When Last I Died

'like Londoners' he stopped to investigate. There was nothing to be seen, but he could hear loud thumpings and bumpings which seemed to come from the back of the house. He knew the house was supposed to be empty, so he went round to the window and peered in. The glass was dusty, however, and he could see nothing. Nevertheless, he did not think there was anybody there. It being none of his business, as he afterwards said, he went on his way.

'Next day, being Saturday, two or three of the school-children came into the garden of the haunted house to play hide-and-seek among the shrubs and trees. They became frightened, however, by loud, heavy noises inside the house, and one child declared that she had seen a ghost at one of the upstairs windows.

'As Samuel Kindred's story was public-house gossip by this time, four or five men armed with sticks, accompanied by Farmer Stokes with a shot-gun, went to the house on Saturday evening, having had a drink at the public-house first, to see what they could find. There was nothing to be seen, but the heavy noises were heard, and a half-brick, which came sailing through the air, struck one of the men on the shoulder and bruised him badly. What they described as 'mad bellows and screeches' of laughter followed, and in the end they broke a downstairs window and entered the house. As soon as they were in the hall, some furniture near them began to move about in an unaccountable manner, and they retreated, telling each other lurid tales of traditional hauntings. Farmer Stokes loosed off his gun, and the result was a perfect cascade of small articles down the stairs. He proposed to mount the stairs, but finding that the others had all deserted him, he gave up the idea and followed them back to the road.

'There the whole group waited for about twenty minutes, but he could not persuade the others to return with him to the house. Next day, after Evensong, my dear father, with Farmer Stokes, Mr. Morant from the Hall, Mr. Carter and old Everett, the shoemaker, went to the haunted house, but found it perfectly quiet. They climbed in, but the furniture was all in place, and everything seemed to be in order.

'The moment they turned their backs on the house, however, and were walking down the weed-grown drive towards the road, the most unearthly pandemonium broke out behind them. They hastened back, but all was quiet again, and nothing found out of its place.'

'Amazing,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'Was it not?' said Miss Biddle, very much pleased by this reception of her account of the hauntings.

'And how long after that was it that the news of the poltergeist became general? In other words, what made Mr. Turney decide to rent the house in order to study the hauntings?' Mrs. Bradley enquired.

'Now it is very interesting and curious that you should ask that,' replied Miss Biddle. 'He must have had hearsay of it, for nothing had appeared in the papers then. All the same, it was not more than three or four days after that Sunday that we heard the house had the To Let board taken down, and that the owner, who was living at Torquay, had told old Joe to go in and cut the grass and tidy up the borders. Then, funnily enough, the To Let board went up again, but only for about ten days.'

'And did Joe experience anything strange whilst he was attending to the garden?'

'Nothing at all, except that he declared he kept hearing voices which seemed to come up from his feet.'

'Is Joe the present caretaker?'

'Oh, no. He's an almost witless old fellow who lives in that yellow cottage by the crossroads.'

'I wonder how much he remembers about it?' said Mrs. Bradley thoughtfully.

'I'm afraid he's not to be depended upon,' said Miss Biddle. 'He's given to inventing his information. Nobody would have believed him about the voices if it could have been proved that he'd heard about the poltergeist. But it really didn't seem as though he had heard, so some people thought there might be something in his queer tale.'

'I agree with them,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'Voices from under his feet ... a house with foundations very much older than the present superstructure ... a house so damp that the water marks the walls ... bellows and screeches of laughter ... poltergeist activity ... very interesting. Very interesting indeed.'

Muriel rented a room. This fact she referred to at once. Mrs. Bradley imagined it was her way of introducing herself. It was a large room on the first floor of the house and at the front, and its only disadvantages, from her point of view, continued Muriel, were, first, that it had a bedroom fireplace (which she intended to have replaced by a 'proper one' as soon as she had enough money, provided that she could get 'the people downstairs' to agree), and, second, that it was not two rooms.

'I tried to get them to throw in the box-room,' she explained, when the visitor was seated, 'but they wouldn't part with it. Of course, they are very untidy, so I dare say they feel they must have somewhere to poke all the rubbish. They didn't want any more rent—not that I could have paid it; I have all my work cut out as it is—they simply wouldn't part with the room. I have all my meals with them, that's one thing. Now, when would your daughter want to begin? I'm afraid I couldn't reduce the fees very much, because my terms are by the term, if you understand what I mean, and not by the week. And would you want her to use your piano or mine? Because I can only take just so many pupils to use my piano, not that I wouldn't take more, but I've had to promise not to have the piano played here for certain hours of the day, and as it's an Agreement, I could hardly be expected to break it.'

Mrs. Bradley, who had been wondering why she had been accepted, so to speak, at her face value, escorted into the house before she had stated her business, and installed in the best armchair, now briefly explained that she had no pupil to offer, but had come about something quite different.

'Oh, dear! How silly of me,' said Muriel. Then, with the nervous purposefulness of the indigent, she continued hastily, 'But if you're selling anything, I really don't need it, thank you.'

She rose, as she said this, with the object of showing Mrs. Bradley out, but the visitor remained seated, and replied :

'I have nothing to sell. My errand is a painful one. If, when you have heard what I have to say, you still wish me to go, I shall go at once.'

Muriel, looking extremely frightened, sat down again.

'Oh, dear,' she said. 'No, I didn't think you'd come to sell anything, although really they employ the most respectable people, I'm sure. In fact, I did a little canvassing myself after— after my husband's death, but I didn't like it at all. Some of the people were very rude and unkind. I suppose they have to be, with people bothering them all day. Still, it wasn't very pleasant.'

'It is about your husband's death that I have come,' said Mrs. Bradley.

'I don't understand. He died—several years ago. There couldn't be—that dreadful woman hasn't left a confession?'

'No, nothing like that. Mrs. Turney, I am investigating matters connected with the trial of Bella Foxley. I wonder whether you would tell me one or two things I very badly want to know?'

'Well—I don't know. You see, I don't want to get into any trouble. After all, the jury did say she didn't do it, although I know she did.'

'There will be no trouble, I assure you. I have already had a long conversation with one of the jurymen who acquitted Bella Foxley. And I am in touch with certain aspects of the case which seem to me significant. Mr. Conyers Eastward——'

'But he defended her!'

'Yes, I know he did. But never mind that now. The point is that he is a person of repute, and I am going to re-open the case, to some extent, with him.'

'Yes, I see. I'm sure you're quite respectable. But, after all, that awful woman is dead, and, even if she weren't, she couldn't be tried again for the same crime, could she? Oh, I could have done anything to her! You should have seen her look at me when the jury brought in their verdict! She knew she'd done it, and she knew how she'd done it! And yet they let her off! And I used to dream night after night that poor Tom was calling me, trying to get me to understand something about that terrible house where it happened. But I always woke up just as I was on the point of understanding what he meant.'

'That is very interesting indeed,' said Mrs. Bradley. 'You dreamt that your husband was trying to explain something to you about that haunted house, and you always woke up just as you were on the point of understanding what he meant.'

'Why do you look at me like that!' cried Muriel. Mrs. Bradley's bright black eyes began to sparkle.

'I beg your pardon,' she said. 'I don't think you understand the importance of those dreams, but that doesn't matter now. Tell me this, Mrs. Turney. Would you want people to be convinced, even all these years afterwards, that Bella Foxley was a murderess—if she was one? Or are you willing to leave things as they are?'

'I don't believe Tom fell out of that window, either the first or the second time, and I don't believe the haunted house had anything to do with his death,' replied the widow. 'But as for Bella Foxley—if I could blacken her name even now that she's dead, I'd do it. It was something she knew, and something Tom knew, too! That's why she killed him. It was the grated carrot, you know. That's what it was. Tom knew. Oh, how I wish we'd never gone! It was the telegram that decided us, although Tom knew better than to expect anything under the will. Poor Aunt Flora! She hadn't very many relations to go and see her! But we weren't well off, you know, and Tom said she might think we thought we'd got expectations, and he wouldn't go anywhere near. We had no expectations of any sort, and didn't want to have any, and he knew what people would think—especially Bella—if they got to hear.

'Well, Bella was there already. She had arrived the day before. She was quite nice, and she and I went up to see Aunt Flora, who looked very, very frail and very