The Man Who Sees Ghosts (3 page)

It was after eleven and a profound silence reigned
throughout the house. As we were leaving the Russian asked me whether we had loaded pistols on us. “What for?” I asked. “For any eventuality,” he replied. “Wait a moment, I will see to it.” And he went away. Baron von F** and I opened a window from which the building opposite could be seen and we thought we could hear two people whispering together and a noise as of a ladder being erected. But this was only conjecture and I am reluctant to swear to its truth. The Russian came back with a pair of pistols after a half an hour’s absence. We saw him load them. It was nearly two o’clock when the magician reappeared and announced that it was time. Before we went in we were ordered to remove our shoes and present ourselves wearing nothing but shirts, stockings and undergarments. As on the first occasion all the doors were locked behind us.

When we entered the room once again we found on the floor and drawn in charcoal a large circle, which was easily able to hold all ten of us. Round about. along all four walls of the room, the floorboards had been pulled up so that we seemed to be standing on an island. A altar draped in a black cloth had been set up in the middle of the circle and under this was spread a carpet of red satin. A Chaldean bible lay open on the altar next to a skull, and a silver crucifix was fastened to the same. Instead of candles, spirit was burning in a silver vessel. The thick smoke of frankincense darkened the room, well nigh extinguishing the light. The conjurer was half-dressed like us but barefoot; about his bare neck he wore an amulet on a chain of human hair; about his waist he had bound a white apron which was marked with cryptic signs and
symbolic figures. He bade us join hands and observe a deep silence; he particularly enjoined us not to question the apparition. He asked the Englishman and myself (he seemed to mistrust us two the most) to keep two naked, crossed daggers held steadily one inch above the crown of his head for as long as the ceremony should last. We stood round him in a half circle, while the Russian thrust close to the Englishman, positioning himself close to the altar. With his face turned to the east, the magician now stepped onto the carpet, sprinkled holy water towards the four quarters and bowed three times towards the bible. The incantation, of which we understood nothing, lasted the space of half a quarter of an hour; when this was over he gave those standing immediately behind him a sign that they should hold him fast by his hair. Then, while shaken by the most violent convulsions, he called on the dead man by name three times; the third time he stretched out his hand toward the crucifix…

All at once we felt as if we had all been struck by lightning at the same time, so that our hands flew apart; a sudden clap of thunder shook the house, all the locks rattled, all the doors slammed shut, the lid of the silver vessel snapped to, the light went out, and on the opposite wall above the fireplace appeared a human figure in a bloody shirt, pale and with the face of a man at the point of death.

“Who calls me?” said a hollow, scarcely audible voice.

“Your friend,” answered the conjurer, “who honours your memory and prays for your soul,” giving at the same time the Prince’s name.

The answers followed always after very long intervals.

“What does he want?” the voice continued.

“To hear the end of your confession, which you began in this world and did not conclude.”

“In a cloister on the Dutch border there lives …”

At this the house began to shake anew. The door flew open of itself with a mighty clap of thunder, a flash of lightning lit up the room and another solid figure, bloody and pale like the first but more terrible, appeared at the threshold. The spirit in the vessel began to burn spontaneously and the room grew bright as before.

“Who is this among us?” cried the magician aghast, throwing a look of horror about the assembly—“You were not the one I wanted.”

The figure strode slowly and majestically up to the altar, stepped onto the carpet opposite us and grasped the crucifix. The first figure we could see no longer.

“Who calls me?” said this second apparition.

The magician began to tremble violently. Horror and dismay rooted us to the spot. I reached for a pistol—the magician tore it out of my hand and fired it at the figure. The ball rolled slowly over the altar, and the figure walked unchanged from out of the smoke. At this the magician collapsed in a faint.

“What is this?” exclaimed the Englishman in astonishment and went to strike a blow with his dagger at the figure. The apparition touched his arm and the blade fell to the floor. A cold sweat now broke out on my forehead. Baron F** confessed to us later that he began to pray. Throughout this the Prince stood fearless and calm with his eyes fixed on the apparition.

“Yes! I recognise you,” he cried finally in a voice full
of emotion. “You are Lanoy, you are my friend—where have you come from?”

“Eternity is dumb. Ask me about the life that is past.”

“Who lives in the cloister you spoke of?”

“My daughter.”

“What? You were a father?”

“Alas for me, I was a poor one!”

“Are you not happy, Lanoy?”

“God has passed judgement.”

“Is there some service still in this world that I can do for you?”

“None, except to think on yourself.”

“How must I do that?”

“You will find that out in Rome.”

There then followed a fresh clap of thunder—a black cloud of smoke filled the room; when it had dispersed, the figure was no more to be seen. I flung open a window. It was morning.

The magician now came out of his stupor. “Where are we?” he cried, when he saw the daylight. The Russian officer was standing close behind him and looking at him as he leant forward over his shoulder. “Juggler,” he said, giving him a terrible look, “never more will you summon spirits.”

The Sicilian turned round, gave him a closer look, let out a loud cry and fell to his knees.

Now we all turned suddenly to look at the supposed Russian. With no difficulty the Prince recognised again in him the features of his Armenian and the words he was about to stammer out died on his lips. Terror and dismay had turned us all to stone. In silence and without
moving a muscle we stared at this mysterious being, who took us all in with a look of quiet power and authority. This silence lasted one minute—and then one more. Not the breath of a sound was heard from the whole assembly.

A violent banging on the door finally brought us back to our senses. The door broke, shattering into splinters, and officers of the court along with guards surged in. “Here they all are, caught together!” their leader shouted, turning to those with him. “In the name of the State,” he loudly announced to us, “you are under arrest!” With not enough time even to think, we were swiftly surrounded. The Russian officer, whom I shall now rename the Armenian, took the constable to one side and, as much as the confusion would permit, I saw him saying a few words privately in his ear and showing him some written document. In an instant the constable bowed to him silently and respectfully, turning then from him to us and removing his hat. “Forgive me, gentlemen,” he said, “for confounding you with this swindler. I will not ask who you are—but this gentleman assures me that I have before me men of honour.” At the same time he signalled his companions to release us. He ordered the Sicilian to be well guarded and bound. “That fellow there is more than ripe for plucking,” he added. “We have been waiting to pounce on him for seven months now.”

The wretched creature in question was indeed a pitiful object. The double shock of the second apparition and now this unforeseen surprise raid had overwhelmed his capacity to think. Like a child he allowed himself to be bound; his eyes were wide open in a fixed stare, his face like that of a corpse, while his lips, quivering in
silent convulsions, emitted no sound. We thought a fit of convulsions to be imminent. The Prince was moved to pity for him in this state he was in and set about to effect his release through the constable, to whom he disclosed his identity.

“My lord,” said the latter, “are you sure you know who this man is for whom you are interceding so generously? The deception he intended to practise on you is the least of his crimes. We have his accomplices. They report abominable things of him. He can count himself fortunate if he escapes with the galleys.”

Meanwhile we saw the landlord, also bound and together with other house-guests, being led across the courtyard. “This man, too?” exclaimed the Prince. “What has he done wrong?” He was his accomplice and receiver,” answered the constable, “the one who assisted him in his conjuring tricks and thieving and shared in his spoils. You will shortly be fully persuaded, my lord,” and he turned to his companions. “Search the whole house and bring me news immediately of anything that you find.”

The Prince now looked around for the Armenian—but he was no longer present; he had used the general confusion that the raid had occasioned to leave unnoticed. The Prince was inconsolable; he immediately wanted send out all his people after him; he wanted to look for him himself and drag me off with him. I hurried to the window; the whole house was surrounded by inquisitive people who had been drawn by the rumour of this incident. It was impossible to get through the crowd. I pointed out to him as follows: “If the Armenian is serious about not being found by us, then he will certainly know
all secret hide-outs better than we, and all our efforts to trace him will be in vain. Let us rather stay here awhile, my lord. Perhaps this officer of the court will be able to tell us more about him—tell us what the Armenian, if I correctly observed, revealed to him about himself.”

We now remembered that we were still half-dressed. We hurried to our room to put our clothes on as quickly as we could. On our return we found the house had been searched.

After the altar had been removed and the floorboards of the room taken up, they discovered a spacious vault in which a man could comfortably sit upright, furnished with a door that led down some narrow steps into the cellar. In this vault they found an electric machine, a clock and a little silver bell, the last of which, along with the electric machine, was connected to the altar and the attached crucifix. A hole had been made in a window-shutter directly opposite the fireplace and through this a sleeve had been inserted so that a magic lantern could be fitted in the aperture, from which the desired figure had been cast onto the wall above the fireplace. A variety of drums were fetched from the attic and cellar, from which hung large, tied, lead weights, these being probably used to produce the sound of thunder that we had heard. When the Sicilian’s clothes were searched, a small case was found containing various powders, as well as quicksilver in phials and canisters, phosphorus in a glass bottle, a ring which we immediately saw was magnetic because it was sticking to a steel button to which it had come into chance contact, and in the coat pockets a rosary, a Jew’s beard, pocket pistols and a dagger.

“Let’s see whether they are loaded!” said one of the
officers, taking one of the pistols and firing it up the chimney.

“Jesu Maria!” cried a hollow human voice, the same we had heard at the first apparition—and simultaneously we saw a bleeding shape come crashing down the chimney.

“Not yet at rest, perturbèd spirit?” exclaimed the Englishman, as the rest of us leapt back in fright. “Go back home to your grave. You appeared to be what you were not; now you will be what you appeared to be.”

“Jesu Maria! I am wounded,” repeated the man in the fireplace. The ball had shattered his right leg. Steps were taken immediately to bind the wound.

“Who are you, then, and what was the devil that brought you here?”

“A poor friar,” the wounded man replied. “A stranger here offered me offered me a zechin to—”

“To repeat some set words? And why didn’t you run off immediately afterwards?”

“He was to have given me a signal when I should leave but the signal never came and when I went to climb out I found the ladder removed.”

“And what were these words which he taught you?”

At this point the man fell into a faint, so that nothing more could be extracted from him. When we looked at him more closely we recognised him to be the same man who had stood in the path of the Prince the day before and addressed him so solemnly.

Meanwhile the Prince had turned to the constable.

“You have rescued us,” he said, pressing some gold coins into his hand at the same time, “from the grasp of an impostor and, without knowing us, given us justice.
Will you now complete our indebtedness by revealing to us the identity of that mysterious stranger who needed to say only a few words to restore our liberty?”

“Whom do you mean?” asked the constable with an air that clearly showed how unnecessary this question was.

“I mean the gentleman in Russian uniform who took you to one side earlier, who showed you some written document and spoke some words in your ear, at which you immediately released us.”

“So you do not know this gentleman?” the constable asked again. “He was not one of your company?”

“No,” said the Prince,—“and for very important reaons I would like to become better acquainted with him.”

“I am no better acquainted with him myself,” replied the constable. “I do not even know his name and today was the first time in my life that I saw him.”

“What? And was he able in so short a time and with a couple of words so to sway you that you cleared both him and all of us of any wrong-doing?”

“One word alone in fact.”

“And that was?—I confess I would like to know what it was.”

“This nameless man, my lord,” he said, weighing the zechins in his hand, “—you have been too generous to me that I should keep it secret from you any longer—this nameless man was—an officer of the State Inquisition.”

“He—The State Inquisition!”

“None other, my lord—and the paper he showed me convinced me of this.”

“This man, you say? It is not possible.”

“I will tell you something more, my lord. This was this
very same man on whose information I came here to arrest the spirit conjuror.”