The rows of doors leading
into the house were all closed, and it was toward one of these in the
north wall that the big dog ran; yet he would not go very close; and
suddenly the door began to move slowly open, until the blackness of the
passage beyond was shown. The dog came back among the men, whimpering,
and for a minute there was an absolute silence. "Then Wentworth went out from the men a little, and aimed his gun at
the doorway. "'Whoever is there, come out, or I shall fire,' he shouted; but nothing
came, and he blazed forth both barrels into the dark. As though the
report had been a signal, all the doors along the north and east walls
moved slowly open, and Wentworth and his men were staring, frightened
into the black shapes of the empty doorways. "Wentworth loaded his gun quickly, and called to the dog; but the brute
was burrowing away in among the men; and this fear on the dog's part
frightened Wentworth more, he told me, than anything. Then something else
happened. Three of the candles over in the corner of the hall went out;
and immediately about half a dozen in different parts of the place. More
candles were put out, and the hall had become quite dark in the corners. "The men were all standing now, holding their clubs, and crowded
together. And no one said a word. Wentworth told me he felt positively
ill with fright. I know the feeling. Then, suddenly, something splashed
on to the back of his left hand. He lifted it, and looked. It was covered
with a great splash of red that dripped from his fingers. An old Irishman
near to him, saw it, and croaked out in a quavering voice:--'The
bhlood-dhrip!' When the old man called out, they all looked, and in the
same instant others felt it upon them. There were frightened cries
of:--'The bhlood-dhrip! The bhlood-dhrip!' And then, about a dozen
candles went out simultaneously, and the hall was suddenly dark. The dog
let out a great, mournful howl, and there was a horrible little silence,
with everyone standing rigid. Then the tension broke, and there was a mad
rush for the main door. They wrenched it open, and tumbled out into the
dark; but something slammed it with a crash after them, and shut the dog
in; for Wentworth heard it howling as they raced down the drive. Yet no
one had the pluck to go back to let it out, which does not surprise me. "Wentworth sent for me the following day. He had heard of me in
connection with that Steeple Monster Case. I arrived by the night mail,
and put up with Wentworth at the inn. The next day we went up to the old
Manor, which certainly lies in rather a wilderness; though what struck
me most was the extraordinary number of laurel bushes about the house. The place was smothered with them; so that the house seemed to be
growing up out of a sea of green laurel. These, and the grim, ancient
look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly,
even by daylight. "The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not
sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found
one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff
with its neck broken. This made me feel very serious; for it showed that
whether the cause was supernatural or not, there was present in the house
some force exceedingly dangerous to life. "Later, whilst Wentworth stood guard with his shotgun, I made an
examination of the hall. The bottles and mugs from which the men had
drunk their whisky were scattered about; and all over the place were the
candles, stuck upright in their own grease. But in the somewhat brief and
general search, I found nothing; and decided to begin my usual exact
examination of every square foot of the place--not only of the hall, in
this case, but of the whole interior of the castle. "I spent three uncomfortable weeks, searching; but without result of any
kind. And, you know, the care I take at this period is extreme; for I
have solved hundreds of cases of so-called 'hauntings' at this early
stage, simply by the most minute investigation, and the keeping of a
perfectly open mind. But, as I have said, I found nothing. During the
whole of the examination, I got Wentworth to stand guard with his loaded
shotgun; and I was very particular that we were never caught there
after dusk. "I decided now to make the experiment of staying a night in the great
hall, of course 'protected.' I spoke about it to Wentworth; but his own
attempt had made him so nervous that he begged me to do no such thing. However, I thought it well worth the risk, and I managed in the end to
persuade him to be present. "With this in view, I went to the neighboring town of Gaunt, and by an
arrangement with the Chief Constable I obtained the services of six
policemen with their rifles. The arrangement was unofficial, of course,
and the men were allowed to volunteer, with a promise of payment. "When the constables arrived early that evening at the inn, I gave them a
good feed; and after that we all set out for the Manor. We had four
donkeys with us, loaded with fuel and other matters; also two great
boarhounds, which one of the police led. When we reached the house, I set
the men to unload the donkeys; whilst Wentworth and I set-to and sealed
all the doors, except the main entrance, with tape and wax; for if the
doors were really opened, I was going to be sure of the fact. I was going
to run no risk of being deceived by ghostly hallucination, or mesmeric
influence. "By the time that this was done, the policemen had unloaded the donkeys,
and were waiting, looking about them, curiously. I set two of them to
lay a fire in the big grate, and the others I used as I required them. I
took one of the boarhounds to the end of the hall furthest from the
entrance, and there I drove a staple into the floor, to which I tied the
dog with a short tether. Then, 'round him, I drew upon the floor the
figure of a Pentacle, in chalk. Outside of the Pentacle, I made a circle
with garlic. I did exactly the same thing with the other hound; but over
more in the northeast corner of the big hall, where the two rows of
doors make the angle. "When this was done, I cleared the whole center of the hall, and put one
of the policemen to sweep it; after which I had all my apparatus carried
into the cleared space. Then I went over to the main door and hooked it
open, so that the hook would have to be lifted out of the hasp, before
the door could be closed. After that, I placed lighted candles before
each of the sealed doors, and one in each corner of the big room; and
then I lit the fire. When I saw that it was properly alight, I got all
the men together, by the pile of things in the center of the room, and
took their pipes from them; for, as the Sigsand MS. has it:--'Theyre must
noe lyght come from wythin the barryier.' And I was going to make sure. "I got my tape measure then, and measured out a circle thirty-three feet
in diameter, and immediately chalked it out.