“In the morning, as soon as I was up and dressed, I told my sister what I had seen. She then informed me that the house had the reputation of being ‘haunted’; and that a murder had been committed in it; but not in the room in which I had slept. Later in the day I left—after making my sister promise to do all she could to unravel the mystery.
“On the following Wednesday morning, I received a letter from my sister, in which she informed me that, since I left, she had made inquiries and had ascertained that the murder was committed in the very room in which I slept! She added that she proposed visiting us the next day, and that she would like me to write out an account of what I had seen—together with a plan of the room, and that on that plan she wished me to mark the place of the appearance and disappearance of the figure.
“This I immediately did; and the next day when my sister arrived, she asked me if I had complied with her request? I replied, pointing to the drawing room table: ‘Yes, there is the account and the plan.’
“As she rose to examine it, I prevented her, saying: ‘Do not look at it until you have told me all you have to say, because you might unintentionally color your story by what you may read there.’
“Thereupon she informed me that she had had the carpet taken up in the room I had occupied, and that the marks of blood from the murdered person were there, plainly visible, on a particular part of the floor. At my request she also then drew a plan of the room, and marked upon it the spots which still bore traces of blood. The two plans—my sister’s and mine—were now compared; and we verified the most remarkable fact that the place she had marked as the beginning and ending of the traces of blood coincided exactly with the spots marked on my plan as those on which the female figure had appeared and disappeared!”
FACE TO FACE!
The following case is recorded by the wife of Colonel Lewin, and is reported in the Proceedings of the S. P. R.:
“In January, 1868, I took a house close to Hastings.... One night there was a heavy storm, the weather was bitterly cold, and a fire was burning in my bedroom when I went to bed at 10.30. I tried to go to sleep, but it was no use; the noise of the wind and the rain kept me awake. I must have been lying like this for a couple of hours when I became conscious of what seemed like a light in the room.... I thought the fire must have re-kindled itself, and crawled along on my knees on the bed to look at the fire over the high wooden foot, to see how this might be. I had no thought of anything but the fire, and was not nervous in the slightest degree. As I raised myself on my knees and looked over the foot of the bed, I found myself face to face, at a distance of about three feet, with the semblance of a man. I never for a moment thought he was a man, but was struck with the feeling that this was one from the dead.
“The light seemed to emanate from round this figure, but the only portions which I saw clearly were the head and shoulders. The face I shall never forget; it was pale, emaciated, with a thin, high-bridged nose, and eyes deeply sunk and glowing in the sockets with a sort of glare. A long beard was seemingly rolled in under a white comforter, and on the head was a slouched felt hat. I had a nervous shock, and felt a dead person was looking upon me—a living one, but had no sensation of being actually frightened, until the figure moved slowly as if interposing between me and the door, then horror overcame me and I fell back in a dead faint. How long I remained unconscious I know not, but I came to myself cold and cramped; the room was quite dark and nothing was visible. Thoroughly tired out, I got into bed, and slept soundly until morning.”