The THING had now crossed the hall (I knew this somehow instinctively) and was beginning to mount the stairs.
I could not cry out, I could not stir, I could not close my eyes: I could only sit there staring at the staircase in the most awful of dumb, apprehensive agonies. The THING drew nearer, nearer; up, up, UP it came until I could see it at last—see the shock-head of red hair, the white cheeks, the pale, staring eyes, all rendered hideously ghastly by the halo of luminous light that played around it. This was a ghost—an apparition—a bonâ fide phantasm of the dead! And without any display of physical power—it overcame me.
Happily for me, the duration of its passage was brief.
It came within a yard of me, the water dripping from its clinging clothes, yet leaving no marks on the flooring. It thrust its face forward; I thought it was going to touch me, and tried to shrink away from it, but could not. Yet it did nothing but stare at me, and its eyes were all the more horrible because they were blank; not diabolical, as Miss Rudd had described them, but simply Blank!—Blank with the glassiness of the Dead.
Gliding past with a slightly swaying motion, it climbed upstairs, the night air blowing through the bedraggled dress in a horribly natural manner; I watched it till it was out of sight with bated breath—for a second or so it stopped irresolutely beside an open window; there was a slight movement as of some one mounting the sill: a mad, hilarious chuckle, a loud splash—and then—silence, after which I went home.
I subsequently discovered that early in the seventies a servant-girl, who was in service at that house, had committed suicide in the manner I have just described, but whether or not she had RED HAIR I have never been able to ascertain.
P.S.—The Ghost I am informed on very reliable authority, is still (August 1908) to be seen.
MULREADY VILLA, NEAR
BASINGSTOKE
THE BLACK CLOCK
Technical form of apparition: Either a phantasm of the dead or sub-human elemental