1940-12-19 — Page 118

22

THE CHINA MAIL SPECIAL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, DECEMBER 19, 1940.

The Haunted House

In B--- Square

ed him.

it was

A tradesman's cart was in free of Number 12 when he came up

the area steps.

year

was

the

, I

and her red

electric

lac-

From Page 12

to

sult that the pavements and road- pen gripped him to such an ex-

More than ever wondering and Ways - Were very slippery. BUI tent that he would have got, out got to B-Square just about the of the house as fast as he could, perplexed he went away, not dar- time be had arrived there the had he been able, but a Power he ing to remain because of the. ex-conthey: preceding year, and at the same could not resist compelled him to Police, being an window of Number 13 was the stay and go through everything, might suspect he was up to some- he thing if they saw him hanging the again. Then, just as before,

of around. when he fell and be lying some he would never have fallen down, same blonde indy dangling

Though knocked his head, and imagined diamond necklace in her glisten- was examining the contents

He had, however, to go to the. where under the snow.

He the dressing table drawers when It was very old and dirty, he had himself inside it, if it was only in carmine. Upped fingers. an affection for it. He would imagination. Those diamonds, rubbed his eyes to make sure he. he heard the top of dainty high trial of the accused lady before light, and his mouth watered again at was not dreaming, but when he heels on the polished floor, of the the Magistrates. He knew it was. come again, when

landing, and he had hardly hid a risky and foolhardy thing to do, the thought of them how they looked drain she was still there. and look for it.

Everything then happened just den behind the curtains, when the but he could not resist the Power

The blonde lady entered the All the way home he pondered had glittered and sparkled, -kun

room, outside himself; that strange, un- had been over his strange experience. He

Then came a vision of that as it had happened before.

the looking so he thought, lovelier canny influence that the

This time, however, haunting and compelling him ever could not get that scene in gloating woman with the knife, same burning désire to get bedroom, the awful looking war and cruel, wicked smile, He could diamonds came over him, and he than ever. man with the sharp, murderous see her as plainly in his mind now left the Square resolved to visit. as she stood by the bedside gaz since that first experience in the came aware of a ghostly unreality the woman in the dock, he re- knife, out of his head. She haunt as he had seen her in the night, it ago when the coast was quite ing down at the sleeper, Bill be Square. Directly he set eyes on

.the. man. cognised her as

beautiful and about the could see even the shining black clear.

Ha returned shortly before mid- about her Midday

saw him back in B- buttons on her dress and the gop

hail The case against her was briefly Square, standing in front of Nam in her learing mouth where one night hust as he had done that They seemed no longer to belong blonde with the necklace. ber 13. There was a notice board of her yellow teeth was missing, Christmas Eve twelve months ago, to a world he knew, but to

to The house was reputed to be he tiptoed down the area steps, from the same strange unearthly this.

Her married life was known to with TO LET on it attached the area railings, and bare floors haunted; had he, in some utterly trod on a slippery spot, fell and world as the frighteningly bizarre

be unhappy. She had lovers and He breathed easier when she had been heard to quarrel with and walls met his astonished gage inexplicable manner, got into it bumped his head against some shadows on the floor and walls.

left the bedside and finally slip- her husband over them and when he peered in at the win- and encountered the ghosts? Or thing hard: Conscious that all he queer delirium. p did was merely a repetition, in de-

Her declaration dows. The weather had changed. was it some

money matters. of concussion nightmure, tail, of all he had previously done, ped into her night attire. As she

stood warming by the

that a burglar had got into the It was much warmer, consequent- kind

he, entered the house by the little

fire, the dainty pearl buttons on house, murdered her husband and ly the snow had nearly gone, and caused by his fall?

window, and passing

her pyjamas he had no difficulty in finding his

months saw larder The next twe've

stolen her diamond necklace while adult quered finger and toe nails shone she was sleeping, was unsupport- cap. It was in the area.

him at his old vocation whenever through the kitchen, where

and flashed like jewels.

ed by any evidence. The necklace he got the opportunity, but never nearly spent fire glowed

Then, after she was at last in certainly could not be found, but with quite his former zeal. What rod in the large range, he ascend-

bed, came the long, harrowing the Police had not been able he had gone through that Christ- ed the basement staircase into the iri. breathless Lear

wait till she slept, the emerging discover any indication of anyone mas Eve had made a deep im- hall, halted

from the curtains to snatch the breaking into the house, and were He had hitherto when he heard the policeman, and pression on him.

necklace, the horribly cautious

of the opinion that the crime had coffed at the idea of ghosts, and a then went on up the other stair

trying of the door handle and been perpetrated by a member of the bedroom Hereafter, but he no longer scoffed case on to the first door landing,

that ugly sinister face in the aper- the household. And who could it now. He had a feeling that that and hence into

the blonde.

ture. the lurid

from the Flow

have been but the accused? She experience of his was nothing ac-

heater throwing into startling but

ordained by

alone had the opportunity and the cidental

the Scenes,

prominence its every evil feature motive, and it was absurd to be- some Powar behind

In she crept with feline stealth. lieve she had been sleeping too ordained for a special purpose. It

her glittering eyes full of cruelty soundly to hear her husband kill- made him think.

became a ed. And once more Bill helpless spectator of the fiendish

If Bill got a shock on seeing the Then came the culmin- murder. ating horror, when a strange noise accused, he got a much bigger one witness close to Bill attracting. the atten- on seeing the principal

She was the tion of the murderess, she made a for the Prosecution.

at the curtains housekeeper at Number 13, B----- cat-like spring and pulling them aside, saw him. Square, and there was no mistak- The glee with which she beheld Ing that long narrow face, hawk- his terror and suspense was even like nose and those dark, sinister more hellish than before, her grin eyes. She was the woman with when brandishing the dagger the knife, the real murderess.

All shaped knife in mid-air more dia- Bill had a hard struggle. bolical, and the pain of the stab, the while she testifled against ber If possible, even more agonising, mistress he knew she was lying, If he nar- and as, on the previous Christmas but what could he do? Eve, he recovered from uncon- rated his experiences, who would sciousness to find himself tying in believe him? No one. They would the area, on the very spot where say he was crazy. The only thing he had fallen and bumped his he could to would be to declaro head.

he was actually in the house on When he opened' bis eyes

he the night of the murder, and that: was quite alone, and the stars would mean a stiff sentence for were shining down on him from burglary. They might even accuse of the murder. Bill had a bright, cloudless sky. Rising him with some difficulty, for he had never been over-burdened with lain there a considerable time, he conscience. At times he persuad clambered up the area steps, saw ed himself he had none, but what, what, curiously enough, he had he had of conscience now foined not noticed before on his arrival, partnership with a sense of chi- namely, a board with "To Let Un valry and something else, a strange furnished" on it, and wandered uncanny something quite outsidė.

himself and beyond his ken. He thoughtfully home.

could not get away from it, it a influenced him all the time and at last proved so all-powerful that he found himself scribbling a note to the Solicitor for the Defence

"I know something about this

"Who lives in Number 13?" the man driv mg it said, in answer to his query

Why. no one. It's been unoccupied for more than a No one ever stays in it for Tong. Round here they call it The Unlucky House', and says Not that I believe it's aunter' in such things as ghosts myself. I think it's all imagination, but

Christmas there's no doubt there is some- Once again it Wits thing queer about the house.

Eve, and as the day wore on his don't think I should care to live in desire to revisit B-Square grew

stronger and stronger.

This time In the end he went. moved

Rain in the there was no gnow. morning was succeeded by a sc- vere frost at night, with the re-

I

Bill thanked him and away. Yes, there was something queer about Number 13. some thing devilishly queer, otherwise

The allence in, the house seem- ed even deeper and more umu- last time he was tural than the there, and the shadows on the wall and ceiling more alarming- In the semi-gloom ly fantastic. the face of the sleeping man look ed startlingly white and weird. Bill was horribly afraid; afraid of the sleeper, the shadows, the si- lence, everything. The dread of what he knew was about to hap-

Never before AT SUCH

8 Q 2

A PRICE!

RCA VICTOR

New Yorker

RADIO

The RCA Victor "New Yorker” Model 8Q2 is a brilliant receiver whose splendid performance on long and short

waves

Another year passed, and once again it was Christmas Eve, mild, muggy Christmas Eve, with an occasional drizzle and a gentle South West wind,

All day the impulse to go again

to the Square obsessed Bill. He re case," he wrote, "for Gawd's fought hard against it but in the sake, guvernor, let me speak.”

And speak he did. He swore end he had to go; and on reach- ing Number 13, he saw, standing he had entered the house on the in front of the mirror in the room night of the murder, and esconced on the first floor, the same blonde behind the window curtains: had. lady, doing precisely the same Been the woman with the dark, thing. And, as on those two pre- sinister eyes cut the deceased's vious occasions, the sight of that throat. He explained it alt in de-

diamond neckface tail, and all the while the mur

dereas, sat staring at him with tempted him sorely.

ever increasing terror and amaze-. This time, however, he manag ed, after a desperate struggle with ment. More than once she open- himself, to tear himself away from ed her mouth to speak and deny the spot and go straight home, what he said, but words would not Back in his little parlour he came, and before Bill had finish chuckled to think he had not been ed, she fainted. Later, she con- fool enough this time to go down fessed.

sparkling breath-taking perfection of tone quality and unparalleled beauty of appearance... will en- dear it to every lover of fine radio entertainment.

Two additional tubes give this superb new three-band "New Yorker" table model increased sensitivity and great- er selectivity, enabling it to bring programs from the world over into your living-room with astonishing ease and amaz- ing tone quality.

Its beautiful trașic-proof cabinet, smartly designed in the. modern mode, is made of selected woods carefully match- high finish. ed, lacquered, and hand-rubbed to a lustrous Its tasteful, simple lines add a note of charm and refine- ment to the furnishings of every living-room.

Special X'mas Offer

$25000

RET ASK FOR A FREE DEMONSTRATION !!

into the area of that empty house. The motive for the murder was Had he done so he might again the diamond necklace. She be have fallen and undergone another longed to a gang of Continental harrowing experience. Whether thieves. Her mistress being on ghosts or things of a delirium, and well known bad terms with the he still could not decide which, he murdered man, it seemed an easy- had outwitted them.

thing to frame her for the murder,

In the morning he went to the She had not, of course, calculat- Free Library across the way and ed on any interference by a Pow- almost the first thing he saw in er of Powers outside the World. large headlines, in a Eunch Ed. It was just too bad for her that tion paper, was

the Superphysical, for some pecu- liar reason-maybe an interest in the Blonde Lady, or in Bill, or in A man of seventy had been both-had thought.At to inter found horribly murdered in bed vene. --

"SHOCKING MURDER IN

B SQUARE".

and his young and beautiful wife. Since Bill's evidence was. "of had been arrested on suspicion. such vital importance, the Magis- The number of the house where trates, who, believed his confes- the crime, had been committed sion, had not the heart to punish. was 13. Bill could hardly belleve him, und so he walked out of the he read aright. Thirteen: why, Court a. free and conscience-ap- that was the housel, Yet it could peased man.

not be, because the house of his Some days afterwards he re- experiences was empty and un- ceived a letter. It was from the furnished.

Full of excitement and curiosity blonde lady and contained a he tore off to B Square, in cheque for a gum that fairly tool And several policemen and a small his breath away.

crowd of people standing in front Realising he owed his good for- of 13. It was the house-the tune to his strange experiences on house of his weld experiences-- those two successive Christras but now there was no "To Let Evas, Bill never again scoffed-at Board on the railings,

It

was, ghosts, but fully agreed with the furnished and tenanted. Suppos sentiments of the Immortal: plays ng he had gone there the preced wright that "there are more things. ing night; what might have hap in Heaven and on Earth than are,

dreamed of in your philosophy pened?