block of horror, overspreading which was a suspicion of something—something too dreadful to name, but which we could have sworn was utterly at variance with his nature. Close at his heels was the blurred outline of something small and unquestionably horrid. I cannot define it. I dare not attempt to diagnose the sensations it produced. Apart from a deadly, nauseating fear, they were mercifully novel.
"Dashing past us, Mr Vercoe literally hurled himself along the corridor, and with almost superhuman strides, disappeared downstairs. A moment later, and the clashing of the hall door told us he was in the open air. A breathless silence fell on us, and for some seconds we were all too frightened to move. My husband was the first to pull himself together.
"'Come along!' he cried, gripping one of the trembling servants by the arm. 'Come along instantly! We must keep him in sight at all costs,' and, bidding me remain where I was, he raced downstairs.
"After a long search he eventually discovered Mr Vercoe lying at full length on the grass—insensible.
"For some weeks our friend's condition was critical—on the top of a violent shock to the system, sufficient in itself to endanger life, he had taken a severe chill, which resulted in double pneumonia. However, thanks to a bull-dog constitution, typically English, he recovered, and we then begged him to give us an account of all that had happened.
"'I cannot!' he said. 'My one desire is to forget everything that happened on that awful night.'
"He was obdurate, and our curiosity was, therefore, doomed to remain unsatisfied. Both my husband and I, however, felt quite sure that the image of Buddha was at the bottom of the mischief, and, as there chanced just then to be an English doctor staying at a neighbouring chateau, who was on his way to China, we entrusted the image to him, on the understanding that he would place it in a Buddhist temple. He deceived us, and, returning almost immediately to England, took the image with him. We subsequently learned that within three months this man was divorced, that he murdered a woman in Clapham Rise, and, in order to escape arrest, poisoned himself.
"The image then found its way to a pawnbroker's establishment in Houndsditch, which shortly afterwards was burned to the ground. Where it is now, I cannot definitely say, but I have been told that an image of Buddha is the sole occupant of an empty house in the Shepherd's Bush Road—a house that is now deemed haunted. These are the experiences I wanted to tell you, Mr O'Donnell. What do you think of them?"
"I think," I said, "they are of absorbing interest. Can you see any association in the two hauntings—any possible connection between what you heard and what Mr Vercoe saw?"
A look of perplexity crossed the Baroness's face. "I hardly know," she said. "What is your opinion on that point?"