It was so exactly the heavy, heelless steps we had heard before, that Miss L—— ran upstairs softly to see if any one was there, but found no one about. Next we heard a loud bang—not of a door—in the hall, and she went out again to ascertain the cause, and met the butler on the same errand. We could find nothing to account for it. It was like the noise before described, of something dropped heavily into the hall from the gallery above.
There had been so much trouble of ascertaining whether the noises were caused by doors banging, that since the warmer weather set in, ever since our return on March 20th, in fact, we have had every passage-door opening into the hall and into the gallery upstairs fixed open with wedges.
We had scarcely settled to our tea again before we again heard the footsteps overhead, and again Miss Langton went up and found the room empty. She walked across the room, and we heard her do so, but the sound was quite different. She did it noisily on purpose, but though she is very big and tall, she didn't sound heavy enough.
Mrs. M—— remarks, on hearing this read over, that the sound was different in character as well as in volume—that the footsteps she (and we) heard were "between a run and a walk." My phrase was, and has always been, "as of the quick, heavy steps of a person whose foot-gear didn't match." We called it, when we first heard it in No. 8, a "shuffling step."
After she came down the servants' tea-bell rang, and we at once said, "Now we shall know where they all are." The hall is under the wing, at the other end of the house, and we knew that the room underneath us was empty, and the shutters up, and that all who were in the house were either in the drawing-room or the servants' hall.
In a few minutes we again heard the pacing footsteps, up and down, up and down; we heard them at intervals during half-an-hour. We also heard voices as of a man and woman talking. I went to the foot of the stairs, just below the door of No. 1, and heard them plain. Mrs. M—— is not quick of hearing, but she heard them distinctly several times. At 5.20 we heard the maids go up the stone staircase, coming away from their tea, and though we listened till after six, the other sounds did not occur again.
April 2nd, Friday.
[Mr. M—— left early, Mrs. M—— remaining till a later train.]
At 11.15 Miss Langton and I were in the library at two different tables writing. The room was silent. Suddenly we heard a heavy blow struck on a third table, ten feet at least away from either of us. I instantly fetched Mrs. M——, and in her hearing Miss Langton imitated the sound on the same table, by hitting with her fist as heavily as possible. There is a drawer in the table, empty, which added to the vibration, and also pendent brass handles. I tried, but could not make noise enough. We kept watch in the room till lunch, Mrs. M—— keeping guard when we were obliged to leave, but nothing happened till, when we were sitting at luncheon (there is only a single door and a curtain between the two rooms), we heard it again as above described.
One of the informants, who described the scene which occurred the day the late Mr. S—— left this house for the last time, said "a very heavy blow like a man's fist came on the table between them." This is the same room.