Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts Read online

  The last time I saw him, early in June 1932, he was already a sick man. There was nothing organically wrong with him as far as the doctors could make out but it seemed to me that his spirit was brighter than ever and gradually devouring the frail frame which was such an inadequate prison. It was the first time that I had seen him for nearly two years. They were the years of the great slump and I had been desperately trying to save my business as many others were trying to save theirs. My efforts were not altogether unsuccessful but resulted in many changes so that when at last the storm subsided I found myself with less money but more leisure than I had had before. It was some months later that I went to see Dewhirst. His face lit up when he saw me come in at the door.

  ‘You’ve written a book at last,’ he cried. ‘I know it. I can see it!’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve written a book and sent it to a literary agent but goodness knows if it will ever find a publisher.’

  He laughed. ‘It will. Nothing can stop you now that you are on your real road. You will sell books by the million and be read in every country under the sun.’

  He must have sensed my doubts that his prophecy could be a true one because he proceeded to dot the ‘i’s’ and cross the ‘t’s’. ‘A man whose name begins with H will be a great help to you in your literary career and good news about this book of yours will reach you towards the end of next month. You should hear that it has been taken on the 26th of August.’

  Some seven weeks later I was on holiday in Normandy. The 26th of August came and went without a word about my book. But, on the 28th, I had a letter from my agent saying that Mr. Walter Hutchinson’s firm had made an offer for it. The letter had been sent to my home address and forwarded on. The postmark was the 25th, and if I had been in London it would have reached me on the 26th.

  In recording these strange facts it is only right to add that I believe seers such as Dewhirst to be very rare beings. While by no means a seeker-out of ‘fortune’ tellers I have, like most people, consulted quite a number in my time, mainly for amusement; but I have never found another who could foretell the future except in, possibly lucky, generalisations.

  With the idea of giving variety to this series I decided that some of Neils’s ‘cases’ should prove to be genuine hauntings and that the others should turn out to be fakes arranged by people who had some axe to grind and therefore be capable of a natural explanation ascertainable by normal detection methods.

  When you have read enough of each case to be as fully informed of the situation as Neils, it may give you additional amusement to lay aside the book for a moment and see if you can guess if he is up against a fake or a real haunting, before reading on to the dénouement.

  The Case of the Thing that Whimpered

  It would have been hard to find two men more different in appearance, character, or way of living than the pair who were crossing the sunny lawn of old Mark Hemmingway’s home at Oyster Bay, Long Island.

  Bruce, the old man’s nephew, six-feet-two, with thick black hair and a strong handsome face, was an astute, hard-headed, international lawyer, whose firm had offices in London, Paris, and New York. His companion, Neils Orsen, a frail little man with a big, domed head, and enormous pale-blue eyes like those of a Siamese cat, was a Swede with adequate private means who had chosen to devote his life to psychical research.

  They had not discovered until three days out from England in the S.S. Orion that, when in London, they both occupied chambers in the Temple. It was Orsen’s first trip to the States and Bruce, with that spontaneous hospitality for which Americans are famous, had insisted that he should spend at least a week at Oyster Bay to see what a real American home was like. At first, Orsen had been rather shy about accepting, but, little knowing that his invitation might result in that diminutive Swede nearly losing his life, Bruce had insisted, and they had come straight out to Long Island after the liner docked that morning.

  Bruce nodded towards a plump, grey-haired figure reclining in a hammock outside the summer-house. ‘There’s Uncle Mark, taking his usual Saturday afternoon nap.’

  ‘Then please don’t let’s disturb him,’ Orsen said tactfully.

  ‘No, we won’t do that; tea will be out in a minute and he’ll wake up then.’

  They lowered themselves quietly into basket chairs and while Orsen leant back closing his eyes, content to enjoy the balmy scented air of the garden, the big American bent down to pick up a newspaper from the grass. Bruce had a passion for facts and could never resist the opportunity to acquire information.

  His eye roved over the headlines. There was more trouble in Europe, but that was nothing new; things had looked pretty black there for some time. Steel King Morgenfeld had ante-ed up the reward for the return of his kidnapped daughter, the six-year-old Angela, to half a million dollars. She had been missing now for close on two months, so the kidnapping racket was still alive in spite of all that Dewey and his G-men had done to kill it. From her photographs she seemed a lovely kid. There was the usual crop of heat-wave suicides in New York, and among them Bruce was shocked to see the name of Una Kotzner, a stenographer who had once worked for him. The poor girl had thrown herself out of a twenty-fifth storey window.

  Suddenly Uncle Mark began to make weird noises in his sleep.

  ‘Wake him,’ said Orsen, opening his eyes. ‘Wake him at once.’

  Bruce leant over and shook the hammock slightly, ‘Wake up, Uncle. Wake up!’

  Mark Hemmingway growled, sat up and blinked at them.

  ‘Hello! So you’ve arrived. It’s good to see you again, Bruce; and this’ll be Mr. Orsen whom you radioed me about, eh?’

  Orsen smiled. ‘I am sorry if we disturbed you, sir, but you were having a bad dream, were you not?’

  ‘Bad dream! Why, yes. How did you know?’

  ‘That was not difficult—the noise you were making. But I am considered quite an authority on “dreams” and I will try to interpret it if you care to tell me what it was about.’

  ‘It’s that confounded warehouse. I can’t get the place out of my thoughts.’

  His nephew looked puzzled. ‘Warehouse?’

  ‘Yes, yes, warehouse. But never mind my troubles. I don’t want to bore Mr. Orsen with them the moment he’s arrived, and the dream was only a nightmare jumble, anyhow.’

  ‘His real speciality is ghost-hunting,’ Bruce grinned, ‘and though I don’t think he’ll find any spooks round here I hope we’ll be able to give him a good time.’

  ‘We’ll certainly do our best,’ came the cordial response. ‘As far as ghosts go, though, I just don’t believe in such things, although I’ve had cause enough to believe in anything these last few weeks.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr. Hemmingway,’ Orsen replied good-humouredly. ‘It is most kind of you to receive me in your lovely home. But what you say naturally excites my curiosity. I am not surprised that you don’t believe in ghosts, because genuine psychical manifestations are very rare. The things that people take to be ghosts are nearly always hallucinations or some form of trickery produced for a specific purpose. Do tell me what it is that has recently caused you so much worry.’

  ‘It’s the ghastly series of events that have taken place in this darned warehouse that I was dreaming about just now.’

  Bruce sat back and lit a cigarette. ‘Let’s have the murky details.’

  His uncle hesitated for a moment, then, glancing quizzically at the stranger, he began: ‘As Bruce may have told you, I’m a director of one of the biggest stores in New York. In recent months we have had to take a new warehouse in East 20th Street. It’s not a good location, since it’s a long way from the Store and situated among blocks of poor tenement houses down on the lower East Side, but we needed it quickly and it was the best proposition our agents could find. The building stands ten storeys high, and the night-watchman occupies two rooms on the top floor; the foreman’s office and a sitting-room. These are connected by a short gallery, one side of which is the outer wall and the other
is open except for a single hand-rail so that the guard can look down upon the whole of the main warehouse. The two rooms and the gallery are built on a platform which is only accessible from the ground by an iron staircase. I’m giving you these details because the happenings in this place have provided a riddle which the smartest “dicks” at Central have failed to solve; but stop me if you’re bored.’

  ‘No, no; please go on.’

  ‘Right, then. The morning after we took the place over the night-watchman was found on the ground floor bruised and battered, his ribs broken in, and half-dead. There had been no burglary; all the doors and windows were still locked, the burglar alarm had not rung, yet somehow this unfortunate man had been attacked while he was going his rounds and mauled in the most savage manner by someone or something possessing incredible strength.’

  ‘Something! Oh, come, Uncle Mark! We don’t have ghosts in New York,’ Bruce interrupted, a half-smile twisting his mouth. ‘What did the man say when he came round?’

  ‘The poor fellow could tell us very little; the last thing he remembered was just having left the sitting-room to make his midnight round. He says that he paused a moment outside because he thought he had heard a curious whining sound like that of an animal in pain, when suddenly the whole place seemed to dissolve—that’s how he described it—and he found himself hurtling through the air to crash upon the concrete. He knew nothing more until he recovered consciousness in hospital.’

  ‘Surely he can give some description of the thing that attacked him?’ Bruce broke in.

  ‘No. In the dim light he saw nothing. He had no time to look round; he says his legs gave way under him and he was flung with awful force forward and downward.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’s the best description he could give us, and we were lucky to get that, as his brain was affected by his ghastly experience.’ Mark Hemmingway paused as two servants approached with tea trays. When they had gone and he had poured out for his guests, he went on:

  ‘But that’s not the half of it. We put a second nightwatchman in, and on the third night of his stay he was found just like the other, only this man’s neck was broken in addition to other terrible injuries, so he had no tale to tell.’

  ‘And the police, what did they say?’ Orsen asked.

  ‘Their search revealed absolutely nothing; there was not a single trace of any living thing ever having entered the building after it had been closed for the night. They did advance one theory, however. It was this: that as the place had been unoccupied for nearly three years before we took it over a bunch of gangsters might have been using it for illicit purposes; and by these attacks on nightwatchmen hoped to scare the new tenants away so that they might continue to operate there undisturbed. That’s O.K. as a theory, but the “dicks” could not produce one jot of proof that the warehouse had ever been used for anything, and although hundreds of people who live in that congested neighbourhood were questioned not one of them could remember ever having seen any van which might contain stolen goods drive up to the place either by day or night until we arrived.’

  ‘Why should they?’ Bruce shrugged. ‘People who live down on the lower East Side don’t generally regard the cops as their blood brothers and if a gang is operating there no one who knows of it is going to ask deliberately for a slug in his guts.’

  ‘That’s so. Yes, I guess you’re right about that. Anyhow, after the death of the second night-watchman it was mighty hard to find another. However, two days ago we engaged a big buck nigger who knew nothing of the history of the place. This morning he was found living, but in one helluva state; his face bashed in, one arm wrenched and broken behind his back, and three ribs smashed. It was just as though some giant force had picked him up and battered him against the warehouse floor like a toy. In hospital they brought him round; he could scarcely talk and the only thing the Police Captain could get out of him as he rolled scared eyeballs in his bandaged face was: “Something whimpered at me—something whimpered, and then—oh, Lordie!—I were flung right through the air.” ’

  ‘So they both heard the peculiar whimpering,’ Orsen said thoughtfully. ‘What did the Police Chief have to say about that?’

  ‘Nothing—couldn’t account for it at all. They can’t even establish yet the exact spot where the attacks occurred. The first chap doesn’t remember going down to the main warehouse by the iron stairs; but that doesn’t mean much, as there were no signs of a struggle in the gallery and all three bodies were found down below. One of the younger of the men who’re on the job did advance a theory this morning, though he was pretty shy about it; he suggested that the place might be haunted and that this is the work of some sort of devil. Naturally it was greeted by ribald laughter from the rest, but, quite honestly, I have a nasty feeling that the boy may be right. No human has the strength to batter men to pulp like that. Even if he had, they would remember something of what had happened to them. So, there it is,’ the old man finished wearily.

  ‘I see,’ Neils Orsen nodded. ‘Of course there are rare cases when such manifestations of embodied evil do exist; but I find myself inclined to believe the first theory, that your warehouse has been used for illicit purposes and that somebody is particularly anxious to terrorise you into giving it up…. Still, I’d very much like to investigate. May I take on the duties of night-watchman tonight?’

  ‘Good gracious, no! You’re my guest; and in any case I wouldn’t hear of—well, anyone like yourself spending a night in that place alone.’

  Orsen smiled. ‘I see you’re thinking of my size, Mr. Hemmingway. But “forewarned is forearmed”, and I should carry a gun. We could have a police guard posted outside the building and if a gang is at the bottom of it my shots would bring instant help; while if it really is an entity from the “Outer Circle” I’m far more capable of dealing with such things than the toughest policeman in New York.’

  ‘No, no. You’ve never been up against the sort of bad men we have on this side. They’re killers and they’d bump you off before the police even got through the door. Tell you what I’ll do, though, since you’re so interested; I’ll take you and Bruce to have a look round the place tomorrow afternoon.’

  The three of them, accompanied by a Police Lieutenant, made a careful inspection of the warehouse but their search revealed nothing fresh. The Lieutenant felt convinced that the attacks had taken place on the floor of the warehouse, but Orsen was inclined to think that they had occurred while the watchman was up in the gallery, because the only man who could give even a partially coherent account of what had happened had no recollection of having come down the iron stairs.

  For this reason it was up in the gallery that he erected the scientific apparatus he had brought with him. This consisted of two cameras with flashlights and trip-wires which would set them off if anyone crossed the gallery, and a sound-recording machine of his own invention, the mechanism of which was so sensitive that, he assured them, it could even pick up voices from the astral plane.

  The Police Lieutenant watched his preparation with open scorn, while old man Hemmingway and Bruce only hid their scepticism out of politeness; but Orsen remained quite unperturbed, declaring with great confidence that whether the monster were ghost or man he meant to find it.

  On the following morning they visited the warehouse again. The fastenings of the door and windows showed not the least signs of having been tampered with—yet Orsen’s two cameras and his sound machine were no longer up in the gallery; they lay smashed to pieces on the floor below.

  With a rueful shrug the little Swede began to collect the bits and with Bruce’s aid put them all in a sack. Back at Oyster Bay, with considerable difficulty they managed to piece the plates together and develop them. Both had been exposed but both were completely blank. The celluloid spool of the sound machine was still intact and on another machine Orsen tested it.

  For a moment a low, heartrending, sobbing cry wavered through the pleasantly sunny room, fill
ing it with the cold breath of evil; then the sound ceased abruptly.

  ‘Well, the watchmen certainly didn’t imagine that!’ said Bruce with a nervous laugh.

  ‘No,’ Orsen’s large, pale-blue eyes filled with a sudden light; ‘and that’s not the sort of noise a gangster makes when he’s about to murder someone. I really do believe now that we’re on the track of an Ab-human.’

  ‘What sort of horror would that be?’

  ‘It’s not a ghost in the ordinary sense at all. By that I mean it is not the spirit of a departed human which is earthbound, but a disembodied force—something that has groped its way up out of the Great Depths and found a gateway by which it can get back into this world. Such manifestations are very rare but to a scientist like myself incredibly intriguing. Wild horses cannot prevent me now from going back to that warehouse this evening and passing the night there.’

  ‘I’ll not have you do that alone,’ Bruce said quickly.

  ‘I shall be delighted to have your company,’ Orsen smiled; and when Mark Hemmingway got home from his office he, all against his will, had to give way to the frail little Swede’s determination.

  Orsen made many careful preparations for the night’s vigil, because he knew that he and Bruce might be called upon to face grave danger. Both carried guns in case the ghost proved to be a murderous human after all, but both also went equipped with talismans of proved power against the evils that affect the spirit. Bruce was half inclined to laugh at their rituals of personal purification which Orsen performed on both their bodies; it seemed such childish mumbo-jumbo. But the little man was so serious about it all that Bruce had no difficulty in restraining his levity.

  At nine o’clock they made their way through the silent warehouse. The place was sparsely lit and every packing-case seemed to throw the shadow of some vast and horrible monster after their echoing footsteps.

  Bruce shivered. ‘Brrr—I don’t envy any man who has to stay here all night, haunted or not.’