The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (93 page)

He paused again and regarded Hewson’s throat with interest mingled with disfavour.

“I am obliged to the chance which brought us together tonight,” he continued, “and perhaps it would seem ungrateful to complain. From motives of personal safety my activities have been somewhat curtailed of late years, and I am glad of this opportunity of gratifying my somewhat unusual whim. But you have a skinny neck, sir, if you will overlook a personal remark. I should never have selected you from choice. I like men with thick necks . . . thick red necks. . . .”

He fumbled in an inside pocket and took out something which he tested against a wet forefinger and then proceeded to pass gently to and fro across the palm of his left hand.

“This is a little French razor,” he remarked blandly. “They are not much used in England, but perhaps you know them? One strops them on wood. The blade, you will observe, is very narrow. They do not cut very deep, but deep enough. In just one little moment you shall see for yourself. I shall ask you the little civil question of all the polite barbers: ‘Does the razor suit you, sir?’ ”

He rose up, a diminutive but menacing figure of evil, and approached Hewson with the silent furtive step of a hunting panther.

“You will have the goodness,” he said, “to raise your chin a little. Thank you, and a little more. Just a little more. Ah, thank you! . . .
Merci, m
’
sieur
. . . Ah
,
merci . . .
merci. . . .”

Over one end of the chamber was a thick skylight of frosted glass which, by day, let in a few sickly and filtered rays from the floor above. After sunrise these began to mingle with the subdued light from the electric bulbs, and this mingled illumination added a certain ghastliness to the scene which needed no additional touch of horror.

The waxwork figures stood apathetically in their places, waiting to be admired or execrated by the crowds who would presently wander fearfully among them. In their midst, in the centre gangway, Hewson sat still, leaning far back in his arm-chair. His chin was uptilted as if he were waiting to receive attention from a barber, and although there was not a scratch upon his throat, nor anywhere upon his body, he was cold and dead. His previous employers were wrong in having him credited with no imagination.

Dr. Bourdette on his pedestal watched the dead man unemotionally. He did not move, nor was he capable of motion. But then, after all, he was only a waxwork.

The Inexperienced Ghost

H. G. Wells

“I say!” he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, “you know I was alone here last night?”

“Except for the domestics,” said Wish.

“Who sleep in the other wing,” said Clayton. “Yes. Well—” He pulled at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, “I caught a ghost!”

“Caught a ghost, did you?” said Sanderson. “Where is it?”

And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in America, shouted, “
Caught
a ghost, did you, Clayton? I’m glad of it! Tell us all about it right now.”

Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.

He looked apologetically at me. “There’s no eavesdropping, of course, but we don’t want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of ghosts in the place. There’s too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn’t a regular ghost. I don’t think it will come again – ever.”

“You mean to say you didn’t keep it?” said Sanderson.

“I hadn’t the heart to,” said Clayton.

And Sanderson said he was surprised.

We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. “I know,” he said, with the flicker of a smile, “but the fact is it really
was
a ghost, and I’m as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I’m not joking. I mean what I say.”

Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.

Clayton ignored the comment. “It is the strangest thing that has ever happened in my life. You know I never believed in ghosts or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands.”

He meditated still more profoundly and produced and began to pierce a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.

“You talked to it?” asked Wish.

“For the space, probably, of an hour.”

“Chatty?” I said, joining the party of the sceptics.

“The poor devil was in trouble,” said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end and with the very faintest note of reproof.

“Sobbing?” someone asked.

Clayton heaved a realistic sight at the memory. “Good Lord!” he said, “yes.” And then, “Poor fellow! Yes.”

“Where did you strike it?” asked Evans, in his best American accent.

“I never realised,” said Clayton, ignoring him, “the poor sort of thing a ghost might be,” and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.

“I took an advantage,” he reflected at last.

We were none of us in a hurry. “A character,” he said, “remains just the same character for all that it’s been disembodied. That’s a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose – most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea’d as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn’t.” He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. “I say it,” he said, “in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance he struck me as weak.”

He punctuated with the help of his cigar.

“I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he didn’t know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like –
so!
”

“What sort of physique?” said Sanderson.

“Lean. You know that sort of young man’s neck that has two great flutings down the back, here and here – so! And a little, meanish head with scrubby hair and rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the hips; turndown collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That’s how he took me. I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know – the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp – and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that – taking him in. I wasn’t a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested. I thought, ‘Good Lord! Here’s a ghost at last! And I haven’t believed for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.’ ”

“Um,” said Wish.

“I suppose I wasn’t on the landing a moment before he found out I was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an instant we stood – he looking over his shoulder at me – and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands in approved ghost fashion – came towards me. As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out ‘Boo.’ No, it wasn’t – not a bit dreadful. I’d dined. I’d had a bottle of champagne, and being all alone, perhaps two or three – perhaps even four or five – whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I’d been assailed by a frog. ‘Boo!’ I said. ‘Nonsense. You don’t belong to
this
place. What are you doing here?’

“I could see him wince. ‘Boo – oo,’ he said.

“ ‘Boo – be hanged! Are you a member?’ I said: and just to show I didn’t care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to light my candle. ‘Are you a member?’ I repeated, looking at him sideways.

“He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became crestfallen. ‘No,’ he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of my eye; ‘I’m not a member – I’m a ghost.’

“ ‘Well, that doesn’t give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there anyone you want to see, or anything of that sort?’ And doing it as steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, holding it. ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

“He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. ‘I’m haunting,’ he said.

“ ‘You haven’t any business to,’ I said in a quiet voice.

“ ‘I’m a ghost,’ he said, as if in defence.

“ ‘That may be, but you haven’t any business to haunt here. This is a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose you didn’t think of that?’

“ ‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘I didn’t.’

“ ‘You should have done. You haven’t any claim on the place, have you? Weren’t murdered here, or anything of that sort?”

“ ‘None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled—’

“ ‘That’s
no
excuse.’ I regarded him firmly. ‘Your coming here is a mistake,’ I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t wait for cock-crow – I’d vanish right away.’