Night Stalks The Mansion: A True Story Of One Family's Ghostly Adventure (15 page)

My brother, Colonel Arthur Cameron, United States Air
Force, with an office in the Pentagon, approved of my efforts
to find rational explanations. At first, he hooted at my suggestion that we might have some invisible entities around.
That didn't bother me at all. I would have hooted at it a
year earlier, myself.

"Nothing to that, Harold, nothing at all," Arthur assured
me breezily. "But I admit you have an interesting problem.
I'll be down this weekend to work on it. Mind if I bring
Rita?"

"Not at all," I answered.

"The Air Force is landing," I told Dorothy when I turned
from the phone. "We can now relax. Everything will be
under control in this house."

She laughed. "I take it you were talking to Arthur on the
phone?"

"Yes, and he's also bringing Rita. Okay?"

She nodded. "It has to be. I don't know her very well, but
I think she does him more good than he realizes."

Rita was a tall, beautiful, blonde. She was helping Arthur
through a trying time-the trauma of his divorce from my
sister-in-law Ernestine, the one who had suffered such a
shock in our library. They were later to be married, and
Arthur wanted to be sure that we would welcome the girl
who was to take Ernestine's place.

Arthur's slightest request carried with it a totalitarian
overtone that I associated with many officers in our armed
forces. He had the same attitude toward our unseen entities
who did not advance, halt, or come to attention on command that he would have exhibited toward refractory cadets.

I am the first to admit that I have many human failings.
Where my brother was concerned, I privately hoped that
something would happen to shake him out of his complacency. I didn't have long to wait.

The first night that Arthur and Rita were with us was a
bright moonlit night, reminiscent of the night that Joe and
Carrol had camped in the yard earlier that year.

They were sitting upstairs in one of the big windows that
had been opened to the night air. Suddenly their low-voiced
conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps
crunching down on the gravel. Arthur leaned over to see
who was coming up to the house so late at night. No form
was visible in the bright moonlight. The footsteps, however,
came to the front entrance of the house which was just
beneath them. They mounted the steps of the porch and
ceased abruptly. Mystified, the couple waited for the sound
of the front knocker. Nothing happened.

"Who's down there?" The Colonel barked in the voice
that had quailed so many cadets. "Speak up!"

There was complete silence. Half-angry and half-puzzled,
Arthur went downstairs to look around. Rita followed to the head of the stairs as he switched on the porchlight. There
was no one on the front porch and he had to first unlock
the door before he opened it. He relocked the door. Then
scratching his short-cropped head, he came up to the master
bedroom. I was reading in bed while Dorothy was relaxing
in a warm tub just a few steps across the hall. This was the
one luxury she permitted herself after a busy day.

"Damned if I know what to think," Arthur admitted. "I
heard those footsteps plainly and so did Rita, but we didn't
see a soul and the moonlight is so bright outside I bet I
could read a newspaper out there."

"That's right," Rita agreed. "I heard someone, too. But
he stopped at the porch and never did ring the bell. I didn't
hear him go away, either."

I put down my book. "I haven't told you a fraction of
the things that have gone on around this place," I replied.
"You didn't sound too receptive on the phone. But if you
think you can find any explanation for them, just go right
ahead."

"Someone gets in this house," Arthur stated positively.

"Didn't you check the doors and windows?" I asked. "I
always do before I go to bed. Everything was locked up
tonight."

"There must be a secret entrance," he mused. "There
has to be some place where they can hide. These walls are
deep enough to contain a secret passageway."

I grinned even though I was slightly irritated. He had
announced his conclusion as if none of us had ever thought
of such a thing. "We've taken that into consideration and
we've investigated those walls. So far we've come up with
nothing to indicate a secret passage. But aren't you getting
a little far afield? What started your investigation was the
footsteps outside the house and no one to make them. So
what if the person was coming through an underground
tunnel and through the walls? How could his steps have sounded above him on the gravel? Unless, of course, we
have a prehistoric fly walking on the ceiling of a passageway
down there."

He ignored my levity. I knew he would. "I don't know
yet," he snapped, "but I'm going to find out!" As I remained
silent, he looked at me accusingly. "You sound as if you
really believe this ghost junk!"

"Listen, my esteemed brotherl I'll be glad if you can present me with a logical alternative. More glad than you realize!
I've spent months trying to figure things out although I
haven't had time to devote to it exclusively. After all, I've
got to make a living. But I'm happy to have you poking
around at any time. In the meantime, Arthur, I've got a
question or two that I've been wanting to ask you in your
own field."

"Go ahead!" He was always agreeable when asked for his
opinion or his advice.

I thought for a moment, recalling the incident I wanted
to discuss. A few days before, I had purchased a plane ticket
for Washington, D.C. and was taking an early morning
flight from Philadelphia on urgent business. When the time
for our departure arrived, we were not permitted to board
the plane. A couple of hours passed and we became irate
over the unexplained delay. The majority of the passengers
were businessmen with important appointments. Some
were in the diplomatic service and there was a sprinkling
of attorneys. Government appointments were hard to come
by in those busy days and simply were not broken.

As a result of our persistent questioning, it was finally
disclosed that there was some unusual activity in the skies
above the capital. Unidentified objects had been picked up
on the radar screen and no plane could take off or land at
the Washington airport until an all-clear signal was given.
As yet, we still waited.

Finally, at seven o'clock that night our plane did leave but not for Washington. We landed at Baltimore and from
there went by bus into the city of Washington. We received
no further explanation or clarification whatever. A couple
of lawsuits were instigated because of that wasted day.

When I told Arthur what had happened, he was obviously
uneasy.

"That does occur," he admitted. "More often than the
public knows."

"But what are the unidentified flying objects?" I persisted.
"Planes from some other country snooping around?"

"Nol" he exploded. "We could handle that! These can't
be aircraft as we know them - not the way they move around.
We haven't anything on our drawing boards that can touch
them-even in potential. We don't know what they are or
where they come from!"

I was growing more interested. "Another area of phenomena that can't be tested?" I asked.

He was definitely annoyed. "How can you test anything
you can't catch up with?" he asked sourly.

I grinned. "My point exactly," I told him. "It just happens that this is in your area of activity. Our mystery is in
mine."

"But I can catch up with yours," he argued. "It happens
in a definite place."

"Well and good," I said cheerfully. "When you catch up
with the guy who walks the gravel paths from the old coach
house and with the woman who comes from the library and
sometimes carries flowers around in the upstairs hall, hang
onto both of them. I deserve first lookl"

He finally gave a sheepish grin. "You winl" he admitted.
"But I'm still going to look for secret passages and rooms.
This idea of ghosts has to be a lot of nonsense."

"Well, this is an historic old place and you may be right.
It was once a station for runaway slaves. They had to hide somewhere in the house where they would be undetected in
the event of an investigation."

"I'll get at it the first thing in the morning," he promised.
"Do you have a steel measuring tape-a long one?"

"Enoch can probably find you one."

"Shall I ask him now?"

"Enoch," I informed him, "does not sleep in the big
house. He prefers the barn."

Rita had remained completely silent during our exchange,
her blue eyes wide and troubled. Now she only said a sober
"Goodnight, Harold." They left the room together and I
turned back to my book.

What Arthur didn't realize, however, and what I hadn't
felt like confiding, was the fact that my interest now wasn't
in physical dimensions but in learning about past events
that might serve as a blueprint for the psychic atmosphere
that made such phenomena possible. It was like looking at
a photograph of a family group. Most people would be busy
identifying those they knew in the picture. I was searching
the background for an unfamiliar or fuzzy face peering
around a tree or looking down from an obscure window.

The next morning Arthur started over what was by now
a familiar route to the rest of us. Rita trailed along. He
tapped walls and measured dimensions of rooms. He looked
up sooty fireplaces. He searched for movable panels. He
went outside and measured every wall and alcove of the
house, making neat rows of figures in a little book over
which he poured industriously. Then he checked again. As
a matter of fact this project of "checking Harold's house"
became an absorbing hobby every weekend that he could
spare for the next several weeks. During Arthur's research,
we uncovered a little more of the house's history. Evidently,
one of the owners had been active in politics and often
opened the house to conventions and rallies. We even found a guest book that included the signature of Eleanor
Roosevelt.

One Friday Arthur arrived early and I was still at my
office when he phoned me there.

"Harold," he said excitedly. "Do you care if I break a
window?"

I was winding up an important meeting and it was only
due to his manner and persistence that he had gotten through
to me. Besides, I certainly did care. "Where?" I demanded.
"What for?"

"There's a window painted black down in the basement
at the back of the house. I've finally found about a six foot
discrepancy in my measurements between the outside and
the inside of the basement. I'll have to break the window
to see what's behind it. I'll pay for putting the glass back."

"Wait for mel" I ordered. "I'll be out in an hour."

Arthur and Carrol were waiting impatiently when I
drove in. We went down into the basement where Arthur
showed me a sketch he had made to scale and pointed to
the blackened window, dirty and draped with cobwebs.
From the basement floor it could only be reached by ladder,
but it was only a little above ground level from the outside
of the house.

"That's the culprit!" he announced. "I've got to see what's
behind it!"

"What's so interesting about that? Can't you break it
from the outside?"

"I don't want to," he replied impatiently. "The outside
wall of the house runs in a straight line but down here the
basement is all cut up into these rooms. There's about a six
foot space from that window to the outside wall or my
figures are off -and they can't be!"

We pulled a ladder up to the window and Arthur climbed
up with hammer in hand. Carrol and I stepped out of range
of falling glass as he smashed the pane then, working with gloves, removed the remaining pieces from the frame. He
turned his flashlight into the aperture and gave a sharp
whistle.

"Hey!" he yelled. "You've got to see this! You won't
believe it!"

He scrambled down the ladder and handed me his flash.
Then he waited in obvious excitement for me to climb up.

"Do you see that room?" he shouted. "Look across at that
other windowl"

I saw it. The room was small and unfurnished although
what looked like an old quilt was lying in one corner. Just
opposite the window Arthur had broken was an identical
one and this is what we had noticed from the outside of
the house. It was, likewise, painted black and was a twin
in its dimensions of the one in the basement wall. This was
the most careful job of camouflaging a secret room that
one could imagine.

Arthur's excitement was contagious. "There's another
ladder around," I said. "Hand it up to me quick. I'm going
down there!"

"I should be the one to go first," he protested.

"Nuts!" I replied. "I live here!"

Minutes later we both climbed down into our secret
room. Careful examination proved that there were no other
windows and no other way of getting into the room. If there
had been a door, it was certainly sealed over with concrete.
The entire room was cement lined. A patchwork quilt was
on the floor in the corner. It was dirty and stained. There
was also an old newspaper near it that I picked up, folded
and put into my pocket. By working in teams, we found
that hitting against the ceiling with a broom handle would
give an answering vibration on the kitchen floor above.