“She’s kindness itself,” Mr. Jansen observed.
“Well,” Mrs. Jansen went on, “the feeling became so unbearable, that fearing I should actually be compelled to kill someone, I awoke my husband and begged him to tie my hands together; which, after some hesitation, he did. Bertha was crying bitterly, and told us she had again heard creaks in the room, just as if someone was getting out of bed to murder her. That was the last time we slept in the room. I felt it was a positive danger to spend another night in it, and so we removed into the one we are sleeping in now.”
“And has it never been occupied since?” I asked.
“Yes, for one night,” Mrs. Jansen replied. “A niece of mine, Charlotte, came to stay with us, and as we had nowhere else to put her, she had to sleep there. We went to bed rather late that night, and I dreamed three times in succession that Charlotte was creeping down the stairs with some strange weapon in her hand, with which she intended killing Bertha. Bertha was then sleeping alone in the room facing ours.
“The third dream was so vivid that I awoke from it bathed with perspiration. I told my husband, and he said, ‘Well, that’s curious, for I thought I heard someone moving about overhead. I’ll go and see if anything is amiss.’ He opened the door, and, going on to the landing, discovered Charlotte tiptoeing cautiously down the stairs, holding a long, glittering pair of scissors in her hand, and with an expression on her face similar to that on the face in the bedclothes. ‘What are you doing here?’ my husband demanded, and Charlotte at once dropped the scissors and began crying. She told us that no sooner had she got into bed, than she felt like another person. It was just as if someone else’s soul had crept into her body. All her old sentiments and ideals vanished, and the maddest and most unholy ideas presented themselves in rapid succession to her mind. A blind hatred of everyone in the house possessed her, and she was seized with the most ungovernable craving to kill. For a long time she fought against this mania, until at last, unable to restrain it any longer, she got out of bed and sought some weapon. Cold hands, she declared, seemed to guide her to the scissors, and armed with them, she crept downstairs, just as I had seen her in my sleep, determined to butcher Bertha first, and then, if possible, my husband and myself.
“She pleaded our forgiveness and begged to be allowed to go home first thing in the morning. ‘I do not feel I am responsible for my behaviour,’ she said. ‘I never had the slightest inclination to do anything of the sort before. I am sure it’s that room. There’s some sinister influence in it, and if I go back to it, I’m certain I shall do something dreadful.’
“She spent the rest of the night on the sofa in the parlour, and shortly before noon returned to her parents.
“After that we locked up the room and had this chest placed against the door, as you now see it.”
“Do you know the history of the house?” I asked.
“Only that before we came here,” Mrs. Jansen said, “there were several sudden deaths. I do not think any of them were actually attributed to murder, though they were all due to rather extraordinary accidents. Originally, I believe, the house was an inn, kept by a woman who bore a very evil reputation, and we have always wondered if the hauntings had anything to do with her.”