"Well, Standish has grave doubts about him. He says he caught the bishop sliding down the banisters."
"Sliding down the banisters?"
There was a faint chuckle. The other said musingly: "I should like to have seen that performance. Standish is firmly convinced he's — um — off his rocker, so to speak. This was only the day after the poltergeist had got busy—"
"Would you mind telling me the facts from the beginning, sir?" suggested Hadley, wiping his forehead and giving the telephone a vindictive glare. "It hardly seems to concern us if a clergyman goes mad and slides down the banisters in Gloucestershire."
I’ll let the bishop speak for himself, later on. He's coming to see you this morning, you know… Briefly, what I understand is this. At The Grange — that's Standish's country place — they have a room which is supposed to be haunted off and on by a poltergeist. Poltergeist: German for 'racketting spirit'; I got that out of the encyclopedia. It's the sort of ghost that throws china about, and makes the chairs dance, and what not. D'you follow me?"
"O Lord!" said Hadley. "Yes, sir."
The poltergeist hadn't been active for a number of years. Well, it happened the night before last that the Reverend Primley, the vicar of a parish somewhere nearby, had been dining at the Grange—"
"Another clergyman? Yes, sir. Go on."
"— and he missed the last bus home. It was Standish's chauffeur's night off, so they put up the vicar at The Grange. They'd forgotten all about the poltergeist, and he was accidentally accommodated in the haunted room. Then, about one o'clock in the morning, the ghost got busy. It knocked a couple of pictures off the wall, and made the poker walk about, and I don't know what all. Finally, while the vicar was praying away for dear life, a bottle of ink came sailing off the table and biffed him in the eye.
"At this the vicar set up a howl that alarmed the whole household. Standish came charging in with a gun, and the rest of them after him. It was red ink, so at first they thought murder had been done. Then, at the height of the hullabaloo, they looked out of the window, and there they saw him standing on the flat leads of the roof in his nightshirt—"