On reaching the nursery, the blurred outline of something like a huge dog or wolf came out of the half-open door, and raced past him, so close that he distinctly felt it brush against his clothes.
Where it went he could not say; he was thinking of the children, and did not stop to look. Oddly enough, the children were not a bit afraid; on the contrary, they were pleased and curious. “What a strange doggy it was, Daddy!” they cried; “it never wagged its tail, like other doggies, and whenever we tried to stroke it, it slipped away from us—we never touched it once.”
Sorely puzzled, McKaye told his wife, and the two decided that if anything further happened, they must leave the house.
That night McKaye happened to sit up rather late; at last he got up, and was about to turn off the gas, when he felt his upstretched hand suddenly caught hold of by something large and soft, that did not seem to have any fingers. He was so frightened that he screamed; whereupon his hand was instantly released, and there was a loud crash overhead. Thinking something had happened to his wife, he rushed upstairs, and found her sitting up in bed and talking in her sleep. She was apparently addressing a black, shadowy figure that was crouching on the floor, opposite her. As McKaye approached, the thing moved towards the wall, and vanished.
Mrs. McKaye then awoke, and begged her husband to take her out of the house at once, as she had dreamed most vividly that an appalling murder had been committed there, and that the murderer had come out of the room with outstretched hands, asking her to look at them. McKaye, who had had quite enough of it, too, promised to do as she wished, and before another twenty-four hours had passed the house was once again empty.
These were the bare facts of the case, and as they were given me by one of his clients, I had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with Mr. McKaye, who, I was told, still had the keys of the house. It was not, however, so easy to obtain consent to spend a night on the premises, and he would only permit me to do so on the condition that he himself accompanied me, and that I promised to keep the visit a profound secret.
The evening chosen for our enterprise proved ever memorable.
The rain came down in torrents, and the wind—a veritable tornado—made any attempt to hold up an umbrella utterly impossible. Indeed, it was as much as I could do to hold up myself, whilst, to add to my discomfort, at almost every step I plunged ankle-deep in icy cold puddles. At length, drenched to the skin, I arrived at the house.
McKaye was standing on the doorstep, swearing furiously. He could not, so he said, find the key. However, he produced it now, and we were soon standing inside, shaking the water from our clothes. Those were the days before pocket flashlights had become general, and we had to be content with candles.
We each lighted one, and at once commenced to search the premises to make sure no one was in hiding.