CHAPTER X
A SPECTRAL BURGLARY
I cannot but consider it an interesting circumstance that the varied happenings in the House on the Hill seemed to arrange themselves into two rather strictly defined classes—the sportive and the terrible—and that the respective influences responsible for them appeared carefully to refrain from interfering with each others' functions or prerogatives. As among our earthly acquaintances we number some who are entirely deficient in appreciation of the ridiculous, and others so flippant as to have no sense of the serious, so, it seemed to us, the unseen friends who so diversely made their presence known were in like manner to be differentiated.
In this connection another singular fact is to be noted. While the clownish performers in the juggling of the milk pan, the prestidigitation of the baked stuffed tomatoes, and other such specialties, always remained invisible, even to my wife, what I may call the more dramatic manifestations were accompanied by apparitions that were the evident actors in them. It also occurred to us that if the "acts" that were staged for our benefit were to be regarded as presenting what passed for entertainment in the Dark World, there must be drawn there, as here, a sharp line of distinction between vaudeville and "the legitimate;" incidentally, too, it would seem that ghostly audiences were like many in the flesh in their capacity for being easily entertained.
However that may be, we somehow came to the opinion that while the more impressive of the phenomena with which we were favored appeared to be due to the action of beings that had aforetime been upon the earth—for in every such case the attending spectres were to be identified as simulacra of persons whose previous existence was known to some one (and generally all) of us,—the tricksy antics that seemed to come from Nowhere might find their impulse in elementary entities or forces which had not yet exercised their activities upon the earth plane (and, indeed, might never be intended to do so), and thus had never assumed a material form. I do not put this forward as a theory, but simply as a passing impression that lightly brushed our minds:—and to repel the temptation of being led into the seductive regions of speculation, I will re-assume my rôle as a mere narrator of facts and describe a quite inexplicable affair that occurred near the close of our tenancy.
The bedroom which I have before described as being at the front of the house, with two windows overlooking the veranda, was occupied at night by my wife and myself. Between the windows was a ponderous mahogany dressing table, surmounted by a large mirror. This article of furniture was so broad that it extended on either side beyond the inner casing of the windows, and so heavy that it required the united strength of both of us to move it—as, during the cleaning of the room, we sometimes had to do. The windows were protected by wire screens, secured by stout bolts which were shot into sockets in the woodwork, and fitted flush with the surface of the outer window casing. In February—the time of which I am writing—the weather was at its hottest, and we slept at night with the windows open, trusting our security to the strong wire screens.
One morning, after an untroubled night's sleep, I awoke soon after sunrise, and from my place in bed, nearest the window, looked lazily out upon the day. Still half-asleep, I lay for some time without noting anything unusual; but as my sensibilities revived I observed that the screen was missing from the left-hand window, and that the dressing table, instead of standing in its usual place against the wall, was turned half-way around, and projected at right angles into the room. I was out of bed in an instant, and at the window—looking out of which I saw the screen lying flat on the floor of the veranda. I went out and examined it. It was uninjured, and the bolts still projected from either side to show that they had not been drawn; but two deep grooves in the woodwork of the casing indicated that the screen had been dragged outward from its place. How this damage could have been done to the stout casing, without marring in the least the comparatively light frame of the screen, I could by no means understand—particularly as there was no possible way by which one could get a hold upon the outside of the screen except by the use of screws or gimlets to act as holds for one's hands; and of these there were no marks whatever.
I had made this examination so quietly that I had not awakened my wife:—now, however, I returned to the bedroom and aroused her.
Her first thought, on seeing the condition of affairs, was that burglars had visited us:—my idea had been the same until I had observed the peculiar facts that I have just noted. Tacitly accepting this theory for the moment, I assisted her in making an inventory of our portable valuables. While I satisfied myself that my purse and watch were safe, my wife took her keys from under the pillow (where she always kept them at night) and went to the dressing table, in one of whose drawers was her jewel box. The drawer was locked, and so was the jewel box, and the latter, on being opened, seemed to hold all its usual contents intact.
"No," she said, after mentally checking off the various articles; "everything is here; nothing has been taken. Wait! I am wrong; one thing is missing. Do you remember that rhinestone brooch in the shape of a butterfly you bought for me one evening in Paris, four years ago?"
"Why, yes," I replied; "I got it in a shop under the arcades on the Rue de Rivoli, and paid five francs for it. You don't mean to say that the thieves, or our friends the 'spooks,' or whoever it may be, have taken that trifle and left your diamond rings and other things really valuable untouched!"
Yet such appeared to be the case—the cheap and unimportant brooch was the only thing unaccounted for, nor had anything else been disturbed throughout the house. It seemed incredible that any burglar who had passed merely the kindergarten stage of schooling in his profession could have been deceived into supposing that this commonplace article de Paris had any value; besides, why should this have been taken and the real jewelry that lay with it in the same box have been left? And how had it been extracted from the locked box inside the locked dressing table? The keys of both were on the same ring under my wife's pillow, and although a robber might extract them without awaking her, it seemed unreasonable to suppose he would take the additional risk of replacing them when he had completed his work. But for these and other questions that presented themselves we could find no satisfactory answers.
We ate our breakfast in a state of mild expectation that the brooch might be returned as mysteriously as it had been taken. The adventure seemed to be constructed on lines similar to those laid down in the affair of the baked stuffed tomatoes, and we were disposed to credit it to the same agency;—but if the sprites who were responsible for the former prank had contrived this later one also, they either intended to carry it no further, or were preparing a different dénouement. This last conjecture proved to be the true one, but we had to wait a long time for the fact to be developed.
We gave our "spooks" sufficient time to consummate their joke (if, indeed, they were responsible for it), and finally concluding that they were not inclined to embrace the opportunity, we again took under consideration the burglar theory, and I went to the local police station to report the occurrence. Two heavyweight constables returned with me to the house and gravely inspected the premises. Their verdict was speedy and unanimous:—"Housebreakers." There had been similar breakings-and-enterings in the town recently—therefore the facts were obvious. I showed them the drawer and jewel box, and described the singular and modest spoil of the supposed thieves; I also exhibited the unmarred frame of the screen and the scarred window casing, and asked them how they explained that. This puzzled them, but they fell back easily upon the obvious and practical. "Housebreakers," they repeated. "We shall make a report"—and marched away as ponderously as they had come. I did not acquaint them with the goings-on in that house for a year past:—had I done so, my prompt apprehension as a suspicious character would doubtless have followed.
In July of the following year I went from Philadelphia, where I was then living, to spend a few days with my wife at Savin Rock (near New Haven, Connecticut), where I had rented a cottage for the summer. The morning after my arrival I was awakened by my wife, who had risen but the moment before, and who, as I opened my eyes, exclaimed excitedly: "Look! Look at what is on the bureau!" Following with my eyes the direction of her pointed finger, I saw upon the bureau the pin-cushion into which I had stuck my scarf pin the night before, beside which, and in the centre of the cushion, appeared the butterfly brooch which I had last previously seen in Australia, sixteen months before!
"Where did you find it?" I asked, forgetting for the moment, and in my half-awake condition, the incident in which it had figured as above described.
"I didn't find it," my wife replied; "it is less than a minute ago that I saw it. It was not on the pin cushion last night; how in the world did it come here?"—"And from where?"—thus I completed the question.
Neither of us had any reply to this:—so I merely advanced the suggestion that it was pleasant to think that our spookish friends had not altogether forgotten us, although on our part we had no desire to cultivate their better acquaintance. This expression of sentiment may have had its effect:—at any rate, with the return of the brooch came an end to the mystery of "The House on the Hill."