Spook Stories by E. F. Benson

Author:E. F. Benson [Benson, E. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Short Stories
Publisher: Hutchinson
Published: 1928-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

Philosophers have argued about the strongest emotion known to man. Some say “love,” others “hate,” others “fear.” I am disposed to put “curiosity” on a level, at least, with these august sensations, just mere simple inquisitiveness. Certainly at the moment it rivalled fear in my mind, and there was a hint of that.

As he spoke the parlourmaid came out into the garden with a telegram in her hand. She gave it to Philip, who without a word scribbled a line on the reply-paid form inside it, and handed it back to her.

“Dreadful nuisance,” he said, “but there’s no help for it. A few days ago I got a letter which made me think I might have to go up to town, and this telegram makes it certain. There’s an operation possible on a patient of mine, which I hoped might have been avoided, but my locum tenens won’t take the responsibility of deciding whether it is necessary or not.”

He looked at his watch.

“I can catch the night train,” he said, “and I ought to be able to catch the night train back from town to-morrow. I shall be back, that is to say, the day after to-morrow in the morning. There’s no help for it. Ha! That telephone of yours will come in useful. I can get a taxi from Falmouth, and needn’t start till after dinner.”

He went into the house, and I heard him rattling and tapping at the telephone. Soon he called for Mrs. Criddle, and presently came out again.

“We’re not on the telephone service,” he said. “It was cut off a year ago, only they haven’t removed the apparatus. But I can get a trap in the village, Mrs. Criddle says, and she’s sent for it. If I start at once I shall easily be in time. Spicer’s packing a bag for me, and I’ll take a sandwich.”

He looked sharply towards the pollarded trees.

“Yes, just there,” he said. “I saw it plainly, and equally plainly I saw it not. And then there’s that telephone of yours.”

I told him now about the ladder I had seen below the tree where he saw the dangling rope.

“Interesting,” he said, “because it’s so silly and unexpected. It is really tragic that I should be called away just now, for it looks as if the—well, the matter were coming out of the darkness into a shaft of light. But I’ll be back, I hope, in thirty-six hours. Meantime do observe very carefully, and whatever you do, don’t make a theory. Darwin says somewhere that you can’t observe without a theory, but to make a theory is a great danger to an observer. It can’t help influencing your imagination; you tend to see or hear what falls in with your hypothesis. So just observe; be as mechanical as a phonograph and a photographic lens.”

Presently the dog-cart arrived and I went down to the gate with him. “Whatever it is that is coming through, is coming through in bits,” he said. “You heard a telephone; I saw a rope.

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