“Of course,” she went on, with a nervous little laugh, “you will say—just as _I_ said—that such a thing is perfectly absurd. You’d think that no normal person would take it seriously. And yet there were so many strange things told about the house—creepy stories of weird sounds in the dead of night and unearthly things seen through the windows—that people, ordinarily level-headed, began to shun the place.
“I have never believed in ghosts, Mr. Barry, and I’ve always ridiculed people who did; but now—Do you know my husband, Scott Peyton?”
“I’ve heard of him,” said Barry. “Architect, isn’t he?”
“A very successful one. He has designed some of the finest buildings in Chicago. But he’s the most superstitious man alive! He’s a Southerner, born in Georgia, and at childhood his negro ‘mammy’ filled his mind with all manner of silly superstitions, including a deathly fear of ‘ha’nts.’ He has never been able to overcome this, although both of us have tried.
“About three weeks ago,” Mrs. Peyton continued, her voice betraying her agitation, “he and I were motoring along the North Shore when we espied this old Clayberg estate. The quaint charm of the old-fashioned place at once enchanted me; and when we alighted and strolled through the grounds my enchantment grew. It seemed as if Nature had outdone herself in lavishing picturesque beauty there. Mr. Peyton was as fascinated as I.
“We were planning, at that time, to give up our town apartment and buy a suburban home; and this seemed to be just the thing we were looking for. We inquired of the neighbors concerning it, and it was then we discovered its tragic history. When my husband was told of the hideous thing that had happened there last winter, and of its evil reputation since, his enthusiasm vanished, and I immediately saw he would never consider buying it.
“But I had set my heart on having that place; and later—after I had pleaded and argued with him in vain—I decided to buy it myself and, by compelling him to live there, perhaps cure him permanently of his superstitious fear. I saw the agent next day, learned the old home could be bought at a bargain, and had my father buy it and deed it to me.
“My husband was furious when I told him what I had done. He declared he would never enter the house and urged me to sell it forthwith. But I was as firm as he; and finally, after a rather violent argument and by taunting him with being a coward, I contrived to get his reluctant consent to make our home in the ‘haunted house’.”
* * * * *
“We moved in last Thursday,” said Mrs. Peyton sitting nearer the desk and lowering her voice, “and on Thursday night, and every night since then—” She exhaled audibly, her lip quivering.
“What happened?” asked Barry.
“It’s been a nightmare!” she exclaimed with sudden vehemence. “Ever since that first night the most peculiar things have happened. I don’t know what to make of it, or what to think, or do. It’s baffling! I’m not in the least superstitious; and yet—”
“Start at the beginning,” suggested Barry, “and tell me exactly what happened.”
“Well, the first night we slept in the master’s bedroom—a large front room on the second floor—and about midnight I was awakened by my husband, who was sitting up in bed, gasping and trembling with terror. Before I could speak, he sprang from bed and switched on the light and began frantically searching the room, looking into the closets and under the bed and peering into the hall.
“‘For heaven’s sake!’ I cried. ‘What’s the matter?’
“He pointed to the corridor door. His hand was trembling and his face was as white as paper. For a moment he seemed unable to speak.
“‘It came right through that door!’ he said at last. ‘I woke up just as it came in the room—a ghastly-looking old man with white hair and a long beard. It didn’t open the door, but came right _through_ it!’
“‘Nonsense!’ I laughed. ‘You’ve been thinking about ghosts until you imagine you’re seeing them. Now come back to bed and go to sleep.’
“But he indignantly insisted he had actually seen the thing.
“‘I saw it cross the room,’ he declared, ‘and stop at the bed and stand there looking down at me. When I sat up it disappeared—vanished into air.’
“I couldn’t believe such a preposterous thing, of course, but, to humor him, I offered to get up and help him search the house.
“‘What good would that do?’ he objected. ‘I tell you the thing was a _spirit_!’
“Finally he went back to bed. But he slept no more that night. At breakfast next morning I could see he hadn’t closed his eyes.
“On the following night I again was awakened by my husband, who seemed even more frightened than before.
“‘It came back again!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘It was puttering around your desk over there.’
“Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the desk and lit the lamp there. A moment later he uttered a sharp cry and came hurrying back to my bed, with a sheet of writing paper in his hand.
“‘Look at that!’ he exclaimed, and thrust the paper before my eyes.
“I saw written on the paper, in a sprawling hand, the words, ‘_Leave this House!_’ and I knew then that somebody had been in the room.
“I got up and tried the door. It was still locked and the key was in the hole, just as I had left it. The windows hadn’t been touched, apparently. How, then, had the person entered our room?
“My husband, of course, insisted it was not a living being, but a ghost, who could pass through a locked door as though it didn’t exist. And, as before, he refused to look for it.
“Next day, however, with our cook and houseman, I thoroughly searched the house from top to bottom—and found nothing. No trace of anybody having entered the house. Nothing wrong anywhere.
“On Saturday night I was awakened again—this time by a frantic knocking on our bedroom door. I sat up, startled. My husband was sleeping soundly, exhausted after two sleepless nights.
“I slipped quietly from bed, without disturbing him, and tiptoed to the door and whispered through the panel:
“‘Who’s there?’
“The cook’s voice answered, and I could tell by her tone she was terribly frightened:
“‘It’s me, ma’am. I’m leavin’ this house tonight. I won’t stay here another minute!’
“I opened the door and stepped out in the hall—taking care not to awake Mr. Peyton—and found Clara fully dressed and holding her traveling-bag. It was evident she had dressed in considerable haste, and it was equally plain that she was almost paralyzed with fear.
“‘I just seen a spook!’ she gasped. ‘An old man with white hair and whiskers. He come right in my room while I was asleep. I woke up and seen ’im. And he writ somethin’ on my dresser. You c’n see for yerself, ma’am, what he writ there.’
* * * * *
“Fearful of awakening my husband, I had drawn her away from the bedroom door; and now, with some difficulty, I persuaded her to follow me to her room, where I found, written in white chalk across the bureau mirror, the command: ‘_Leave here at once!_’
“Clara was determined to obey this ‘message from the dead’ by leaving instantly. I couldn’t induce her even to stay until morning. Despite my protests and entreaties, she fled from the house and passed the remainder of the night, as I later discovered, in the Hubbard Woods railroad station, taking an early train for Chicago.
“I tried to keep the occurrence from my husband, inventing an excuse for Clara’s hasty departure, but he wormed the truth from me, and of course that further harassed his already overwrought nerves. Also, it gave him the right to say, ‘I told you so!’
“He renewed his pleading to abandon the house; but I still refused to give it up—still refused to admit that it was ‘haunted,’ or that there was anything supernatural in what he and Clara had seen.
“It didn’t end there, unhappily. On the very next night—that was night before last—the houseman was visited by the mysterious ‘thing.’ He said he saw it in his room, after midnight, stooping over his table, that he shouted at it and it disappeared. Then, so he told us, he got up and struck a light and discovered the ‘ghost’ had been trying to send a message to him by arranging some matches on the table.
“He showed us these matches, saying he had left them just as they were found. They were so placed as to spell the word, ‘_LEAVE_,’ in capital letters. Evidently the ‘ghost’ was frightened away before he could finish his sentence. Needless to say, the houseman left us.
“Well, in spite of all these things, I simply couldn’t bring myself to believe that the mysterious visitations were supernatural. I was sure there must be some logical explanation. But _last_ night—!”
“What happened last night?” asked Barry, as Mrs. Peyton paused.
Mrs. Peyton, still sitting forward in her chair, was searching in her reticule. Barry noticed her fingers were unsteady and that her underlip was caught between her teeth to still its quivering.
“Last night,” she went on, with a transparent effort at lightness, “_I_ saw the ‘ghost’! Please don’t smile! I was quite wide awake when I saw it—as wide awake as I am this moment—and in full possession of all my wits. And I can’t understand yet how it got in my room, or how it got out, or even what it was.