A Story in Two Letters from Thomas Campbell, of London, to his Brother, Dr. John Campbell, in Bombay.
Dear Jack,Jan. 3rd., 1898.
What the Psychical Research Society really wants is an authentic record of any supernatural or inexplicable event in the life of a "healthy subject" with nerves of iron, and a hearty contempt for all forms of superstition.
Therefore I have not the slightest intention of following your advice and laying this story before that most learned and conscientious tribunal, because I fear that I cannot claim for John Barton, the principal actor in this little drama, either remarkably good health or a complete freedom from superstition. But as you ask for the details you shall have them.
I first met Barton some two years ago in the rooms of a friend of mine. We had been playing whist, and after the departure of the fourth player he and I stayed on talking with our host till the early hours of the morning.
The conversation ran chiefly on vampires, wehr-wolves, and other subjects of an equally light and cheerful nature, and Barton, I remember, showed himself to be an adept at the art of making the flesh creep. He walked part of the way home with me, and we discovered that we had quite a large number of friends and interests in common.
I came across him constantly after this, and one day when he was dining with me—in September, '95, I think it was? he told me that he was engaged to be married, and a few days afterwards introduced me to the lady. I was much struck by her beauty and the wonderful power that was expressed both in her face and by her speech and bearing.
Her age, if a poor bachelor is any judge, was about twenty-eight, and she was, I believe, of Russian extraction. She was living with friends in Paris, the Russian heaven, and naturally Barton spent most of his time in the same city, so that though I heard of him and from him from time to time, we never actually met again till January of this year. Mickleham asked me to come and dine with him for the purpose of meeting Barton, who would, he said, leave England again in a couple of days. I gladly accepted the invitation, and a very pleasant dinner we had at the Travellers' Club, adjourning afterwards to Mickleham's rooms, where we sat and talked for two or three hours.
I noticed at dinner that Barton was not looking well, and afterwards, though he talked as much and as brilliantly as usual, he studiously avoided supernatural subjects, once his favourite topic, and displayed marked uneasiness whenever the talk strayed in that direction. I don't think Mickleham noticed anything—he never was exactly a Sherlock Holmes, you remember—and in fact there was only one trivial indication of the state of Barton's nerves that was particularly remarkable. He seemed to have acquired a habit, even in the middle of some of his best stories, of continually glancing in a sidelong fashion at the door. Once, indeed, he rose and went towards it as if to close it; but seeing, as I then supposed, that it was shut, he went back to his seat.
We both left at about one o'clock, and as he was sleeping at the Métropole we parted at the corner of St. James' Street, and I said good-bye and wished him a pleasant crossing, thinking, of course, that I should not see him again before he left England. You can judge of my surprise when after walking home I found Barton already in my rooms. He apologised, saying that he had remembered something which he had meant to tell me, and had driven back to do it, passing me, I suppose, on the way. It was some time before I could get him to tell me what it was that he had forgotten. I was rather riled, as I wanted to go to bed, but when at last he did begin his story, I can tell you there wasn't much sleepiness left in me. He told it as no one else could have told it, and it's a solid fact that he made me feel like a frightened child, and you know I'm not a particularly imaginative man.