When Last I Died

by Gladys Mitchell

  "And appeared. Tom said it was very interesting, and that he telegraphed to the Institution next day to know whether Bella was very ill or even dead. Of course she wasn't either the one or the other, bur they did say, funnily enough, that she'd fallen off her bicycle in the grounds as she was making a quick dash into the village that morning for some shopping that hadn't turned up. She was in a fearful state, and complained about her ankle, although she wouldn't have the doctor to it."

  "Strange that a figment of that kind could travel all that way," said Mrs. Bradley.

  "Oh, it wasn't all that way," Muriel put in brightly. "It was only about twelve miles as the crow flies, which is the way such things would travel I suppose."

  "I don't know" said Mrs. Bradley soberly. "Wouldn't they perhaps be earth-bound to the roads?"

  "Even if they were," said Muriel, who seemed oblivious of the purport of these suggestions, "they would only have had to come about seventeen miles, I believe."

  "Ah?" said Mrs. Bradley. "And now, about this particular haunted house in which we are interested."

  "Oh, nobody appeared there. It was simply a poltergeist," replied her victim.

  "In what way?"

  "Raps, footsteps, raucous laughter, writing on the walls, bell-ringing, throwing things about, moving objects from one place to another, cold air, lights in windows—that sort of thing."

  "How many of the things you have just mentioned took place in the haunted house?" asked Mrs. Bradley, who, in flying hieroglyphics, had taken down the entire list. "Raps?"

  "Oh, yes, ever so many times."

  "Footsteps?"

  "Both light and heavy. Sometimes it sounded like somebody in great boots, sometimes more like stockinged feet. Sometimes they ran, and sometimes they walked, and once they just scuffled about over our heads as though two people were fighting."

  "You said raucous laughter. Can you substantiate that?"

  "I don't know what you mean, but it sounded more like costermongers.''

  "Writing on the walls?"

  "Oh, yes. But I cleaned it all off. It wasn't—it wasn't very nice."

  "Are the spirits in the habit of being obscene?"

  "No, that's the funny part. They're not.* I mean, they usually write things you can't make any sense out of. I've never known them to be really rude."

  * Apparently a mistake on Muriel's part .... "The rappings answered back with obscenity or blasphemy." Poltergeists. Sacheverell Sitwell. Faber and Faber, June, 1940.

  "Did your husband object to having this writing cleaned off the walls?"

  "No, he didn't mind once it was photographed. But the photographs looked even more horrid than the actual scribble, so Bella persuaded him to throw the negatives away and destroy the proofs. She said no one would believe they were spirit writings, and anyway they were embarrassing. Which it is quite true, they were."

  "Do you remember them?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

  "Oh, yes, of course I do, but I wouldn't repeat them to you."

  "Write them down, then," said Mrs. Bradley, offering her a notebook and pencil. As Muriel hesitated she added with a cackle, "Don't worry. I expect I've heard worse things from some of my mental patients.... Now let us continue: bell-ringing?"

  "Well, no, not at this house. At least—not after Tom cut all the wires. At least, I don't believe so."

  "Was there a bell in every room in the house?"

  "No, only in some of the rooms. I think there had been bells, but they were all out of order when we got there, but some we had repaired, but I don't remember which."

  "I see. Now I know there were things thrown about and things moved, and I know there is a cold draught at one spot in the passage, so I need not ask you about those. What about lights in windows?"

  "Yes, those have been seen from the road at times when both Tom and I—and Bella, when she was with us—were all downstairs, and we knew no one else was in the house or could have got in."

  "The lights were always from the bedroom windows, then? Did the lights show at the same window each time, or was a different window ever used?"

  "Oh, it was always the same window, so far as I know. Of course, people may not always have told us, but we asked them to, as soon as it was known the lights had been seen, because we did not use any of the bedrooms, after that, if they fronted the road. So we knew that if lights were seen it was not any light that we ourselves were using."

  "Very interesting," thought Mrs. Bradley, "considering that the hauntings were a source of income."

  "When Bella came to live with us," Muriel continued, "it was arranged that we should take it in turns in the evening to go out into the garden and see whether the lights were visible. If they were, then the one outside was to throw gravel at the drawing-room window, and the other two would rush upstairs to investigate."

  "Oh? You took it in turns, did you?" said Mrs. Bradley.

  "Well, when it came to the point, Bella said she was far too nervous to go tearing upstairs and bursting in on a ghost. She said if she saw one she'd die. So actually she used to be the one to go out into the garden, and Tom and I were the ones who always rushed upstairs."

  "I wonder she wasn't afraid of the garden in the dark if she were so very nervous," said Mrs. Bradley.

  "Oh, but she was," said Muriel. "She always took a loaded stick out with her—a cosh, she called it. One of those terrible boys had made it for her in the Institution workshop. Tom used to tease her about it, and ask her what good she thought it would be against a ghost, but she said it gave her confidence and she would always take it with her."

  "And did you and your husband ever see the lights independently of Miss Foxley?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  "Yes. Twice. But we weren't there so very long without Bella, you know. Of course, she only spent the one week-end there before aunt's death."

  "Ah, yes," said Mrs. Bradley. She glanced at her watch. "I must go, I'm afraid, Mrs. Turney. Mý son has booked seats for a revue. Do you like that kind of thing? Some people are so ponderous nowadays. Now in my opinion, the modern revue-approximates more closely to the ancient Greek idea of comedy than serious thinkers would suppose."

  Muriel nervously agreed.

  The séances, one conducted by amateurs, the other by a famous member of the Society for Psychical Research, continued to have negative results. This, of course, proved nothing, although one, at least, of the sitters, would have been very much surprised at any manifestations.

  Mrs. Muriel Turney, invited to the second of the séances, again declined the invitation, stating that she really did not think her nerves would stand it. The medium at the second séance said that her 'control' had been out of temper for some time, and probably would give nothing to the sitters that evening. She then fell into a trance, and the sitters waited for an hour and a half, by which time it was discovered that the medium had passed from her trance into natural sleep. She was gently awakened, and everybody went home or to the inn.

  There was, however, one interesting and illuminating occurrence which followed the second séance. Mrs. Bradley made a detailed note of it. The entire house had been locked up and the doors sealed, and the windows, except the one in the séance room, had been sealed also, before the sitters took their places. This was an obvious precaution, and caused no surprise to anybody. The séance was held in the drawing-room, and during the period of silence which followed the beginning of the medium's trance, everybody in the circle was not only watching the medium, but (having been informed of the probable nature of any activity which might occur in this particular house) was alert to any noises which might come from other rooms.

  No sounds were heard, but before the other visitors and the medium left the drawing-room, Mrs. Bradley made a thorough exploration of the house. On the wall of the bathroom passage was written in pencil the word Bread. The writing was either that of an illiterate, or else it had been done by a normally right-handed person using the left hand (or vice-versa). It had not been there before the séance
began, for Mrs. Bradley, who had sealed up the doors and windows, except for the front door, before the other sitters arrived, had also made a careful search and inspection of all walls and passages.

  She mentioned her interesting discovery to no one but her son Ferdinand, who, with Caroline, his wife, had come, at her request, for the séance.

  "And what do you make of it, Mother?" he enquired, when the circle was broken up and the other guests had gone.

  "What do you?" asked Mrs. Bradley.

  "That the house must have a secret entrance, I suppose. But, even if it has, why should anyone bother? Or is it in the contract that people who pay to be allowed to hold séances here must get some return for their money?"

  Mrs. Bradley put the question to Mrs. Muriel Turney in a letter, but did not reveal the nature of the 'return.' The teacher of music replied on a postcard:

  "Lots of people get nothing. My husband and I were both sensitives."

  Mrs. Bradley went to see her again, but did not tell her precisely what had happened.

  "Will you allow me to borrow your husband's records of the phenomena?" she asked. Muriel agreed to lend the typescript from which Cousin Tom had worked up his reports of the poltergeist.

  "I suppose," said Mrs. Bradley casually, before leaving, "Miss Foxley took no particular interest in spiritualism?"

  "It frightened her," replied Cousin Muriel, in emphatic re-affirmation of what she had already said upon this subject. "She says that if she ever sees a ghost it will be someone come to fetch her, and it will mean her death. I've tried to tell her that that's a very old-fashioned idea about ghosts, but she clings to it and can't bear the subject mentioned."

  "Ah, but you are speaking now of Miss Tessa, not Miss Bella. But it has to be mentioned, surely, when the house is let for these sittings?"

  "No. The caretaker always writes to say that it has been 'requisitioned.' That's the word he has to use."

  "Interesting," said Mrs. Bradley. She looked thoughtfully at Muriel. "I thought you said you had not visited Miss Tessa since her sister's suicide?"

  "Oh, I haven't, no. I did write to say I would attend the funeral if she wished it, but also said it would probably be painful to me to pay my respects, even my last ones, to Bella. Since then I have not been invited, and, of course, as I am only a relative by marriage, I should not dream of visiting her without an invitation, not even to drop in. I think in-laws make mistakes about that kind of thing. After all, they can't expect to be treated quite like the family, can they? Especially when their husband, like poor Tom, isn't there to go with them or anything."

  Mrs. Bradley said that she quite understood, and that she would take very great care of the typescript. She returned to her own house at Wandles Parva, and made diligent comparison of Cousin Tom's notes with Bella's diary, bearing in mind the various types of poltergeist activity which, according to Muriel, had existed in the house. If these had been faked, had Cousin Tom faked them? Had Bella? Tom, apparently, was a fraud, yet the haunted house had a queer sort of reputation.

  Again, there was the story that Tom had rented Hazy. Had Bella Foxley nerve enough to perform in that way in a house which had (Mrs. Bradley had read) a very impressive record of supposedly psychic occurrences? For Hazy had been 'written up ' in most of the journals devoted to ghosts and ghost-hunting. True, Bella was probably a murderer, but murderers sometimes suffer from nerves, and many of them are supremely superstitious. Perhaps there had been no manufactured evidence at Hazy. Perhaps it had frightened Cousin Tom.

  This part of the business seemed insoluble without more evidence. Mrs. Bradley got out the diary again, and settled down to minute comparisons of facts and dates. With the knowledge she had gained since the case had first intrigued her curiosity, she could not avoid the conclusion that the diary, although it could not be said to incriminate Bella Foxley, did make very plain certain tendencies of thought, and did hint with horrid clarity at certain courses of action which made its genuineness even more suspect than she had supposed when first she read it.

  Comparison with the copy of Cousin Tom's journal which was typewritten throughout—even the infrequent and neat corrections having been made on the typewriter—revealed another curious fact. Wherever the diary and the journal covered the same points, they tallied with one another, and the odd thing about this was that the noticeable errors of fact in the diary— errors of fact over which Bella Foxley ought to have made no errors—were repeated in Tom's journal.

  Mrs. Bradley returned to her own notes upon the subject, written after she had read the diary and had questioned Eliza Hodge. Of course, the old servant might have forgotten, or deliberately lied about, some of the occurrences which took place about the time of the old lady's death, but, even allowing for this, the extraordinary similarity between the diary and the journal led to an obvious conclusion.

  Of course, certain facts in each might be expected to tally; the cause of death, for instance, and the doctor's doubts and fears.

  As for the poltergeist phenomena, they also might be expected to reveal themselves similarly to two careful and experienced observers. The fact that they had occurred, according to Cousin Tom's journal, exactly as the diary stated, was not a reason for surprise. Tom's entry for the nineteenth of February, for instance, was :

  "Bella has turned up here, and may check the run of phenomena. This would be a great pity, as we have been getting on so wonderfully well until to-day, when there has been nothing much. I talked to Muriel about it, and I am afraid we did not see eye to eye. I believe she is thoroughly alarmed, and would be glad of an end to the manifestations, but John and Elvey were delighted, especially with the music."

  "Dear Muriel is sometimes a little nervous about the more noisy manifestations, and I have had to take a strong line with her. All the same, we cannot turn Bella away. The night has been better than the day. Slippered or naked feet have walked past all the doors. This is encouraging, but I have advised the women to keep the doors locked. They think it is a safety measure, but I am interested to know whether this kind can be barred out."

  The entry for February 22 also bore out the diary.

  "This has been a splendid day," observed the typescript for this date. "We have had various kinds of phenomena of the true poltergeist type. Objects such as a small calendar have been displaced and even projected. Before we retired to bed the entire contents of the kitchen shelves were flung out into the passage. It is most gratifying, but the two women are extremely upset by it. There has been a new outbreak of bell-ringing, too, and the women declare that they cannot stand the noise of this. I shall make the experiment of cutting the wires to-morrow, as I am anxious to know whether the entities we are housing here are dependent upon mechanical aid for producing their effects, or whether their supernormal powers can ring bells which are not connected up."

  This covered the diary entry for February 23, and the journal for February 24, like the diary, commented upon the sound of slippered footsteps. For February 25, when the four members of a society for psychical research had visited the house, Tom had typed ecstatically:

  "A truly marvellous experience! Mr. W., Lord X., Mr. T. and Mrs. D. were here, and professed themselves delighted with their evening. I was afraid at first that we were going to get nothing at all, but then the noises commenced overhead and, upon going up the front staircase, we saw that all the spare bedroom furniture had been overturned and the electric light flex over the dressing-table was damaged. The lamp and shade were on top of the chest of drawers, and this was on its side in the middle of the room."

  Mrs. Bradley cackled, and made a note in her own notebook. It read—if anybody could have deciphered it: "Fingerprints?" She then added, "Two electric lights in the spare room. Flex could have swung in breeze from window if open. Test."

  The reference to the mysterious 'something' which walked in the grounds at night was missing from the journal. It had been regarded, for serious purposes, as an old wives' tale by Cousin Tom, Mrs. Brad
ley surmised. The coach and horses with the headless driver were also not the subject of comment or even mention in the journal.