I sat up,
and saw to my terror my bed was occupied, but occupied in the most
alarming manner. On the middle of the pillow was a face, the face
of--I looked closer; I would have given every penny I possessed not to
have done so, but I could not help myself--I looked closer, and it
was--the face of my brother; my brother Ralph--you may recollect my
mentioning him to you, for he was the only one of us who was at that
time making money--whom I believed to be in New York. He had always
been rather sallow, but apart from the fact that he now looked very
yellow, his appearance was quite natural. Indeed, as I gazed at him, I
grew so convinced it was he that I cried out, 'Ralph!' The moment I
did so, there was a ghastly change: his eyelids opened, and his
eyes--eyes I recognised at once--protruded to such a degree that they
almost rolled out; his mouth flew open, his tongue swelled, his whole
countenance became convulsed with the most unparalleled, and for that
reason indescribable, expression of agony, whilst the yellowness of
his complexion deepened to a livid, lurid black, that was so
inconceivably repellent and hellish that I sprang away from the
bed--appalled. There was then a gasping, rasping noise, and a voice
that, despite its unnatural hollowness, I identified as that of Ralph,
broke forth: 'I have been wanting to speak to you for ages, but
_something_, I cannot explain, has always prevented me. I have been
dead a month; not cancer, but Dolly. Poison. Good-bye, Hely. I shall
rest in peace now.' The voice stopped; there was a rush of cold air,
laden with the scent of the drug, and tainted, faintly tainted, with
the nauseating smell of the grave, and--the face on the pillow
vanished. How I got through the remainder of the night I cannot say--I
dare not think. I dare only remember that I did not sleep. I was
devoted to Ralph, and the thought that he had perished in the
miserable manner suggested by the apparition, completely prostrated
me. In the morning I received a black-edged letter from my mother,
stating that she had just heard from Dolly, my brother's wife, saying
Ralph had died from cancer in the throat. Dolly added in a postscript
that her dearly beloved Ralph had been very good to her, and left her
well provided for. Of course, we might have had the body exhumed, but
we were poor, and Ralph's widow was rich; and in America, you know,
everything goes in favour of the dollars. Hence we were obliged to let
the matter drop, sincerely trusting Dolly would never take it into her
head to visit us. She never did. My mother died last year--I felt her
death terribly, O'Donnell; and as I no longer have any fixed abode,
but am always touring the British provinces, there is not much fear
of Ralph's murderess and I meeting. It is rather odd, however, that
after my own experience at the hotel, I heard that it had borne the
reputation for being haunted for many years, and that a good many
visitors who had passed the night in one of the rooms (presumably
mine) had complained of hearing strange noises and having dreadful
dreams. How can one explain it all?" "One can't," I responded, as we turned in for the night. CASE XII

    THE GREY PIPER AND THE HEAVY COACH OF
      DONALDGOWERIE HOUSE, PERTH


Donaldgowerie House, until comparatively recent times, stood on the
outskirts of Perth. It was a long, low, rambling old place, dating
back to the beginning of the seventeenth century. At the time of the
narrative it was in the possession of a Mr. William Whittingen, who
bought it at a very low price from some people named Tyler. It is true
that it would cost a small fortune to repair, but, notwithstanding
this disadvantage, Mr. Whittingen considered his purchase a bargain,
and was more than satisfied with it. Indeed, he knew of no other house
of a similar size, of such an imposing appearance, and so pleasantly
situated, that he could have bought for less than twice the amount he
had paid for this; and he was really very sorry for the Tylers, who
explained to him, in confidence, that had they not been in such
urgent need of money, they would never have sold Donaldgowerie House
at such a ridiculously low figure. However, with them it was a
question of cash--cash down, and Mr. Whittingen had only to write out
a cheque for the modest sum they asked, and the house was his. It was
June when Mr. Whittingen took possession of the house--June, when the
summer sun was brightest and the gardens looked their best. The
Whittingen family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Whittingen, two sons,
Ernest and Harvey, and three daughters, Ruth, Martha, and Mary, were,
as one might gather from their names alone, plain, practical, genteel,
and in fact very superior people, who were by no means lacking in that
exceedingly useful quality of canniness, so characteristic of the
Lowland Scot to which race they belonged. Mr. Whittingen had, for
years, conducted a grocery business in Jedburgh, twice filling the
honoured and coveted post of mayor, and when he at length retired into
private life, his friends (and it was astonishing how many friends he
had) shrewdly suspected that his pockets were not only well lined but
full to bursting. Acting on the advice of his wife and daughters, who
were keen on social distinction, he sent Ernest to Oxford,
conditionally that he should take Holy Orders in the Church of
England, whilst Harvey, who, when scarcely out of the petticoat stage,
displayed the regular Whittingen talent for business by covertly
helping himself to the sugar in his father's shop, and disposing of it
at strictly sale price to his sisters' cronies in the nursery, was
sent to one of those half preparatory and half finishing schools (of
course, for the sons of gentlemen only) at Edinburgh, where he was
kept till he was old enough to be articled to a prosperous,
exceedingly prosperous, firm of solicitors. The girls, Ruth, Martha, and Mary, had likewise been highly educated,
that is to say, they had remained so many years at an English seminary
for young ladies, and had been given a final twelve months in France
and Germany to enable them to obtain "the correct accent." At the time of the story they were as yet unmarried, and were awaiting
with the most laudable patience the advent of men of title. They were
delighted with their new home (which Ruth had persuaded her father to
christen "Donaldgowerie," after the house in a romantic novel she had
just been reading), and proud of their gilded premises and magnificent
tennis lawns; they had placed a gigantic and costly tray in the hall,
in confident assurance that it would speedily groan beneath the weight
of cards from all the gentry in Perthshire.