Collected Ghost Stories

by M. R. James

  In the afternoon he paid a short visit to Hald, and took his tea at Baekkelund;* nor could he notice, though he was in a somewhat nervous frame of mind, that there was any indication of such a failure of eye or brain as his experiences of the morning had led him to fear.

  At supper he found himself next to the landlord.

  ‘What,’ he asked him, after some indifferent conversation, ‘is the reason why in most of the hotels one visits in this country the number thirteen is left out of the list of rooms? I see you have none here.’

  The landlord seemed amused.

  ‘To think that you should have noticed a thing like that! I’ve thought about it once or twice myself, to tell the truth. An educated man, I’ve said, has no business with these superstitious notions. I was brought up myself here in the High School of Viborg, and our old master was always a man to set his face against anything of that kind. He’s been dead now this many years—a fine upstanding man he was, and ready with his hands as well as his head. I recollect us boys, one snowy day——’

  Here he plunged into reminiscence.

  ‘Then you don’t think there is any particular objection to having a Number 13?’ said Anderson.

  ‘Ah! to be sure. Well, you understand, I was brought up to the business by my poor old father. He kept an hotel in Aarhuus* first, and then, when we were born, he moved to Viborg here, which was his native place, and had the Phœnix here until he died. That was in 1876. Then I started business in Silkeborg,* and only the year before last I moved into this house.’

  Then followed more details as to the state of the house and business when first taken over.

  ‘And when you came here, was there a Number 13?’

  ‘No, no. I was going to tell you about that. You see, in a place like this, the commercial class—the travellers—are what we have to provide for in general. And put them in Number 13? Why, they’d as soon sleep in the street, or sooner. As far as I’m concerned myself, it wouldn’t make a penny difference to me what the number of my room was, and so I’ve often said to them; but they stick to it that it brings them bad luck. Quantities of stories they have among them of men that have slept in a Number 13 and never been the same again, or lost their best customers, or—one thing and another,’ said the landlord, after searching for a more graphic phrase.

  ‘Then, what do you use your Number 13 for?’ said Anderson, conscious as he said the words of a curious anxiety quite disproportionate to the importance of the question.

  ‘My Number 13? Why, don’t I tell you that there isn’t such a thing in the house? I thought you might have noticed that. If there was it would be next door to your own room.’

  ‘Well, yes; only I happened to think—that is, I fancied last night that I had seen a door numbered thirteen in that passage; and, really, I am almost certain I must have been right, for I saw it the night before as well.’

  Of course, Herr Kristensen laughed this notion to scorn, as Anderson had expected, and emphasized with much iteration the fact that no Number 13 existed or had existed before him in that hotel.

  Anderson was in some ways relieved by his certainty but still puzzled, and he began to think that the best way to make sure whether he had indeed been subject to an illusion or not was to invite the landlord to his room to smoke a cigar later on in the evening. Some photographs of English towns which he had with him formed a sufficiently good excuse.

  Herr Kristensen was flattered by the invitation, and most willingly accepted it. At about ten o’clock he was to make his appearance, but before that Anderson had some letters to write, and retired for the purpose of writing them. He almost blushed to himself at confessing it, but he could not deny that it was the fact that he was becoming quite nervous about the question of the existence of Number 13; so much so that he approached his room by way of Number 11, in order that he might not be obliged to pass the door, or the place where the door ought to be. He looked quickly and suspiciously about the room when he entered it, but there was nothing, beyond that indefinable air of being smaller than usual, to warrant any misgivings. There was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau to-night. He had himself emptied it of its contents and lodged it under his bed. With a certain effort he dismissed the thought of Number 13 from his mind, and sat down to his writing.

  His neighbours were quiet enough. Occasionally a door opened in the passage and a pair of boots was thrown out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside, from time to time a cart thundered over the atrocious cobble-stones, or a quick step hurried along the flags.

  Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then went to the window and studied the dead wall opposite and the shadows upon it.

  As far as he could remember, Number 14 had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man, who said little at meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate. Apparently, however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. Sagförer Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten o’clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and Anderson’s thoughts, like those of Emily in the Mysteries of Udolpho,* began to ‘arrange themselves in the following lines’:

  ‘When I return to my hotel,

  At ten o’clock p.m.,

  The waiters think I am unwell;

  I do not care for them.

  But when I’ve locked my chamber door,

  And put my boots outside,

  I dance all night upon the floor.

  And even if my neighbours swore,

  I’d go on dancing all the more,

  For I’m acquainted with the law,

  And in despite of all their jaw,

  Their protests I deride.’

  Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable that quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader. To judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr Kristensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect. But he made no remark. Anderson’s photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses. Nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of Number 13, had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad. It was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse. Of words or tune there was no question. It went sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ whose wind fails suddenly. It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson felt that if he had been alone he must have fled for refuge and society to some neighbour bagman’s room.

  The landlord sat open-mouthed.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said at last, wiping his forehead. ‘It is dreadful. I have heard it once before, but I made sure it was a cat.’

  ‘Is he mad?’ said Anderson.

  ‘He must be; and what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too, and so successful in his business, by what I hear, and a young family to bring up.’

  Just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered, without waiting to be asked. It was the lawyer, in deshabille and very rough-haired; and very angry he looked.

  ‘I beg pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘but I should be much obliged if you would kindly desist——’

  Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible for the disturbance; and after a moment’s lull it swelled forth again more wildly than before.

  ‘But what in the name of Heaven does it me
an?’ broke out the lawyer. ‘Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out of my mind?’

  ‘Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door? Isn’t there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?’

  This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say, and he realized its futility as he spoke; but anything was better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his chair.

  ‘Impossible,’ said the lawyer, ‘impossible. There is no chimney. I came here because I was convinced the noise was going on here. It was certainly in the next room to mine.’

  ‘Was there no door between yours and mine?’ said Anderson eagerly.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Herr Jensen, rather sharply. ‘At least, not this morning.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Anderson. ‘Nor to-night?’

  ‘I am not sure,’ said the lawyer with some hesitation.

  Suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning manner. The three men actually shivered at the sound. Then there was a silence.

  ‘Come,’ said the lawyer, ‘what have you to say, Herr Kristensen? What does this mean?’

  ‘Good Heaven!’ said Kristensen. ‘How should I tell! I know no more than you, gentlemen. I pray I may never hear such a noise again.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath. Anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the Psalter, ‘omnis spiritus laudet Dominum,’* but he could not be sure.

  ‘But we must do something,’ said Anderson—‘the three of us. Shall we go and investigate in the next room?’

  ‘But that is Herr Jensen’s room,’ wailed the landlord. ‘It is no use; he has come from there himself.’

  ‘I am not so sure,’ said Jensen. ‘I think this gentleman is right: we must go and see.’

  The only weapons of defence that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella. The expedition went out into the passage, not without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter turned the handle, and gave a sudden vigorous push. No use. The door stood fast.

  ‘Herr Kristensen,’ said Jensen, ‘will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? We must see this through.’

  The landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. Jensen and Anderson remained outside looking at the door.

  ‘It is Number 13, you see,’ said the latter.

  ‘Yes; there is your door, and there is mine,’ said Jensen.

  ‘My room has three windows in the daytime,’ said Anderson, with difficulty suppressing a nervous laugh.

  ‘By George, so has mine!’ said the lawyer, turning and looking at Anderson. His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long grey hair upon it.

  Anderson was just in time to pull Jensen out of its reach with a cry of disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh was heard.

  Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run, he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or other of their rooms.

  However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and alarmed. Jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray.

  The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats in that devil’s den. The landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the danger were not faced his hotel was ruined, and very loth to face it himself. Luckily Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized force.

  ‘Is this,’ he said, ‘the Danish courage I have heard so much of? It isn’t a German in there, and if it was, we are five to one.’

  The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door.

  ‘Stop!’ said Anderson. ‘Don’t lose your heads. You stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and don’t go in when it gives way.’

  The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or rending of wood—only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then Anderson looked at the door again. It was gone; the plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar had struck it. Number 13 had passed out of existence.

  For a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall. An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as Anderson glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the long passage that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn.

  * * * * *

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the landlord, with hesitation, ‘you gentlemen would like another room for to-night—a double-bedded one?’

  Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience. It was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle. They noticed that both Number 12 and Number 14 had three windows.

  Next morning the same party reassembled in Number 12. The landlord was naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help, and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be cleared up. Accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters. The furniture was cleared away, and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to Number 14.

  You will naturally suppose that a skeleton—say that of Mag. Nicolas Francken—was discovered. That was not so. What they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. In it was a neatly-folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing. Both Anderson and Jensen (who proved to be something of a palæographer)* were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena.

  * * * * *

  I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham,* representing a number of sages seated round a table. This detail may enable connoisseurs to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach; but the fly-leaves of it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which I have owned the volume, I have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is. Not dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box.

  After two days’ contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or Old Danish.

  Anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender the box and the parchment to the Historical Society of Viborg to be placed in their museum.

  I had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near Upsala,* after a visit to the library there, where we—or, rather, I—had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius* (in later life Professor of Hebrew at Königsberg) sold himself to Satan. Anderson was not really amused.

  ‘Young idiot!’ he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he commit
ted that indiscretion, ‘how did he know what company he was courting?’

  And when I suggested the usual considerations he only grunted. That same afternoon he told me what you have read; but he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him.

  COUNT MAGNUS

  By what means the papers out of which I have made a connected story came into my hands is the last point which the reader will learn from these pages. But it is necessary to prefix to my extracts from them a statement of the form in which I possess them.

  They consist, then, partly of a series of collections for a book of travels, such a volume as was a common product of the forties and fifties. Horace Marryat’s Journal of a Residence in Jutland and the Danish Isles* is a fair specimen of the class to which I allude. These books usually treated of some unfamiliar district on the Continent. They were illustrated with woodcuts or steel plates. They gave details of hotel accommodation, and of means of communication, such as we now expect to find in any well-regulated guide-book, and they dealt largely in reported conversations with intelligent foreigners, racy innkeepers and garrulous peasants. In a word, they were chatty.

  Begun with the idea of furnishing material for such a book, my papers as they progressed assumed the character of a record of one single personal experience, and this record was continued up to the very eve, almost, of its termination.

  The writer was a Mr. Wraxall. For my knowledge of him I have to depend entirely on the evidence his writings afford, and from these I deduce that he was a man past middle age, possessed of some private means, and very much alone in the world. He had, it seems, no settled abode in England, but was a denizen of hotels and boardinghouses. It is probable that he entertained the idea of settling down at some future time which never came; and I think it also likely that the Pantechnicon fire* in the early seventies must have destroyed a great deal that would have thrown light on his antecedents, for he refers once or twice to property of his that was warehoused at that establishment.