The Mayor's Wife

by Anna Katharine Green

It appeared to convince him. His homely face shone with the fire of sudden interest and resolve, and, reaching for a small drawer at the right of his desk, he opened it and drew forth a folded paper which he proceeded to open before me with the remark:

“Here is a report that I have kept for my own satisfaction. I do not feel that in showing it to you I am violating any trust reposed in me by the Misses Quinlan. I never promised secrecy in the matter.”

I glanced at the paper, all eagerness. He smiled and pushed it toward me. This is what I read:

First tenant, Mr. Hugh Dennison and family.
Night 1: Heard and saw nothing.
Night 2: The entire household wakened by a scream seemingly
coming from below. This was twice repeated before Mr. Dennison
could reach the hall; the last time in far distant and smothered
tones. Investigation revealed nothing. No person and no trace
of any persons, save themselves, could be found anywhere in the
house. Uncomfortable feelings, but no alarm as yet.
Night 3: No screams, but a sound of groaning in the library.
The tall clock standing near the drawing-room door stopped at
twelve, and a door was found open which Mr. Dennison is sure he
shut tight on retiring. A second unavailing search. One servant
left the next morning.
Night 4: Footfalls on the stairs. The library door, locked by Mr.
Dennison’s own hand, is heard to unclose. The timepiece on the
library mantel-shelf strikes twelve; but it is slightly fast, and
Mr. and Mrs. Dennison, who have crept from their room to the
stair-head, listen breathlessly for the deep boom of the great
hall clock—the one which had stopped the night before. No light
is burning anywhere, and the hall below is a pit of darkness, when
suddenly Mrs. Dennison seizes her husband’s arm and, gasping out,
“The clock, the clock!” falls fainting to the floor. He bends to
look and faintly, in the heart of the shadows, he catches in dim
outline the face of the clock, and reaching up to it a spectral
hand. Nothing else—and in another moment that, too, disappears;
but the silence is something awful—the great clock has stopped.
With a shout he stumbles downward, lights up the hall, lights up
the rooms, but finds nothing, and no one. Next morning the second
servant leaves, but her place is soon supplied by an applicant we
will call Bess.
Night 5: Mrs. Dennison sleeps at a hotel with the children. Mr.
Dennison, revolver in hand, keeps watch on the haunted stairway.
He has fastened up every door and shutter with his own hand, and
with equal care extinguished all lights. As the hour of twelve
approaches, he listens breathlessly. There is certainly a stir
somewhere, but he can not locate it, not quite satisfy himself
whether it is a footfall or a rustle that he hears. The clock
in the library strikes twelve, then the one in the hall gives one
great boom, and stops. Instantly he raises his revolver and
shoots directly at its face. No sound from human lips answers
the discharge of the weapon. In the flash which for a moment has
lighted up the whole place, he catches one glimpse of the broken
dial with its two hands pointing directly at twelve, but nothing
more. Then all is dark again, and he goes slowly back to his own
room.
The next day he threw up his lease.
Second tenant: Mrs. Crispin.
Stayed but one night. Would never tell us what she saw.
Third tenant: Mrs. Southwick. Hires Bess for maid-of-all-work, the
only girl she could get.
Night 1: Unearthly lights shining up through the house, waking
the family. Disappeared as one and all came creeping out into the
hall.
Night 2: The same, followed by deep groans. Children waked and
shrieked.
Night 3: Nothing.
Night 4: Lights, groans and strange shadows on the walls and
ceilings of the various hallways. Family give notice the next day,
but do not leave for a week, owing to sickness. No manifestations
while doctor and nurses are in the house.
House stands vacant for three months. Bess offers to remain in it
as caretaker, but her offer is refused.
Police investigate.
An amusing farce.
One of them saw something and could not be laughed out of it by his
fellows. But the general report was unsatisfactory. The mistake
was the employment of Irishmen in a task involving superstition.
Fourth tenant: Mr. Weston and family.
Remain three weeks. Leaves suddenly because the nurse encountered
something moving about in the lower hall one night when she went
down to the kitchen to procure hot water for a sick child. Bess
again offered her services, but the family would not stay under any
circumstances.
Another long period without tenant.
Mr. Searles tries a night in the empty house. Sits and dozes in
library till two. Wakes suddenly. Door he has tightly shut is
standing open. He feels the draft. Turns on light from dark
lantern. Something is there—a shape—he can not otherwise
describe it. As he stares at it, it vanishes through doorway. He
rushes for it; finds nothing. The hall is empty; so is the whole
house.

This finished the report.

“So Mr. Searles has had his own experiences of these Mysteries!” I exclaimed.

“As you see. Perhaps that is why he is so touchy on the subject.”

“Did he ever give you any fuller account of his experience than is detailed here?”

“No; he won’t talk about it.”

“He tried to let the house, however.”