The moment I reached the bend in the corridor I saw a light outside the door of my room. I stepped two paces closer, and then, forgetting all sense of geography in my fright, began shouting in three languages at once. In front of the door, with a flaming torch in his hand, stood a gigantic medieval figure.
Just to be clear on this: not for a moment did I think it could be any sort of ghostly apparition. While it is a fact that English castles are swarming with ghosts, they are visible only to natives — certainly not to anyone from Budapest.
In fact the astonishing thing was, that it wasn’t a ghost. If the spirit of some elderly Englishman appears in a castle by night, there can be no complaint. It is something we have all been prepared for by literature. We solemnly vow to give his bones a decent Christian burial, and that is that.
The single most eerie thing about our planet is that there are no such things as ghosts. For this, as for everything else, there must be a rational explanation, but it has always escaped me. What, for example, is one supposed to do, at midnight, when a giant medieval figure that is not a ghost is standing before your bedroom door? It is in fact in excellent health, and though it stares at you in a slightly hostile way, it politely enquires:
“You have perhaps mislaid something?”
“Would you be so kind as to explain who on earth you are?”
“My name is John Griffith, sir.”
“Pleased to meet you. The Earl, I think … ”
“Yes, sir. I am in the service of the Earl of Gwynedd. Would you have mislaid anything?”
I related the story of the window. My new acquaintance listened to my tale with typical British impassivity. I had the distinct feeling he did not believe a word I said. We were silent for some time. Then he added:
“So all is well. Good night, sir … But if I were you … I would avoid going out into the corridors at night … These old corridors are somewhat … draughty. I mention this just in case.”
And he strolled away, torch in hand, a truly medieval vision.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but the advice seemed to carry some sort of threat.
Back in my room, I began setting things straight. John Griffith had not been wearing medieval costume but, so far as I could be sure in my rather peculiar state of mind, garments from the early seventeenth century — a black doublet with puffed sleeves and padded black trunk hose. His collar was turned down as in the later portraits of Shakespeare. But enough of that.
I felt like the old Israelite in the Bible — I forget his name — who went in search of his father’s asses and found a kingdom. The window I had been driven towards by my nervous false alarm had proved to be only a window. On the other hand, it was an undeniable fact that cartridges had been removed from my revolver, and that I was under surveillance from a giant in period costume. All this required some thought.
I decided to lock the door, only to discover, with an astonishment greater than any I had experienced earlier that night, that while it had a lock, there was no key.
Nonetheless I went to bed. I was exhausted, and managed somehow to put all these worrying concerns from my mind. I was just drifting off when I heard the door quietly open.
The wind poured in again, and all the terrors of the night came flooding back. My heartbeat stopped, my brain ceased to function, but my instincts were still working — a bit like St Denis strolling away from Montmartre after his decapitation.
I flicked the light on, aimed the empty revolver at the intruder, and said:
“Stop!”
I seemed to be acquiring a sort of sleuth-like nonchalance.
With confidence, and consciousness, returning, I realised it was Maloney. He wore a black, skin-tight outfit which I immediately decided must be for rock-climbing. He closed the door carefully behind him and whispered:
“Hullo-ullo-ullo.”
“Hullo-ullo-ullo,” I returned, with a slightly interrogative intonation.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he went on.
“Optimistic as ever,” I replied. “How did you get here? And more to the point, what are you doing in that outfit? Do you always dress up for your constitutional?”
“My dear Doctor, we haven’t time for your witticisms. Some very odd things are going on in this building.”
“They certainly are.”
“If I wasn’t from Connemara, I’d swear the place was haunted. But as things are, I don’t know what to say. Tell me, have you by any chance come across … er … what shall I call it … an apparition?”
“It depends what sort of apparition you mean.”
“A huge great fellow, in a sort of Christmas pantomime outfit. With a torch in his hand. He stares at you and then moves away. Not a nice experience.”
“I’ve actually spoken to him. He’s called John Griffith.”
“Well, not a very ghostly name. In Wales every other person is called Griffith. But what’s he up to, prowling round outside our rooms?”
“I haven’t the faintest.”
“I can’t help it, but I am not happy with bogey-men like that lurking outside my room. And have you noticed anything else? For example, have you a key in your door?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Same with me. And were your belongings searched while we were at dinner?”
“Well … the cartridges have been removed from my revolver.”
“Hm. The thought occurs to me … Doctor, would you just check that the parcel we put in your suitcase is still there?”
Though the idea that anything might have been taken out of my luggage seemed improbable, I stepped out of bed, opened my second suitcase — the one I hadn’t yet unpacked — and searched through it, again and again. There was no trace of the parcel.
“Interesting,” Maloney observed. “There are either thieves, or ghosts, walking this house. What do you make of it all?”
But I didn’t see the matter as quite so simple. Had there been thieves on the prowl they would have taken my money, or my cigarette case at the very least, not my revolver cartridges and Maloney’s mysterious little parcel. Once again, my suspicion of the man was strongly aroused.
“Tell me, Maloney — if you don’t mind my asking — what exactly was in that parcel?”
He gave me a searching look.
“So you opened it?”
“Are you mad? Are you suggesting that I am responsible for the loss of your package? Tell me right now: what was in it?”
“Just various rock-climbing things: they wouldn’t mean anything to you. The powder you saw was a kind of resin. To rub on the rope before I use it.”
The next instant he dashed to the door, pressed his ear against it and listened. Now I too could hear footsteps approaching. He stepped back into the middle of the room and, without any introduction, burst out into “Happy days are here again”, beating time with a paper knife on a glass. He made a terrific noise. The footsteps faded into the distance.
“Sorry about that,” he remarked. “I suddenly feel more cheerful. Life is great. This house is almost as good as the jungle. I remember when I was in Labuan, enjoying a quiet game of poker with the major, and this native policeman burst in to say that a band of orang-utans were approaching and had already sacked three houses. Orang-utans can be very nasty when they gang up in this way. There’s always a dominant female with them, and if she gets killed, the rest all run away. Fine, but how does a chap know which of those hairybacks is the old lady? I said to the major: ‘Just leave this to me. I know their little ways.’ I went out, and there they were, a pack of grinning apes … ”
But by then I wasn’t in the mood to wait for Maloney’s story to finish. I was quite convinced that his manic behaviour was deliberate, that there was some purpose concealed under this cloak of idiocy — as with the Brutus we read about at school.