Wicked Spirits, page 1
WICKED SPIRITS
Mysteries, Spine Chillers and Lost Tales of the Supernatural
Selected and introduced by
Tony Medawar
Copyright
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by Collins Crime Club 2024
Selection, introduction and notes © Tony Medawar 2024
For copyright acknowledgments, see here.
Cover design by Holly Macdonald/HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Cover illustrations: Shutterstock.com
These stories were mostly written in the first half of the twentieth century and characters sometimes use offensive language or otherwise are described or behave in ways that reflect the prejudices and insensitivities of the period.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
These stories ate entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008564254
eBook Edition © September 2024 ISBN: 9780008564261
Version: 2024-08-21
Dedication
FOR NICOLA
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
THE LONELY HAMPSHIRE COTTAGE
Arthur Conan Doyle
THE VICAR’S CONVERSION
A. E. W. Mason
THE GHOST OF TRAVERS COURT
E. R. Punshon
DEAKIN AND THE GHOST
Ernest Bramah
A GOOD PLACE
H. C. Bailey
EXACTLY AS IT HAPPENED
E. C. Bentley
YE GOODE OLDE GHOSTE STORIE
Anthony Boucher
THE ATONEMENT
S. S. Van Dine
DISPOSSESSION
C. H. B. Kitchin
BLIND GUESS
Valentine Williams
MODERN ANTIQUE
Milward Kennedy
AN EXPERIMENT OF THE DEAD
Helen Simpson
WE ARE SORRY, TOO
Patricia Highsmith
VEX NOT HIS GHOST
John Dickson Carr
WRITER’S WITCH
Joan Fleming
THE SECURITY OFFICER
Val Gielgud
THE FRAUDULENT SPIRIT
Joseph Commings
THE LINE WENT DEAD
Leo Bruce
THE HOUSE OF THE LIONS
Desmond Bagley
THE HAUNTING MELODY
Christopher Priest
THE LAST WOLF
Reginald Hill
Acknowledgements
Also available
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
‘Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish, I wish, he’d go away …’
Hughes Mearns
Do you believe in ghosts?
No more do I. And yet … we all know someone who claims to have seen, or heard, something they could not explain. The sound of banging coming from within an empty wardrobe. Or a little girl in a cream dress running in the corridor of a building where no child should be. Or, seated in the corner of the back room of a London pub, an elderly man nursing a pint and smoking a long pipe. A man who suddenly disappears …
So, while I believe there’s no such thing as ghosts, I also believe I might be wrong.
In this volume of previously uncollected and unpublished tales, you will encounter a variety of spirits and other supernatural beings. Presented here in chronological order, some of the stories may make you smile and at least one will make you shiver. But in a few you will not find anything supernatural at all. After all, it would rather give away the game if you could always be certain of the outcome.
As in life, expect the unexpected …
Tony Medawar
April 2024
THE LONELY HAMPSHIRE COTTAGE
Arthur Conan Doyle
John Ranter, ex-landlord of the ‘Battle of Dettingen’ public-house in Southampton, was not a man whom one would desire as a friend, and still less would one relish him as a foe. Tall and strong in his person, dark and saturnine in his disposition, the two-and-fifty years which had passed over John’s head had done little to soften his character or to modify his passions. Perhaps the ill-fortune which had attended him through life had something to do with his asperity, yet this same ill-fortune had been usually caused by his own violent and headstrong temper. He had quarrelled with his parents when a lad, and left them. After working his way up in the world, to some extent, he had fallen in love with a pretty face, and mated himself to a timid, characterless woman, who was a drag rather than a help to him. The fruit of this union had been a single son; but John Ranter beat the lad savagely for some trivial offence, and he had fled away to sea as a cabin-boy, and was reported to have been drowned in the great wreck of the Queen of the West. From that time the publican went rapidly downhill. He offended his customers by his morose and sullen temper, and they ceased to frequent the ‘Battle of Dettingen’, until, at last, he was compelled to dispose of the business. With the scanty proceeds he purchased a small house upon the Portsmouth and Southampton road, about three miles from the latter town, and settled down with his wife to a gloomy and misanthropic existence.
Strange tales were told of that lonely cottage, with its bare brick walls and great, overhanging thatch, from under which the diamond-paned windows seemed to scowl at the passers-by. Waggoners at roadside inns talked of the dark-faced, grizzly-haired man, who lounged all day in the little garden which adjoined the road, and of the pale, patient face, which peered out at them sometimes through the half-opened door. There were darker things, too, of which they had to speak, of angry voices, of the dull thud of blows, and the cries of a woman in distress. However tired the horses might be, they were whipped up into a trot, when, after nightfall, they came near the wooden gate which led up to that ill-omened dwelling.
It was one lovely autumn evening that John Ranter leaned his elbows upon that identical gate, and puffed meditatively at his black clay pipe. He was pondering within himself as to what his future should be. Should he continue to exist in the way in which he was doing, or should he embark what little capital he had in some attempt to better his fortunes? His present life, if unambitious, was at least secure. It was possible that he might lose all in a new venture. Yet, on the other hand, John felt that he still had all the energy of youth, and was as able as ever to turn his hand to anything. If his son, he reflected, who had left him fifteen years before had been alive, he might have been of assistance to him now. A vague longing for the comforts which he had enjoyed in more fortunate days filled and unsettled his mind. He was still brooding over the matter when, looking up, he saw, against the setting sun, a man dressed in a long grey overcoat, who was striding down the road from the direction of Southampton.
It was no uncommon thing for pedestrians of every type to pass the door of John Ranter, and yet this particular one attracted his attention to an unusual degree. He was a tall, athletic young fellow, with a yellow moustache, and a face which was tanned by exposure to the sun and weather. His hat was a peculiar slouched one, of soft felt, and it may have been this, or it may have been the grey coat, which caused the ex-publican to look closely at him. Over his shoulder the stranger had a broad leather strap, and to this was attached a large black bag, something like those which are worn by bookmakers upon a racecourse. Indeed, John Ranter’s first impression was that the traveller belonged to the betting fraternity.
When the young fellow came near the gate, he slowed down his pace, and looked irresolutely about him. Then he halted, and addressed John, speaking in a peculiar metallic voice.
‘I say, mate,’ he said; ‘I guess I’d have to walk all night if I wanted to make Portsmouth in the morning?’
‘I guess you would,’ the other answered, surlily, mimicking the stranger’s tone and pronunciation. ‘You’ve hardly got started yet.’
‘Well now, that beats everything,’ the traveller said, impatiently. ‘I’d ha’ put up at an inn in Southampton if I dared. To think o’ my spending my first night in the old country like that!’
‘And why dar’n’t you put up at an inn?’ John Ranter asked.
The stranger winked one of his shrewd eyes at John.
‘There ain’t such a very long way between an innkeeper and a thief,’ he said; ‘anyway, there’s not in Californey, and I guess human natur’ is human natur’ all the world over. When I’ve got what’s worth keepin’ I give the inns a wide berth.’
‘Oh, you’ve got what’s worth keeping, have you?’ said the old misanthrope to himself, and he relaxed the grimness of his features as far as he could, and glanced out of the corner of his eyes at the black leather bag.
‘Ye see, it’s this way,’ the young man said, confidentially; ‘I’ve been out at the diggings, first in Nevada and then in Californey, and I’ve struck it, and struck it pretty rich too, you bet. When I allowed that I’d made my pile, I pushed for home in the Marie Rose from ‘Frisco to Southampton. She got in at three today, but those sharks at the customs kept us till five ‘fore we could get ashore. When I landed I let out for Portsmouth, where I used to know some folk; but you see I didn’t quite reckon up how far it was before I started. Besides, this bag ain’t quite the thing a man would lug about with him if he was walkin’ for a wager.’
‘Are your friends expecting you in Portsmouth?’ John Ranter asked.
The young man laid down his bag, and laughed so heartily that he had to lean against the gate for support.
‘That’s where the joke comes in,’ he cried; ‘they don’t know that I’ve left the States.’
‘Oh, that’s the joke, is it?’
‘Yes; that’s the joke. You see, they are all sitting at breakfast, maybe, or at dinner, as the case might be, and I pushes my way in, and I up with this here bag and opens it, and then ker-whop down comes the whole lot on the table;’ and the young man laughed heartily once more over the idea.
‘The whole lot of what?’ asked John.
‘Why, of shiners, of course—dollars, you understand.’
‘And d’ye mean to say you carry your whole fortune about with you in gold?’ Ranter asked in amazement.
‘My whole fortune! No, boss, I reckon not. The bulk of it is in notes and shares, and they’re all packed away right enough. This is just eight hundred dollars that I put to one side for this same little game that I spoke of. But I suppose it’s no use trying to get there tonight, and I’ll have to trust to an inn after all.’
‘Don’t you do that,’ the elder man said, earnestly. ‘They are a rough lot in the inns about here, and there’s many a poor sailor found his pockets as empty in the morning as they were the day he sailed out of port. You find some honest man and ask him for a night’s lodging; that’s the best thing you can do.’
‘Well, pard, I guess I’ve lost my bearings in this neighbourhood,’ the gold-digger said. ‘If you can put me on the track of any such berth as you speak of, I’d be beholden to you.’
‘Why, for that matter,’ John Ranter said, ‘we have a spare bed of our own, and should be very glad if you would pass the night in it. We are simple folk, my wife and I; but as far as a fire and a warm supper go, you’re very welcome to both the one and the other.’
‘Well, you can’t say fairer than that,’ the traveller responded, and he walked up the little gravel walk with his companion, while the shadow of night spread slowly over the landscape, and the owl hooted mournfully in the neighbouring wood.
Mrs Ranter, who had been a comely lass thirty years before, was now a white-haired, melancholy woman, with a wan face and a timid manner. She welcomed the stranger in a nervous, constrained fashion, and proceeded to cook some rashers of bacon, which she cut from a great side that hung from the rafters of the rude kitchen. The young man deposited his bag under a chair, and then, sitting down above it, he drew out his pipe and lit it. Ranter filled his again at the same time, eyeing his companion furtively all the while from under his heavy eyebrows.
‘You’d best take your coat off,’ he said, in an off-hand way.
‘No; I’ll keep it on, if you don’t mind,’ the other returned. ‘I never take this coat off.’
‘Please yourself,’ said John, puffing at his pipe; ‘I thought maybe you’d find it hot with this fire burning; but then, Californey is a hot place, I’m told, and maybe you find England chilly?’
The other did not answer, and the two men sat silently watching the rashers, which grizzled and sputtered upon the pan.
‘What sort o’ ship did you come in?’ the host asked, at last.
‘The Marie Rose,’ said the other. ‘She’s a three-masted schooner, and came over with hides and other goods. She’s not much to look at, but she’s no slouch of a sea boat. We’d a gale off Cape Horn that would have tried any ship that ever sailed. Three days under a single double-reefed topsail, and that was rather more than she could carry. Am I in your way, missus?’
‘No, no,’ said Mrs Ranter, hurriedly. The stranger had been looking at her very hard while he spoke.
‘I guess the skipper and the mates will wonder what has become of me,’ he continued. ‘I was in such a hurry that I came off without a word to one of them. However, my traps are on board, so they’ll know I’ve not deserted them for good.’
‘Did you speak to anyone after you left the ship?’ Ranter asked, carelessly.
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you take a trap if you wanted to get to Portsmouth?’
‘Mate, you’ve never come ashore from a long sea voyage, else you’d not ask me that question. Why, man, it’s the greatest pleasure you can have to stretch your legs, and keep on stretching them. I’d have padded on right enough if the light had held.’
‘You’ll be a deal better in a comfortable bed,’ said Ranter; ‘and now the supper’s ready, so let us fall to. Here’s beer in the jug, and there’s whisky in that bottle, so it’s your own fault if you don’t help yourself.’
The three gathered round the table and made an excellent meal. Under the influence of their young guest’s genial face and cheery conversation, the mistress of the house lost her haggard appearance, and even made one or two timid attempts to join in the talk. The country postman, coming home from his final round, stopped in astonishment when he saw the blazing light in the cottage window, and heard the merry sound of laughter which pealed out on the still night air.
If any close observer had been watching the little party as they sat round the table, he might have remarked that John Ranter showed a very lively curiosity in regard to the long grey coat in which his visitor was clad. Not only did he eye that garment narrowly from time to time, but he twice found pretexts to pass close to the other’s chair, and each time he did so he drew his hand, as though accidentally, along the side of the overcoat. Neither the young man nor the hostess appeared, however, to take the slightest notice of this strange conduct upon the part of the ex-publican.
After supper the two men drew their chairs up to the fire once more, while the old woman removed the dishes. The traveller’s conversation turned principally upon the wonders of California and of the great republic in which he had spent the best part of his life. He spoke of the fortunes which were made at the mines, too, and of the golden store which may be picked up by whoever is lucky enough to find it, until Ranter’s eyes sparkled again as he listened.
‘How much might it take to get out there?’ he said.
‘Oh! a hundred pounds or so would start you comfortably,’ answered the man with the grey coat.
‘That doesn’t seem much.’
‘Why anyone should stay in England while there is money to be picked up there is more than I can understand,’ the miner remarked. ‘And now, mate, you’ll excuse me, but I’m a man that likes to go to roost early and be up at cock-crow. If the missus here would show me my room I’d be obliged.’
‘Won’t you have another whisky? No? Ah! well, good-night. Lizzie, you will show Mr—Mr—’
‘Mr Goodall,’ said the other.
‘You will show Mr Goodall up to his room. I hope you’ll sleep well.’
‘I always sleep sound,’ said the man with the grey coat; and, with a nod, he tramped heavily, bag in hand, up the wooden staircase, while the old woman toiled along with the light in front of him.
When he had gone, John Ranter put both his hands into his trousers pockets, stretched out his legs, and stared gloomily into the fire, with a wrinkled brow and projecting lips. A great many thoughts were passing through his mind—so many that he did not hear his wife re-enter the kitchen, nor did he answer her when she spoke to him. It was half-past ten when the visitor retired, and at twelve John Ranter was still bending over the smouldering heap of ashes with the same look of thought upon his face. It was only when his wife asked him whether he was not going to bed that he appeared to come to himself.
