July 8th. ‘I was the subject today of a singular hallucination: I believe the spiritualist jargon describes it as clair-audience. I was in my rooms dressing to dine out with Lady L. when I distinctly heard the voice of James Bradshaw saying, ‘The day of reckoning will come soon.’ The impression was so strong that for a moment I supposed the man to have obtained admittance to my rooms, and to be speaking to me, but on looking round I perceived I was alone. There was no one in the sitting-room, and White, for whom I rang, assured me that he had admitted no one to see me. I am of the opinion that my subconscious memory has played me a trick and has recalled to my conscious self the last words that Bradshaw spoke as he flung himself out of the room at York, after refusing my offer of £1000. It is curious that this memory should have been revived after so many years, and even more curious that it should have been revived wrongly, for I am certain that the actual words Bradshaw used were, ‘The day of reckoning will come some time.’ However, it is useless to speculate on these tricks of the memory.
July 9th. I have been feeling uneasy and depressed today. I cannot describe myself as ill, but I suppose I have been working too hard at my article for Robertson, and that the heat has helped to affect me; I will get away for a breath of sea air as soon as possible. It must be my physical condition acting on my mind, but I cannot get Bradshaw out of my head. I know that he considers that I did him a great wrong, but after all £1000 to a man of his means is certainly more valuable than a little notoriety or, as he would call it, fame. Besides, I greatly question if he, a totally unknown man, could ever have got his, shall I call it, discovery recognised by people of standing; it was far too revolutionary, and needed someone recognised as an authority to bring it forward. At the time of the York interview he failed to notice this point, any more than he would agree that, if I had not come to his help in Fialo and seen him through his illness, he would probably have died and his secret have died with him and been lost to the world. He is a most unreasonable fellow, and a mischief maker; I think I came well out of my encounter with him.
July 10th. On picking up Times this morning, I noticed in the obituary column the death of James Bradshaw, assistant master at — School in Yorkshire. He died on the eighth, so there goes Bradshaw into nothingness. For a moment I confess to a slight feeling of regret for the man, but it passed quickly; he was an enemy of mine, though an impotent one, and it is better that he should have gone. While I fail to see how he could have done me harm while alive, yet it is certain he can do me none now that he is dead.
A most extraordinary and rather perturbing hallucination occurred this evening. I was dining alone at my usual table at the Club, and had nearly finished dinner, when, looking up, I saw James Bradshaw sitting in the chair directly opposite to my seat. He was plainly discernible as he sat quite motionless gazing at me with a diabolical grin and, save that he looked several years older, he was exactly as when I last saw him at York. I looked at him for a minute, then impelled by a sudden emotion and forgetful of the Times notice I rose from my chair, and moved round towards him. He did not stir until I was close upon him, and then – he simply was not there. I leaned against the table feeling sick and faint and when the waiter came to my side I sent for some brandy. This revived me, but I have told the man never to leave an empty chair opposite me again. The vision was so clear, and the appearance of the figure so menacing, that I feel unnerved. I know it is hallucination, imagination, nonsense; and yet –
July 11th. My mind must be seriously affected. I slept badly last night, and woke unrefreshed; I have had dreams but I cannot recall them, but all this is nothing to the trouble that has begun to pursue me in my waking hours. James Bradshaw is here in my rooms, he follows me to my Club, he goes with me wherever I go, whether alone or with others. I cannot see him, but I know that he is here, and I constantly hear his voice. He taunts me with what happened at Fialo years ago, something that none but he and I know; he threatens me, he laughs at me. I know that it must be hallucination, but it is horribly vivid. I know that Bradshaw’s body is rotting in the earth, and his spirit dissolved into nothingness, what is it then that tortures me in his form? I have been so maddened that I have answered him back, or is it answering myself back? I do not know; I can only cling to the belief that it is some bodily derangement. Dr Bessford returns from his holiday tomorrow, and I will seek help from him. I can go to no stranger. It is now past one o’clock in the morning, and I have been walking to and fro, and wrestling with James Bradshaw for hours. I must rest, I must rest, but sleep, oh, my dreams will murder sleep!
July 12th. After a hideous night, I went early to see Dr Bessford. He tells me after careful examination that physically he can find nothing wrong with me, but that mentally I appear to be over-stimulated. I must rest. What farcical nonsense! While he was actually saying the words, Bradshaw was whispering in my ear: ‘Your soul is given to me.’ What shall I do? What can I do? Bessford has given me a sleeping draught; I will try and see if this will not give me at least one night of immunity from my persecutor.
July 13th. How have I lived through the night, how can I live through the day, how can I continue to exist? Last night, I took my sleeping draught and forthwith my body was steeped in sleep, but my spirit, released from its earthly casing, became the sport of the powers of evil. For what seemed ages I fled through vast, grey, misty spaces, hounded ever by James Bradshaw. Wildly I endeavoured to hide, for I knew whither he was driving me. At last he seized me and dragged me onwards and now I know there is a Hell, for I have seen it, mine own eyes have seen it; for an instant, for an eternity, James Bradshaw swung me suspended over the Pit, and then with a yell of laughter he freed me, and I woke. I woke in the pale light of early morning to see Bradshaw’s form by my bed-side. I stared at the figure, which stood distinct in the early light, motionless, but with threatening arm upraised, and then I heard its voice, clear but sounding as if from far, far away: ‘In four days you shall be mine for ever.’ It vanished, and I have lived through another day, too crushed and hopeless to think.
July 14th. Last night I passed free of disturbance, and I have felt less sensible of the hideous presence. Perhaps I can yet escape; perhaps there is yet mercy for me. For have I been so evil a man that I deserve such a doom as Bradshaw threatens? I know I have my faults, I know I have done things that cause me shame, but is there no repentance? Is there really a God of mercy to appeal to? Surely there must be, surely that Hell, which I have myself seen, is not the doom of all mankind. What shall I do? I will make amends to any I have wronged in the past; I will try and lead a better life in the future. First, I will write openly and fully and make public the whole truth of my dealings with James Bradshaw, and if he has a family I will seek them out, and make what reparation is possible and humble myself before them. Then there is that affair of Campion; he at any rate is alive, and I can straighten out matters there; and there is Ellen; she, poor, loving soul shall have justice. But I must have time to do these things, although I will not delay in commencing them; for I must not die till my tasks are all accomplished. To begin with I must sleep; Bessford’s draught gave me an experience I dare not repeat, so I will get a small bottle of opium – that will give me sound sleep.
July 15th. The opium worked well enough and I slept soundly, but I woke in an agony of fear with the voice of Bradshaw resounding through my room: ‘You have two days left.’ I sprang out of bed and called out something, I cannot say what, some prayer, some appeal. My answer was a mocking laugh dying away in the distance. I shall go mad. I must have time to repent in, I cannot, I will not, I dare not die yet. But how can I help myself? I have forgotten how to pray. I have denied and forsaken my God for so long that now He has forsaken me. Can no one help me? Yes, there is Father Bertram to whom my dear dead mother used to go in trouble. Can he and will he help me? I can but try.
* * *
The powers of Hell have prevailed; I am a lost soul with none but myself to help me. In accordance with my resolve I set forth t
o visit Father Bertram, and was fortunate enough to find him at home. He greeted me civilly but coldly – no wonder, renegade that I am. But when I began to try and tell my story my tongue was tied, I could not tell my tale, for incessantly James Bradshaw was whispering in my ear, whispering words of blasphemy and despair. I stammered out some inanities and fled the house, Bradshaw walking by me laughing gleefully.
July 16th. I woke once more from a drugged sleep to hear the voice of doom proclaiming: ‘Tomorrow I will claim you.’ But he shall not do so, I will not die, I dare God or Devil to take my life till I have accomplished my purpose. Let me think calmly; I am under a spell now, a spell which tells me I must die tomorrow. Let me break that spell; let me but survive over tomorrow, and the power of evil will be defeated. I have but to preserve my will power for one day, and I am safe. I will seek outside help, the help of man, it is the night I dread. Well, I will keep in the company of my kind all night, they will preserve me from sell-destruction. I will remain at the Club as late as possible, dining with Rich and that Belgian friend of his, as he has asked me to do, then I will go out into the streets and find some friendly constable, who will let me be his companion through the night watches: but nothing shall induce me to spend the night in my rooms. In the morning I shall be safe.
The day so far has been quiet and undisturbed, if I can get through the night as I propose, I feel I shall have conquered in the fight. Alone I shall have done it: God has deserted me, the Devil assails me, but I defy them both; I will not die tonight.’
These are the closing words of the diary. It will be remembered that the unfortunate man returned from the Club to his apartments at about half-past eleven that evening.
The House in the Wood
‘I do not feel called upon to vouch for the truth of the story I am going to tell you,’ said the ‘drummer’, in whose company I was making the journey from Chicago to New York, ‘I will merely say that my friend Larrabee was a man on whose word I implicitly relied, and as he told me the story several times, never contradicted himself, and always declared he was telling the truth, I, for one, believe it.’
This declaration was made by Chas Smithson, a commercial traveller for the large New York importing house of Higsby and Dayland, in the smoking-room of the vestibuled limited express from Chicago to New York, one fine April morning not a hundred years ago. I knew Mr Smithson slightly, and knew him to be as good a fellow as ever breathed, and when I had entered the train at Chicago the night before I had been heartily glad to see his jovial self preceding me. We had assembled in the smoking-car of the train, a party of half a dozen, the usual kind of gathering one sees on such a trip. After the various staples of conversation had been discussed and dismissed, there had been somewhat of a break in the conversation, interrupted by someone enquiring: ‘Does anyone here believe in ghosts?’ This remark had occasioned the wrangle always incident upon it; and story after story, some old, some new, had been narrated, and canvassed, and the anti-ghost party had gradually but slowly been winning the day, when Smithson, who had hitherto, unlike his usual self, been silent, suddenly made the above observation. There was a dead silence. Smithson had spoken with such unusual vehemence that everyone saw that, mild though the words of his speech were, yet underlying their mildness was an evident deep-rooted meaning that the subject was a grave one, and should not lightly be discussed. We all turned towards him, and in one voice demanded that he should tell his tale.
After a moment’s pause he said: ‘Well, gentlemen, I will do so, but I request that none of you will laugh at me. My friend, Mr Larrabee, who is lately dead, was an eye-witness, or at least believed himself to have been an eye-witness, of what I am going to relate; and firmly believed as I do that he witnessed a spiritual manifestation take place with a view to accomplishing a definite object. Though the adventure did not happen to myself,’ he added, ‘I will by your leave tell it in the first person, as I think I can thus do it better justice.’
So after another round of drinks had been ordered and disposed of, and all the cigars had been properly lighted, we settled ourselves in our chairs, and prepared to listen in the prosaic smoking-room of the limited express to one of the most astonishing stories we had ever heard solemnly told as true.
‘Some years ago,’ commenced Smithson, in the character of Larrabee, ‘it happened to be my fate to be a travelling salesman for a big Boston house, which had a branch in Chicago, and my route led me into the northern part of Wisconsin and into Minnesota; and, in fact, embraced that part of the country where many of the great iron mines are situated. The country was then much wilder than it is now, railroad transportation was poor, and justice and the enforcement of the law also were very negligently attended to. The journeys, too, were over rough and unfrequented roads in many instances, while the hotel accommodations were always bad. However, I was quite young then and, as my sales were good, I did not particularly mind the hardship of the life.
‘I remember that the hardest part of the task allotted to me and the part I was always most glad to have done with was my visit to the village of Milnaska, which lay some thirty miles from the end of a little branch railroad connecting with the main line for Chicago. My custom was to put up for the night at the railway terminus, spend the next day in a buggy driving through the hilly, forest-covered country to Milnaska, sleep there, spend the next day, and then early in the following morning return in time to catch the evening train to the South. Milnaska was, though off the line of travel, a place of sufficient importance to make this trip desirable, especially lately, since an iron mine of some consequence had been opened in its immediate vicinity.
‘The road from the railroad terminus to Milnaska was one of the most dreary I have ever seen; for Milnaska being close to the shore of Lake Superior its iron was sent off by boat, and most of its supplies received in the same way, so that there was very little travel between it and Little Forks, as the railroad terminus was named. Though the Lake was the easiest way of getting to Milnaska, it was not the quickest either from Chicago, where the headquarters of the mining company were, or for myself, who came to Milnaska from a point further west.
‘One dreary October evening in the year of Our Lord 18— beheld me tired and dirty, disembarking from the train at Little Forks, and seeking the seclusion of the one uncomfortable and not particularly clean hotel the place boasted. On my arrival at its inhospitable doors, I registered, and having no business in Little Forks, and no desire to wander about its uninviting streets, I quietly sat down by the stove to await the announcement of supper. A few of the usual country hotel loafers were grouped about the hotel office, but there was no one who excited my particular curiosity, till there entered a gentleman whom, travel learned as I was, I had great difficulty in “placing”. A native of Little Forks he certainly was not, but that he knew the place was equally certain, and that he was known in it, for the landlord hastily advanced to greet him, calling him Mr Sykes, and shaking him by the hand. But he certainly was not a drummer, or the landlord would have offered to take the little unpretentious black bag he carried, and this he did not do. The stranger walked up to the desk and, still resting his left hand on his bag, registered, whilst the landlord observed, “The fast buggy at eight tomorrow morning as usual, Mr Sykes?” To which the other responded only by a nod, and preceded by the bell boy disappeared up the stairs. I ought, I suppose, to give a short description of Mr Sykes, and a short one will do, for he was one of those negative men, who have no very marked characteristics. Rather short and squarely built, his grey hair and lined face rather marked the man who had suffered than the old man. But though his countenance bore signs of sorrow, yet it showed also courage and great resolution, coupled with keen watchfulness. He was dressed in deep black, evidently in remembrance of some lately-lost loved one.
‘As soon as Mr Sykes had disappeared, I strolled over to the desk, and after a few remarks I asked the landlord who Mr Sykes was. The man looked queerly at me for a few moments, and then said,
“I am sorry, Mr Larrabee, you can see for yourself in the register that he comes from Chicago, but I am not able to tell you anything about him. Mr Sykes is very particular, and has requested me never to mention who he is, or what is his business. But,” he continued, “to oblige you as a good customer, I’ll put you at the same table at supper, and you can get what you can out of him. But he is awful close-mouthed. I’ll tell you this, though, he is going to Milnaska tomorrow.”
‘I was obliged to be content with this answer and wait till supper time, which luckily was not far off. As soon as it was announced I walked in, and seating myself had got about a quarter of the way through my very leathery beefsteak, when the landord, true to his promise, ushered Mr Sykes to the seat next mine. He ordered supper, and while it was being brought sat quietly looking around him. I was surprised to see that he had brought his black bag down with him, and that it lay on the chair next him. Presently I decided to break the ice, and did so with the remark, “Bad weather, isn’t it?” “Yes,” replied Mr Sykes. “I am mighty sorry I have got to drive to Milnaska tomorrow,” I went on. “if it goes on raining like this, I shall be wet through in half an hour.” “Indeed,” answered my neighbour.
‘This taciturnity irritated me; I was determined to find out something about him, so after a moment’s pause I said, “If it isn’t taking a liberty, sir, may I ask if you are going to Milnaska too?” He shot a quick, suspicious glance at me, then slowly answered, “Yes, I am.” “Well,” said I, “in that case, what do you think of our going over together? It is a dull trip at best. I have made it often enough to know. My name,” I continued, “is Larrabee. I represent Potter and Dennis of Boston. What name did you say yours was, sir?” “My name is Sykes,” he replied, “I am in the employ of the Milnaska Mining Co. of Chicago.”
In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) Page 7
