And outside the limits of this sun-kissed pale,
the blue of the sky gradually grew darker and darker, until its line
was altogether lost in the black shadows of night that, creeping over
the lone mountain-tops in the far east, slowly swept forward. Wafted
by the gentle breeze came the dull moaning and whispering of the pine
trees, the humming of the wind through the telephone wires, and the
discordant cawing of the crows. And it seemed to Martha, as she sat
there and peered out into the garden, that over the whole atmosphere
of the place had come a subtle and hostile change--a change in the
noises of the trees, the birds, the wind; a change in the
flower-scented ether; a change, a most marked and emphatic change, in
the shadows. What was it? What was this change? Whence did it
originate? What did it portend? A slight noise, a most trivial noise,
attracted Martha's attention to the room; she looked round and was
quite startled to see how dark it had grown. In the old days, when she
had scoffed at ghosts, she would as soon have been in the dark as in
the light, the night had no terrors for her; but now--now since those
awful occurrences last year, all was different, and as she peered
apprehensively about her, her flesh crawled. What was there in that
corner opposite, that corner hemmed in on the one side by the
cupboard--how she hated cupboards, particularly when they had shiny
surfaces on which were reflected all sorts of curious things--and the
chest of drawers on the other. It was a shadow, only a shadow, but of
what? She searched the room everywhere to find its material
counterpart, and at last discovered it in the nurse's shawl which hung
over the back of a chair. Then she laughed, and would have gone on
laughing, for she tried to persuade herself that laughter banished
ghosts, when suddenly something else caught her eyes. What was it? An
object that glittered evilly like two eyes. She got up in a state of
the most hideous fascination and walked towards it. Then she laughed
again--it was a pair of scissors. The nurse's scissors--clean, bright,
and sharp. Why did she pick them up and feel the blades so caressingly
with her thumb? Why did she glance from them to the baby? Why? In the
name of God, why? Frightful ideas laid hold of her mind. She tried to
chase them away but they quickly returned. The scissors, why were they
in her fingers? Why could not she put them down? For what were they
intended? Cutting! cutting thread, and tape,--and throats! Throats! And she giggled hysterically at the bare notion. But what was this
round her waist--this shadowy arm-like object! She looked fearfully
round, and her soul died within her as she encountered the
malevolent, gleeful eyes of the sinister piper, pressed closely
against her face. Was it she he wanted this time--she, or--or whom--in
the name of all that was pitiable? Desperately, as if all the lives in the universe and the future of her
soul were at stake, did she struggle to free herself from his
grasp--but in vain; every fibre, every muscle of her body was
completely at his will. On and on he pushed her, until foot by foot,
inch by inch, she approached the cradle, and all the while his hellish
voice was breathing the vilest of inspirations into her brain. At last
she stood by the side of the baby, and bent over it. What a darling! What a dear! What a duck! A sweet, pretty, innocent, prattling duck! How like her mother--how like her handsome brother--how like
herself--very, very like herself! How every one loved it--how every
one worshipped it--how (and here the grey face beside her chuckled)
every one would miss it! How pink its toes--how fat its calves--how
chubby its little palms--how bonny its cheeks--and how white, how
gloriously, heavenly, snowy white--its throat! And she stretched
forth one of her stubby, inartistic fingers and played with its flesh. Then she glanced furtively at the scissors, and smiled. It was soon done, soon over, and she and the grey-faced piper danced a
minuet in the moonbeams; afterwards he piped a farewell dirge,--a
wild, weird, funereal dirge, and, marching slowly backwards, his dark,
gleaming eyes fixed gloatingly on hers, disappeared through the
window. Then the reaction set in, and Martha raved and shrieked till
every one in the house flew to the rescue. Of course, no one--saving her father and mother--believed her. Ernest,
his wife, and the servants attributed her bloody act to jealousy; the
law--to madness; and she subsequently journeyed from Donaldgowerie to
a criminal lunatic asylum, where the recollection of all she had done
soon killed her. This was the climax. Mr. Whittingen sold
Donaldgowerie, and a new house was shortly afterwards erected in its
stead. CASE XIII

    THE FLOATING HEAD OF THE BENRACHETT INN,
      NEAR THE PERTH ROAD, DUNDEE


Some years ago, when I was engaged in collecting cases for a book I
contemplated publishing, on _Haunted Houses in England and Wales_, I
was introduced to an Irish clergyman, whose name I have forgotten, and
whom I have never met since. Had the incident he related taken place
in England or Wales, I should have noted it down carefully, but as it
occurred in Scotland (and I had no intention then of bringing out a
volume on Scottish phantasms), I did not do so. My memory, however, I can assure my readers, in spite of the many
ghost tales committed to it,--for scarcely a day passes that I do not
hear one,--seldom fails, and the Irish clergyman's story, which I am
about to relate, comes back to me now with startling vividness. One summer evening, early in the eighties, Mr. Murphy--the name by
which I will designate the originator of this story--and his wife
arrived in Dundee. The town was utterly unknown to them, and they were
touring Scotland for the first time. Not knowing where to put up for
the night, and knowing no one to whom they could apply for
information, they consulted a local paper, and from the long list of
hotels and boarding-houses advertised therein selected the Benrachett
Inn, near the Perth Road, as being the one most likely to meet their
modest requirements. They were certainly not disappointed with the
exterior of the hotel they had chosen, for as soon as they saw it they
exclaimed simultaneously, "What a delightful old place!" And old it
certainly was, for the many-gabled, oaken structure and projecting
windows unquestionably indicated the sixteenth century, whilst, to
enhance the effect and give it a true touch in detail of "ye ancient
times," a huge antique lantern was hung over the entrance. Nor did the
interior impress them less favourably. The rooms were large, and low,
the ceilings, walls, floors, and staircase all of oak. The
diamond-lattice windows, and narrow, tortuous passages, and
innumerable nooks and crannies and cupboards, created an atmosphere of
combined quaintness and comfort that irresistibly appealed to the
Murphys.