About fifty years previously, a Russian gentleman (an officer, I think, but am not certain of this) and his mistress had occupied this large front room. The man had spent all day at a rifle competition, combined with some sort of merry-making, and had returned home very late—at one-thirty a.m., in fact—very much the worse for drink. He had opened the door very carefully, trusting he should find the lady asleep; but, unfortunately, she was not only wide awake, but extremely annoyed by his late return and the state in which he had come back to her. A desperate quarrel had ensued, and getting frightened by his violence, she seized his rifle, giving him a blow on the head with the butt end of it, hoping to stun him, but with no idea of murder in her mind. Whether she gave a more severe blow, in her nervousness, than she had intended, or whether the rifle fell on some specially vital spot, was not explained in the writing. Anyway, the blow proved fatal—to her extreme regret and remorse.
Under these circumstances one would have supposed that it would be more reasonable for the lady to haunt the room, and not the gentleman; but I "tell the tale as 'twas told to us."
It is, however, remarkable that in most of these stories it is the victim who appears—determined to enact the scene of his or her death—and not the murderer.
I think we were also told, by-the-by, that I had slept in the room on the anniversary of the occurrence.
It was obviously impossible to get any corroboration of such a story. Two small points in it, however, were proved to be true.
The Moscow hotels, as a rule, were comparatively modern at the time of our visit, and therefore the "fifty years ago" seemed highly improbable. We learned, however, through a few discreet questions later, that this particular hotel had been in existence so far back as fifty years, and also that rifle competitions had taken place on certain occasions in those far-off days.
For the rest I claim nothing. I have truthfully recounted my experience without a word of exaggeration, and have never been able to account for it normally.
The explanation given to us is, of course, just worth the paper it was written upon from any evidential point of view.