Curious Warnings: The Great Ghost Stories of M.R. James

  There was no question of the presence or absence of his portmanteau tonight. He had himself emptied it of its contents and lodged it under his bed.

  With a certain effort he dismissed the thought of Number 13 from his mind, and sat down to his writing.

  His neighbors were quiet enough. Occasionally a door opened in the passage and a pair of boots were thrown out, or a bagman walked past humming to himself, and outside, from time to time a cart thundered over the atrocious cobble-stones, or a quick step hurried along the flags.

  Anderson finished his letters, ordered in whisky and soda, and then went to the window and studied the dead wall opposite and the shadows upon it.

  As far as he could remember, Number 14 had been occupied by the lawyer, a staid man, who said little at meals, being generally engaged in studying a small bundle of papers beside his plate.

  Apparently, however, he was in the habit of giving vent to his animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements.

  Sagförer Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten o’clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; and Anderson’s thoughts, like those of Emily in the Mysteries of Udolpho, began to “arrange themselves in the following lines”:

  “When I return to my hotel,

  At ten o’clock p.m.,

  The waiters think I am unwell;

  I do not care for them.

  But when I’ve locked my chamber door,

  And put my boots outside,

  I dance all night upon the floor.

  And even if my neighbors swore,

  I’d go on dancing all the more,

  For I’m acquainted with the law,

  And in despite of all their jaw,

  Their protests I deride.”

  Had not the landlord at this moment knocked at the door, it is probable that quite a long poem might have been laid before the reader.

  To judge from his look of surprise when he found himself in the room, Herr Kristensen was struck, as Anderson had been, by something unusual in its aspect. But he made no remark.

  Anderson’s photographs interested him mightily, and formed the text of many autobiographical discourses. Nor is it quite clear how the conversation could have been diverted into the desired channel of Number 13, had not the lawyer at this moment begun to sing, and to sing in a manner which could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was either exceedingly drunk or raving mad.

  It was a high, thin voice that they heard, and it seemed dry, as if from long disuse. Of words or tune there was no question. It went sailing up to a surprising height, and was carried down with a despairing moan as of a winter wind in a hollow chimney, or an organ whose wind fails suddenly.

  It was a really horrible sound, and Anderson felt that if he had been alone he must have fled for refuge and society to some neighbor bagman’s room.

  The landlord sat open-mouthed.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said at last, wiping his forehead. “It is dreadful. I have heard it once before, but I made sure it was a cat.”

  “Is he mad?” said Anderson.

  “He must be; and what a sad thing! Such a good customer, too, and so successful in his business, by what I hear, and a young family to bring up.”

  Just then came an impatient knock at the door, and the knocker entered, without waiting to be asked. It was the lawyer, in déshabillé and very rough-haired. And very angry he looked.

  “I beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but I should be much obliged if you would kindly desist—”

  Here he stopped, for it was evident that neither of the persons before him was responsible for the disturbance. And after a moment’s lull it swelled forth again more wildly than before.

  “But what in the name of Heaven does it mean?” broke out the lawyer. “Where is it? Who is it? Am I going out of my mind?”

  “Surely, Herr Jensen, it comes from your room next door? Isn’t there a cat or something stuck in the chimney?”

  This was the best that occurred to Anderson to say, and he realized its futility as he spoke. But anything was better than to stand and listen to that horrible voice, and look at the broad, white face of the landlord, all perspiring and quivering as he clutched the arms of his chair.

  “Impossible,” said the lawyer, “impossible. There is no chimney. I came here because I was convinced the noise was going on here. It was certainly in the next room to mine.”

  “Was there no door between yours and mine?” said Anderson eagerly.

  “No, sir,” said Herr Jensen, rather sharply. “At least, not this morning.”

  “Ah!” said Anderson. “Nor tonight?”

  “I am not sure,” said the lawyer with some hesitation.

  Suddenly the crying or singing voice in the next room died away, and the singer was heard seemingly to laugh to himself in a crooning manner.

  The three men actually shivered at the sound.

  Then there was a silence.

  “Come,” said the lawyer, “what have you to say, Herr Kristensen? What does this mean?”

  “Good Heaven!” said Kristensen. “How should I tell! I know no more than you, gentlemen. I pray I may never hear such a noise again.”

  “So do I,” said Herr Jensen, and he added something under his breath. Anderson thought it sounded like the last words of the Psalter, “omnis spiritus laudet Dominum,” but he could not be sure.

  “But we must do something,” said Anderson, “the three of us. Shall we go and investigate in the next room?”

  “But that is Herr Jensen’s room,” wailed the landlord. “It is no use—he has come from there himself.”

  “I am not so sure,” said Jensen. “I think this gentleman is right: we must go and see.”

  The only weapons of defense that could be mustered on the spot were a stick and umbrella.

  The expedition went out into the passage, not without quakings. There was a deadly quiet outside, but a light shone from under the next door. Anderson and Jensen approached it. The latter turned the handle, and gave a sudden vigorous push. No use. The door stood fast.

  “Herr Kristensen,” said Jensen, “will you go and fetch the strongest servant you have in the place? We must see this through.”

  The landlord nodded, and hurried off, glad to be away from the scene of action. Jensen and Anderson remained outside looking at the door.

  “It is Number 13, you see,” said the latter.

  “Yes; there is your door, and there is mine,” said Jensen.

  “My room has three windows in the daytime,” said Anderson, with difficulty suppressing a nervous laugh.

  “By George, so has mine!” said the lawyer, turning and looking at Anderson. His back was now to the door. In that moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had long gray hair upon it.

  Anderson was just in time to pull Jensen out of its reach with a cry of disgust and fright, when the door shut again, and a low laugh was heard.

  Jensen had seen nothing, but when Anderson hurriedly told him what a risk he had run, he fell into a great state of agitation, and suggested that they should retire from the enterprise and lock themselves up in one or other of their rooms.

  However, while he was developing this plan, the landlord and two able-bodied men arrived on the scene, all looking rather serious and alarmed. Jensen met them with a torrent of description and explanation, which did not at all tend to encourage them for the fray.

  The men dropped the crowbars they had brought, and said flatly that they were not going to risk their throats in that devil’s den. The landlord was miserably nervous and undecided, conscious that if the
danger were not faced his hotel was ruined, and very loath to face it himself.

  Luckily Anderson hit upon a way of rallying the demoralized force. “Is this,” he said, “the Danish courage I have heard so much of? It isn’t a German in there, and if it was, we are five to one.”

  The two servants and Jensen were stung into action by this, and made a dash at the door.

  “Stop!” said Anderson. “Don’t lose your heads. You stay out here with the light, landlord, and one of you two men break in the door, and don’t go in when it gives way.”

  The men nodded, and the younger stepped forward, raised his crowbar, and dealt a tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated.

  There was no cracking or rending of wood—only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment, then Anderson looked at the door again.

  It was gone. The plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar had struck it.

  Number 13 had passed out of existence.

  For a brief space they stood perfectly still, gazing at the blank wall. An early cock in the yard beneath was heard to crow; and as Anderson glanced in the direction of the sound, he saw through the window at the end of the long passage that the eastern sky was paling to the dawn.

  “Perhaps,” said the landlord, with hesitation, “you gentlemen would like another room for tonight—a double-bedded one?”

  Neither Jensen nor Anderson was averse to the suggestion. They felt inclined to hunt in couples after their late experience.

  It was found convenient, when each of them went to his room to collect the articles he wanted for the night, that the other should go with him and hold the candle.

  They noticed that both Number 12 and Number 14 had three windows.

  Next morning the same party reassembled in Number 12.

  The landlord was naturally anxious to avoid engaging outside help, and yet it was imperative that the mystery attaching to that part of the house should be cleared up.

  Accordingly the two servants had been induced to take upon them the function of carpenters. The furniture was cleared away, and, at the cost of a good many irretrievably damaged planks, that portion of the floor was taken up which lay nearest to Number 14.

  You will naturally suppose that a skeleton—say that of Mag. Nicolas Francken—was discovered. That was not so.

  What they did find lying between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. In it was a neatly folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of writing.

  Both Anderson and Jensen (who proved to be something of a paleographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena.

  I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has, by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham, representing a number of sages seated around a table. This detail may enable connoisseurs to identify the book.

  I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not at this moment within reach. But the fly-leaves of it are covered with writing, and, during the ten years in which I have owned the volume, I have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be read, much less in what language it is.

  Not dissimilar was the position of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they submitted the document in the copper box.

  After two days’ contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or Old Danish.

  Anderson ventured upon no surmises, and was very willing to surrender the box and the parchment to the Historical Society of Viborg to be placed in their museum.

  I had the whole story from him a few months later, as we sat in a wood near Upsala, after a visit to the library there, where we—or, rather, I—had laughed over the contract by which Daniel Salthenius (in later life Professor of Hebrew at Königsberg) sold himself to Satan.

  Anderson was not really amused.

  “Young idiot!” he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed that indiscretion, “how did he know what company he was courting?”

  And when I suggested the usual considerations he only grunted.

  That same afternoon he told me what you have read. But he refused to draw any inferences from it, and to assent to any that I drew for him.

  “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”

  “I SUPPOSE YOU will be getting away pretty soon, now. Full term is over, Professor,” said a person not in the story to the Professor of Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast in the hospitable hall of St. James’s College.

  The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech.

  “Yes,” he said. “My friends have been making me take up golf this term, and I mean to go to the East Coast—in point of fact to Burnstow—(I dare say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game. I hope to get off tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Parkins,” said his neighbor on the other side, “if you are going to Burnstow, I wish you would look at the site of the Templars’ preceptory, and let me know if you think it would be any good to have a dig there in the summer.’

  It was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits who said this, but, since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements.

  “Certainly,” said Parkins, the Professor. “If you will describe to me whereabouts the site is, I will do my best to give you an idea of the lie of the land when I get back. Or I could write to you about it, if you would tell me where you are likely to be.”

  “Don’t trouble to do that, thanks. It’s only that I’m thinking of taking my family in that direction in the Long, and it occurred to me that, as very few of the English preceptories have ever been properly planned, I might have an opportunity of doing something useful on off-days.”

  The Professor rather sniffed at the idea that planning out a preceptory could be described as useful. His neighbor continued:

  “The site—I doubt if there is anything showing above ground—must be down quite close to the beach now. The sea has encroached tremendously, as you know, all along that bit of coast. I should think, from the map, that it must be about three-quarters of a mile from the Globe Inn, at the north end of the town.

  “Where are you going to stay?”

  “Well, at the Globe Inn, as a matter of fact,” said Parkins. “I have engaged a room there. I couldn’t get in anywhere else. Most of the lodging-houses are shut up in winter, it seems; and, as it is, they tell me that the only room of any size I can have is really a double-bedded one, and that they haven’t a corner in which to store the other bed, and so on.

  “But I must have a fairly large room, for I am taking some books down, and mean to do a bit of work. And though I don’t quite fancy having an empty bed—not to speak of two—in what I may call for the time being my study, I suppose I can manage to rough it for the short time I shall be there.”

  “Do you call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?” said a bluff person opposite. “Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it’ll be company for you.”

  The Professor quivered, but managed to laugh in a courteous manner.

  “By all means, Rogers; there’s nothing I should like better. But I’m afraid you would find it rather dull. You don’t play golf, do you?”

  “No, thank Heaven!” said rude Mr. Rogers.

  “Well, you see, when I’m not writing I shall most likely be out on the links, and that, as I say, would be rather dull for you, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, I don’t know! There’s certain to be somebody I know in the place. But, of course, if you don’t want me, speak the word, Parkins. I won’t be offended. Truth, as you always tell us, is never offensive.??
?

  Parkins was, indeed, scrupulously polite and strictly truthful. It is to be feared that Mr. Rogers sometimes practiced upon his knowledge of these characteristics.

  In Parkins’ breast there was a conflict now raging, which for a moment or two did not allow him to answer. That interval being over, he said:

  “Well, if you want the exact truth, Rogers, I was considering whether the room I speak of would really be large enough to accommodate us both comfortably. And also whether (mind, I shouldn’t have said this if you hadn’t pressed me) you would not constitute something in the nature of a hindrance to my work.”

  Rogers laughed loudly.

  “Well done, Parkins!” he said. “It’s all right. I promise not to interrupt your work; don’t you disturb yourself about that. No, I won’t come if you don’t want me, but I thought I should do so nicely to keep the ghosts off.”

  Here he might have been seen to wink and to nudge his next neighbor.

  Parkins might also have been seen to become pink.

  “I beg pardon, Parkins,” Rogers continued; “I oughtn’t to have said that. I forgot you didn’t like levity on these topics.”

  “Well,” Parkins said, “as you have mentioned the matter, I freely own that I do not like careless talk about what you call ghosts. A man in my position,” he went on, raising his voice a little, “cannot, I find, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects.

  “As you know, Rogers—or as you ought to know—for I think I have never concealed my views—”

  “No, you certainly have not, old man,” put in Rogers sotto voce.

  “—I hold that any semblance, any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred. But I’m afraid I have not succeeded in securing your attention.”

  “Your undivided attention, was what Dr. Blimber actually said,”† Rogers interrupted, with every appearance of an earnest desire for accuracy. “But I beg your pardon, Parkins: I’m stopping you.”

  “No, not at all,” said Parkins. “I don’t remember Blimber; perhaps he was before my time. But I needn’t go on. I’m sure you know what I mean.”