The night was absolutely still, no breath of wind, no rustle of
leaves, no flapping of ivy against the window; yet the door suddenly
swung back on its hinges and slammed furiously. Letty felt that this
was the work of some supernatural agency, and, fully expecting that
the noise had awakened the cook, who was a light sleeper (or pretended
she was), listened in a fever of excitement to hear her get out of bed
and call out. The slightest noise and the spell that held her prisoner
would, Letty felt sure, be broken. But the same unbroken silence
prevailed. A sudden rustling made Letty glance fearfully at the bed;
and she perceived, to her terror, the valance swaying violently, to
and fro. Sick with fear, she was now constrained to stare in abject
helplessness. Presently there was a slight, very slight movement on
the mattress, the white dust cover rose, and, under it, Letty saw the
outlines of what she took to be a human figure, gradually take shape. Hoping, praying, that she was mistaken, and that what appeared to be
on the bed was but a trick of her imagination, she continued staring
in an agony of anticipation. But the figure remained--extended at full
length like a corpse. The minutes slowly passed, a church clock boomed
two, and the body moved. Letty's jaw fell, her eyes almost bulged from
her head, whilst her fingers closed convulsively on the folds of her
night-dress. The unmistakable sound of breathing now issued from the
region of the bed, and the dust-cover commenced slowly to slip aside. Inch by inch it moved, until first of all Letty saw a few wisps of
dark hair, then a few more, then a thick cluster; then something white
and shining--a protruding forehead; then dark, very dark brows; then
two eyelids, yellow, swollen, and fortunately tightly closed; then--a
purple conglomeration of Letty knew not what--of anything but what
was human. The sight was so monstrous it appalled her; and she was
overcome with a species of awe and repulsion, for which the language
of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression. She momentarily
forgot that what she looked on was merely superphysical, but regarded
it as something alive, something that ought to have been a child,
comely and healthy as herself--and she hated it. It was an outrage on
maternity, a blot on nature, a filthy discredit to the house, a
blight, a sore, a gangrene. It turned over in its sleep, the cover was
hurled aside, and a grotesque object, round, pulpy, webbed, and of
leprous whiteness--an object which Letty could hardly associate with a
hand--came grovelling out. Letty's stomach heaved; the thing was
beastly, indecent, vile, it ought not to live! And the idea of killing
flashed through her mind. Boiling over with indignation and absurdly
forgetful of her surroundings, she turned round and groped for a stone
to smash it. The moonlight on her naked toes brought her to her
senses--the thing in the bed was a devil! Though brought up a member
of the Free Church, with an abhorrence of anything that could in any
way be contorted into Papist practices, Letty crossed herself. As she
did so, a noise in the passage outside augmented her terror. She
strained her ears painfully, and the sound developed into a footstep,
soft, light, and surreptitious. It came gently towards the door; it
paused outside, and Letty intuitively felt that it was listening. Her
suspense was now so intolerable, that it was almost with a feeling of
relief that she beheld the door slowly--very slowly--begin to open. A
little wider--a little wider--and yet a little wider; but still
nothing came. Ah! Letty's heart turned to ice. Another inch, and a
shadowy something slipped through and began to wriggle itself
stealthily over the floor. Letty tried to divert her gaze, but could
not--an irresistible, magnetic attraction kept her eyes glued to the
gradually approaching horror. When within a few feet of her it halted;
and again Letty felt it was listening--listening to the breathing on
the bed, which was heavy and bestial. Then it twisted round, and Letty
watched it crawl into the wardrobe. After this there was a long and
anxious wait. Then Letty saw the wardrobe door slyly open, and the
eyes of the cellar--inexpressibly baleful, and glittering like
burnished steel in the strong phosphorescent glow of the moon, peep
out,--not at her but _through_ her,--at the object lying on the bed. There were not only eyes, this time, but a form,--vague, misty, and
irregular, but still with sufficient shape to enable Letty to identify
it as that of a woman, tall and thin, and with a total absence of
hair, which was emphasised in the most lurid and ghastly fashion. With
a snakelike movement, the evil thing slithered out of the wardrobe,
and, gliding past Letty, approached the bed. Letty was obliged to
follow every proceeding. She saw the thing deftly snatch the bolster
from under the sleeping head; noted the gleam of hellish satisfaction
in its eyes as it pressed the bolster down; and watched the murdered
creature's contortions grow fainter, and fainter, until they finally
ceased. The eyes then left the room; and from afar off, away below, in
the abysmal cellars of the house, came the sound of digging--faint,
very faint, but unquestionably digging. This terminated the grim,
phantasmal drama for that night at least, and Letty, chilled to the
bone, but thoroughly alert, escaped to her room. She spent her few
remaining hours of rest wide-awake, determining never to go to bed
again without fastening one of her arms to the iron staples. With regard the history of the house, Letty never learned anything
more remarkable than that, long ago, an idiot child was supposed to
have been murdered in the haunted attic--by whom, tradition did not
say. The Admiral and his family left Pringle's Mansion the year Letty
became Miss South's nurse, and as no one would stay in the house,
presumably on account of the hauntings, it was pulled down, and an
inexcusably inartistic edifice was erected in its place. CASE III

    THE BOUNDING FIGURE OF "---- HOUSE," NEAR
      BUCKINGHAM TERRACE, EDINBURGH


No one is more interested in Psychical Investigation Work than Miss
Torfrida Vincent, one of the three beautiful daughters of Mrs. H. de
B. Vincent, who is, herself, still in the heyday of life, and one of
the loveliest of the society women I have met. Though I have known her
sisters several years, I only met Torfrida for the first time a few
months ago, when she was superintending the nursing of her mother, who
had just undergone an operation for appendicitis. One day, when I was
visiting my convalescent friend, Torfrida informed me that she knew of
a haunted house in Edinburgh, a case which she felt sure would arouse
my interest and enthusiasm. "It is unfortunate," she added somewhat
regretfully, "that I cannot tell you the number of the house, but as
I have given my word of honour to disclose it to no one, I feel sure
you will excuse me.