“My heart sank with a new fear, that of having to give way before having understood the phenomena. When day broke I decided not to yield without at least informing the Portuguese police of what had happened.”
Christo’s personal opinion was that the whole affair was the work of burglars who were trying to get him to leave the house so they could loot it. This was one of the reasons that decided him to call on the police for aid.
“These were very incredulous at first, but the notice given by both our servants the day after the events created a very favorable and convincing situation. They went away like two hens frightened by a motor car, bawling and cackling in every key, and adding details which were the more circumstantial for their having seen nothing.”
Convinced that something had really taken place at Christo’s home, the authorities placed a policeman and two constables at his disposal. Paredes and another friend, Henrique Sotto Armas, joined the party which was to watch the next night.
The house was searched and inspected by the group from top to bottom. Satisfied that there was no one hiding inside, they laid their trap. It was decided that the policeman should be outside the house, while the two constables and the other members of the party locked themselves inside and waited behind the outside doors and the window whose shutters had so mysteriously opened themselves.
The next is quoted from a letter written by Christo to Mme. Rachilde.
...You have always claimed that these mysterious events only happen to one or two persons, more or less trustworthy, and that as soon as the police began to investigate they reduce themselves to nothing, as these haunted houses are not in the habit of yielding their secrets to the representatives of law and order.
Here I must claim your attention, my dear Rachilde, for with the orderlies behind and in front of the doors all the phenomena happened in exactly the same way as soon as the lights were put out.
When the lights went up the traces of the criminal or criminals were found, but never the shadow of their arms.
When every one was at his station the lights were put out. Knocks were immediately heard on the front door.
“Do you hear that?” Christo asked the constables.
“Perfectly,” they replied.
The knocking began again. Christo suddenly jerked open the door. There was nobody to be seen except the policeman who was calmly walking back and forth a short distance away.
“Who knocked here?” Christo demanded.
“Nobody,” the policeman replied.
“Didn’t you hear the knocking just now?”
“I have heard nothing at all,” the policeman insisted.
Christo sputtered angrily. “This is too much,” he declared. “Go on inside, and you two constables come outside here to watch.”
The same thing happened again. The policeman and the people inside heard the knocking, but the constables heard and saw nothing.
It was decided then that everybody should watch inside the house. One of the constables was sent into the room where Paredes had slept on the first night he visited the place. When the man went to sit down on a bench it was pulled away so suddenly that he fell down.
The other constable, Paredes, and the policeman stationed themselves at other strategic points on the ground floor. Christo’s wife and the servants remained in their rooms on the second floor with the doors locked.
As on the previous night Christo stood on a landing of the stair leading to the ground floor.
They had hardly taken their positions before the strange noises and blows started. The racket was particularly loud in a small room next to one of the bedrooms. When this was investigated only a small trunk was found in it, and the trunk was empty. There was no outside entrance to the room. The men returned to their posts again.
As soon as the lights were out a tremendous noise and the sounds of a terrific struggle were heard from the guest room. Every one rushed in, thinking that the constable had at last caught the offender.
But they were disappointed. When they got there all they saw was the infuriated constable striking with his sword right and left. As they appeared he dashed back into a little boudoir where there was a wardrobe with a mirror, which he broke in his fury.
He had to be restrained by force, and told them that something had struck him several times. Christo writes:
“He came out of that dark place declaring that he would sooner resign as a defender of the peace than start again on that kind of war.”
Christo himself was the next man attacked. After the constable had been quieted he had returned to his post on the stair landing. The lights were put out again.
Suddenly he received a blow on his left cheek so hard that he screamed in agony and surprise. It seemed as if fangs had hooked themselves into the flesh to tear it.
The lights were turned on again. Four finger-prints could be plainly seen on his left cheek, which was red, while his right was an ashen hue. It was now about midnight. Of the succeeding events Christo writes:
“Boxes of linen, yet unpacked because of our recent arrival, were found emptied on the floor by hands which could never be caught in the act. Blows sounded throughout the cursed dwelling in the ears of the protectors who had come to help us. Cries and jeers smote them without giving them any possible idea why they were persecuted.
“There were no cellars in this specially haunted house where wires, good or bad conductors of electricity, could have been concealed; no thickets in the garden where clever disturbers of the peace could have concealed themselves.
“No. It was mystery taking possession of a very modern scene and playing the drama of Fear without accessories or scenery, addressing itself only to the mentality of incredulous man, perhaps in order to show him that whatever the times, the unknown forces always remain formed.
“To tell the truth, I was more angry than frightened. I could not admit discovering any trickery. But it seemed humiliating to turn my back on this cowardly and dishonest enemy who struck in the dark.
“Yet we had to go and leave an uninhabitable spot in the night, because of the infant which cried, and the mother who became more and more nervous.”
Although the mother and the baby were given as the reasons for the flight from the house, yet the men were equally terrified. The entire party went to a hotel to spend the rest of the night, and the stupefied police went home, swearing never again to enter such a place.
Christo sublet the house. But after two days the new tenant moved away, declaring that it was uninhabitable. It had to be left empty.
The above is the record of the experiences passed through by Homen Christo in 1919. In some ways they are even more amazing than those events which took place in the haunted castle of Calvados, and which will be told about at another time.
The facts have been verified by several investigators. And as one reads them one wonders. Are there invisible beings? Is there an invisible world? Do we know all the forces of nature?
For centuries “The White Lady of the Hohenzollerns” has appeared to the members of royalty to warn them of approaching death or misfortune. First heard of about four hundred and fifty years ago, she has since been seen by many people, among them Napoleon and Frederick William IV of Prussia.