If I were to examine all the people who come to me and state they possess abnormal powers, I should want at least five stance-rooms instead of one, and every moment of my time would be occupied in testing these pseudo-psychics. In many 1See The Times for April 13, 193a.
ioo Some Curious Claims to Mediumship
cases, I find the trouble is a mental one and invariably recom- mend the applicant to seek medical advice. Some of these cases are very pathetic. A few of my callers produce written ‘evi- dence’ that they are psychic and these I usually test — generally with negative results. Then there is the ‘spellbinder’ type of showman who hopes to extract a few guineas from us in return for some stale ‘psychic’ tricks that can be found m any shilling conjuring book. These performers do not usually press their claims when I inform them that I possess the world’s largest collection of works on trickery and deceptive methods. Some- times a friend recommends an alleged medium to us and we devote much time and trouble in investigating the case.
I will now relate my adventures with some of the alleged mediums who claimed extraordinary powers which, however, slumped badly under scientific examination.
A year or so ago I received many Press cuttings relating to a certain Joanny Gaillard, a shoe dealer, of Lyons. This man claimed that he possessed the amazing faculty of being able to sterilise or petrify organic substances by merely passing his hand over them. He said he could mummify or magnetise such objects as fruit or meat. He took two lamb chops, placed them on separate plates, and one of them he ‘magnetised’ once or twice per day. After several days the chop that he had been thus treating was dry and hard while the other was beginning to decompose. Another experiment was made with a plucked pigeon, with similar results. These are the stories we heard. Gaillard also used to ‘heal’, and it was claimed that his ‘power’ or ‘fluid’ had a germicidal or sterilising effect, even to the extent of arresting or dispersing malignant growths. People flocked to him to be cured, and he did so well that, I was informed, he sold his boot and shoe business.
Of course I was deeply interested and wrote to Gaillard ask- ing that his powers should be tested scientifically at the Na- tional Laboratory of Psychical Research. I offered him £50 for
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter ioi
a short scries of tests. He accepted, but later wrote and asked for ,£loo. This procedure was so unsatisfactory that I refused to increase my offer and awaited developments.
In the meantime, our Paris correspondent and council mem- ber, M. Ren6 Sudre, had also taken up the case. He and others formed themselves into a commission to test Gaillard. The commission consisted of M. Sudre, Professor Dr. Victor Pauchet of the Amiens Medical School, Dr. Dausset, the radio- logical head of the principal Paris hospital, Dr. Kohn-Abrest, the head of the toxicological service of the city of Paris, and other experts. For the purposes of the test the following objects were purchased: two tench, two mutton chops, two pieces of veal liver, and two unplucked larks.
The first article of each pair was treated by Gaillard, and the second served as a control or check. Every morning and after- noon, for eight days, Gaillard held two of the objects in his hands, and two in the crook of the elbows between forearm and upper arm. He held them for an hour at a time. At the end of eight days it was found that the objects that Gaillard had ‘sterilised’ were in the same stage of putrefaction as those that had been sealed up in a safe. The test had not demonstrated that Gaillard possessed any power whatsoever.1
Another very interesting aspirant to psychic honours was Madame Eugdrne Picquart, the French ‘transfiguration me- dium’. I was introduced to Madame Picquart m Paris in September 1927 during the Third International Congress for Psychical Research,* which I attended as Director of the Na- tional Laboratory of Psychical Research. The lady, a widow aged sixty, claimed that in the trance state, and in full light, she
1See Two Adventures in Metapsychics and Occultism’, by Ren£ Sudre, in Psychk Research, Journal of the American S.P.R., VoL XXm, No. 3, New York, March 1929.
*See Le Cornpte Rendu Cffidel du Troisibne Congrh International de Recher- ches Psychiques h Paris Septembre-Octobre 1927, Pans, 1928.
102 Some Curious Claims to Mediumship
could assume the personalities of various deceased persons, such as a French general, Coquelin (the actor), Sarah Bernhardt, a young child, an ancient Egyptian, etc. It was alleged that her face underwent rapid changes, with the result that her features expressed the characteristics of those by whom she is said to be ‘controlled’.
I had a stance with Madame Picquart at a friend’s flat in Paris, and I witnessed a most extraordinary performance. She appeared to go into a sort of self-induced cataleptic trance, and immediately after both her face and manner underwent several curious changes. She danced and rolled head over heels; she was a soldier, sailor and parson in turn.
In a quarter of an hour her expression and entire appearance seemed to assume sail another personality, though I could not identify it. Then her face became drawn and wrinkled. Then her top lip became white, and she assumed a military demean- our: I was told it was a reincarnation of a famous French gen- eral. I was interested in the performance from a psychological point of view, but was doubtful if there was anything psychic about it. But I had heard such good accounts of her that, a few months later, I invited Madame Picquart to London, where she arrived in July 1928. She arranged to give us six stances.
Madame Picquart brought with her a special stance suit which consisted of thick black woollen tights, over which she placed a flowing black gown. She was always attired m this garb at the experiments held in my laboratory.
At the first stance she stood before us, in full light, with a strained look and vacant expression. Then her hand flew to her hair, which she tugged this way and that until it was entirely disarranged: we were told she was entranced. From a friend she took a sheet of stiff white paper, a pair of scissors and some pim. Out of the paper she cut a man’s shirt front and placed it on her chest. Then she took a piece of black cloth, which she draped over her to look like a coat, complete with lapels. In
As ‘Coquelm’
As an old French judge
As Mcphistophelcs As an Egyptian mummy
Impersonations by Madame Eugenic Picquart, the ‘transfiguration medium’.
103
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter quick succession she cut out a pair of paper ‘gloves’, some paper cuffs, and picked up a white walking-stick which she had brought with her. Then she assumed a dramatic pose and her friend announced that the medium was being ‘controlled’ by Coquelin, the actor.
It was a clever performance and much ingenuity was shown in turning to account the bits and pieces with which she decked herself out to look like a man. Also, it was emphasised, she did the ‘dressing up’ without the aid of a mirror. But die ‘medium’ was no more psychic than the paper I am writing on. If the trance was genuine (which I doubt), the ‘transfiguration’ into ‘Coquelin’ was accomplished entirely by the accessories she employed, plus a little acting.
The next impersonation was that of an Egyptian mummy, but somehow I was not so impressed with this character as I was the previous year when I saw her assume the same pose in Paris. We witnessed the ‘growing’ of the moustache (merely a faint whitening of the skin on the upper lip) and the face be- coming drawn. But it required a good deal of imagination to regard the ‘mummy’ as anything but Madame Picquart playing apart.
At a further experiment (I photographed most of the ‘im- personations’), the ‘medium’ assumed the part of a little boy and hopped and skipped about over the chairs — not bad going for a woman of sixty! Then she became an old French judge, an effect due entirely to the fact that she blackened her upper lip with burnt cork and pinned odds and ends of paper about her person in order to produce the desired impersonation. This was ingenious and very amusing: but psychic! ... I informed Madame Picquart that it was useless to continue the experi- ments as we were not convinced that the abnormal played any part in her performances. She then left for Paris in the guise of her real personality — that of a rather disappointed and very typical French widow.
104 Some Curious Claims to Mediumship
Not all the people who come to us are obsessed with the idea that they are psychic: some think they are possessed of devils; some imagine they are being bewitched or ‘overlooked* by persons who wish to do them harm; others have extraordinary theories as to die nature of spirits and leave us tracts on the sub- ject; a few, under the impression that we are a sort of clinic, come to us to be healed of various disorders — mosdy imagi- nary. And the mechanically-minded bring us machines (such as Melton’s ‘psychic telephone*1) which, they maintain, will enable us to get in touch with the spirit world by a short cut and without the aid of a medium.
I must confess that the majority of these people merely bore me, and the mentally-ailing I am sorry for. But it is the char- latans who are amusing : the pseudo-mediums, the fakers, those who have acquired ‘mediumship’ by means of a correspond- ence course (hoping to make something out of it) and — last but not least — those who think we are a philanthropic institution and come hopmg to extract money from us.
One ‘spellbinder* who thought he could line his pockets at the expense of our credulity I call ‘The Man from Oshkosh*. It happened like this. One day my secretary announced that the
Rev. George B , from Oshkosh, Wis., was in the office and
would like to see me. It is not often that foreign members of the cloth find their way to my laboratory; but I was certain that anyone from Oshkosh, Wis., must be m teres ting, so I told her I would see him. When the visitor arrived in my sanctum, I nearly fell off my chair. I had expected some sort of an ortho- dox parson; the thing that arrived might have stepped dean out of a gangster drama from the ‘talkies’. It was a Chicago rack- eteer in excelsis. When I had recovered my breath, and with my finger on the bell push, I asked him what he wanted. He informed me that he was the pastor of a small spiritualist church
xSee A Psychk Telephone, by Frederick Reginald Melton (i.e. Melin), Nottingham, 1921.
Confusions of a Ghost-Hunter 105
in Oshkosh, Wis., and that he was travelling Europe in search of material for a lecture tour. Could he have some photographs or lantern slides of my laboratory? I said he could not, and did he want anything else? It was then that he informed me that he was also the leading medium of Oshkosh, Wis., and that his real reason for inflicting himself upon me was that he wanted a job. He said he was very hard up, and nearly ‘all in’. ‘Another week, doc., and I’m sunk!' Could I help him? I said I was afraid I could not. He had too much local colour, not to men- tion a pronounced atmosphere. Then he offered to teach me crap shooting: I resisted the temptation and remarked that it did not sound respectable. Finally, he offered to demonstrate his mediumistic powers before me. I consented.
He pulled out his pocket book, tore a page from it, and handed it to me. He asked me to tear it into six pieces of equal size. Having done this, I was requested to write the names of five living friends, and one dead one, on the shps. I was told to turn my back while I wrote the names and folded the papers. This I id. The ‘reverend’ from Oshkosh, Wis., then asked me to hold the ‘dead’ billet in my hand, he placing his hand over mine ‘in order to make contact with the cerebral vibrations emanating from the paper’, and so that he could ‘tune in his personality’ to that of the aforesaid emanations. I looked duly impressed. After the emanations had done their worst, I was asked to place all the billets in a hat and shake them up. I obeyed. I was then asked to light a Bunsen burner and slowly consume each billet in the flame. At the fourth burning the medium shouted: ‘Blow it out!’ I did this (not literally), opened the partly-destroyed paper, and admitted that on it was the name of the person (purely fictitious) alleged to be dead. I was impressed.
I was convinced of several things, amongst them being the following: (a) die medium did not see the names I wrote, and, had he done so, it would not have helped him; (6) he did not
io6 Some Curious Claims to Mediumship
handle the papers; (c) when the papers were mixed it was quite impossible to recognise any particular one; (d) that the fact of his using his own paper did not affect the result. I remarked that the trick (a pained expression clouded his countenance), I meant experiment, was a good one and asked him to do it again.
The second time I used my own paper and sent him out into the passage while I wrote upon, and folded, the billets. Then I called him in; he ‘contacted* as previously — with exactly the same result.
I persuaded him to do it a third time and then I noticed that when ‘making contact’ he held my hand (containing the ‘dead’ billet) in a peculiar manner; in fact, he inserted the forefinger of his right hand into my fist, and must have actually touched the billet. So after the ‘contacting’ business I took the billet out of the room and, with the aid of a powerful objective, minutely scrutinised the paper. It appeared quite innocent of any markings.
But what I had seen started a certain tram of thought. When I returned to the room, mixed the billets in the hat, and com- menced burning them, my powers of observation were concen- trated on one thing — the colour of the flame made by the burn- ing billets. The burning of the second billet aroused my suspi- cions—was I mistaken, or did the flame really appear to be of a slightly greenish tinge? At this moment the medium shouted the usual ‘Blow it out!’ but I insisted upon burning it to the (I was now convinced) green and bitter end. ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ said the man from Oshkosh, Wis. ‘It is,’ I replied, ‘but not very. WThat do you carry it in— a sponge?’
At last he owned up. As I concluded, the faint tinge in the ‘dead’ billets was caused by sulphate of copper — better known as ‘bluestone’. What happened was that in his pocket was a small sponge saturated with a weak solution of sulphate of cop- per and distilled water; it makes a pale blue liquid absolutely in- visible, when dry, on a piece of unsized paper. Just previously to ‘contacting* he touched the sponge with the tip of his finger.
Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter 107
which he cleverly inserted in my fist while holding it, and touched the billet. The mark was absolutely invisible, but there was enough of the metallic copper transferred to the paper to give the flame a very slight green tinge.
‘Well, doc., is it worth fifty bucks to you?’ It was not, but I gave him something that helped to shorten — slightly — the road between Kensington, South, and Oshkosh, Wis.
Another miracle-monger who called upon me was a Mr. E. M. Sturgess, and he declared that he could demonstrate die power of mind over matter by means of instruments, and in- vited me to test him. I consented. He duly arrived on the day appointed for the test, and I invited a number of scientists (in- cluding Professor Dr. Hans Driesch, the Leipzig philosopher, who happened to be in London) to witness the ‘miracle’.
The man who possessed a mind that could dominate matter brought to my laboratory several pieces of apparatus, the chief of which was a disc of wood, eighteen inches in diameter, around the periphery of which were pasted about twenty ordinary playing-cards. The disc was mounted vertically, and in the centre was a spindle, attached to which was a long needle or pointer which moved freely on its pivot. The pointer could be spun round and, being very evenly balanced, it would stop at a card at random. The whole affair was like a large clock face, with playing-cards instead of figures.
The claim made was that the ‘medium’, by merely thinking of a certain card, could, without touching the apparatus in any way, mentally compel or ‘will’ the pointer to travel slowly round the dial and stop at the selected suit. Or an observer could suggest a card, and the medium would mentally cause the pointer to travel to the one selected. I am convinced that Mr. Sturgess genuinely thought he had some sort of abnormal power.
After having carefully examined and tested die markinc
108 Some Curious Claims to Mediumship (which was really very simply constructed), I set it up in the centre of a heavy teak laboratory table around which sat the scientific observers, one of whom had chosen the King of Hearts. I told the medium to commence ‘willing’.
The medium then placed one hand on the table. He told us all to think hard of the Ring of Hearts. We thought accord- ingly. With all eyes directed on the instrument we saw the pointer very slowly travel round the dial. It stopped at the King of Hearts. Then we chose another card, and again the needle gradually swung round and came to rest at the selected spot. By the time we had witnessed the second successful experi- ment, I had formulated a theory as to how the ‘miracle’ was worked. Why did the medium persist m keepmg his hand on die edge of the table?
I suggested that we should be more impressed if the medium stood absolutely clear of the table without touching it in any way. ‘That is impossible,’ he said, ‘because some of my animal magnetism has to travel through the table, and so mto the machine. I must make contact.’ I pointed out to him that if he stood quite clear of the table his ‘magnetism’ could soil flow from him into his machine via his boots, the floor and the table-legs. He would not admit my point.