"Oh, I can explain that," said Miss Biddle eagerly. "But do let us have some tea. I get it myself, you know. I have a daily woman, but she goes as soon as she has washed up after lunch. I find it much nicer to have my little nest to myself for the afternoons and evenings, and, of course, it does come a good deal less expensive this way, especially as I do not give her her dinner. Servants, I always used to find, when I kept house for my dear father, do eat such a lot compared with ourselves, and if they are given inferior cuts of meat they are apt to become discontented."
Mrs. Bradley agreed. Her hostess then went off to get the tea, and after she had brought it in Mrs. Bradley returned to the question of the hauntings.
"Ah, yes, the haunted house," said Miss Biddle. "You were saying that you had heard the village stories."
Mrs. Bradley added that she had also read the story of Borley Rectory, and that some of the features of the haunted house seemed to bear a remarkable similarity to what was described in that book.
"Yes, and the queer thing about our haunted house is that, as I was saying, there is no tradition of poltergeist activity until just a month or two before the death of that unfortunate man, Mr. Turney, who was supposed to have been murdered by Miss Foxley's sister. So dreadful, after all that, that she committed suicide! But I have heard of similar cases. People are so terribly malicious, and they write those shocking anonymous letters. Enough to get on anybody's nerves, let alone on those of people who have been through such an ordeal as a trial for murder, especially if she was guilty, which many of us still believe she was."
"So I understand," said Mrs. Bradley. But, wishing to settle first the very vexed question of the poltergeist, she added, "I have read that cases have been known of poltergeist phenomena commencing in a place where they have been unknown up to that time, on the occasion of an adolescent coining to live in the house. There is that strange but authentic case of the Rumanian girl Eleonore Zugun, in 1926, for instance. You remember that she came to live with the Countess Wassilko-Serecki, who had heard of her extraordinary powers, and that whilst she was with the Countess the most astonishing amount of poltergeist activity took place, ornaments and toys flying over partitions and from room to room, pins and needles burying themselves in the girl's flesh, hairbrushes and stilettos dropping, apparently from nowhere, and all that kind of thing."
"Ah," said Miss Biddle, "yes. I grant you anything you like about Eleonore Zugun. A most fascinating case. But there was no question of any adolescent being present in our haunted house. There was nobody but the tenant, Mr. Turney, his wife, and that unfortunate Miss Foxley. They were the only people living there while the poltergeist was active. It was all most unaccountable. But it all ceased soon after Mr. Turney's death."
"Do you happen to know for certain when the manifestations began?"
"Yes, I do. At least, let me try to be quite accurate, because I can see that there is something behind all this, dear Mrs. Bradley. You are more interested in Bella Foxley than in psychical research, I am sure."
With this shrewd comment, she went to a small éscritoire, opened it, and produced a leather-bound notebook.
"I call it my common-place book," she remarked. "I put down in it all the really interesting things that happen, with the dates. I am hoping I shall have something to publish one day. Now, let me see...."
She turned over the pages. Mrs. Bradley watched anxiously.
"Here we are," said Miss Biddle. "I knew I had noted it down. Six years ago, wasn't it? And the first date I have for the poltergeist is January 12th. I put: So the haunted house really is haunted! Samuel Kindred was passing the house at sunset yesterday, and heard the noise of loud quarrelling. As the voices were speaking 'like Londoners' he stopped to investigate. There was nothing to be seen, but he could hear loud thumpings and bumpings which seemed to come from the back of the house. He knew the house was supposed to be empty, so he went round to the window and peered in. The glass was dusty, however, and he could see nothing. Nevertheless, he did not think there was anybody there. It being none of his business, as he afterwards said, he went on his way.
"Next day, being Saturday, two or three of the school-children came into the garden of the haunted house to play hide-and-seek among the shrubs and trees. They became frightened, however, by loud, heavy noises inside the house, and one child declared that she had seen a ghost at one of the upstairs windows.
"As Samuel Kindred's story was public-house gossip by this time, four or five men armed with sticks, accompanied by Farmer Stokes with a shot-gun, went to the house on Saturday evening, having had a drink at the public-house first, to see what they could find. There was nothing to be seen, but the heavy noises were heard, and a half-brick, which came sailing through the air, struck one of the men on the shoulder and bruised him badly. What they described as 'mad bellows and screeches' of laughter followed, and in the end they broke a downstairs window and entered the house. As soon as they were in the hall, some furniture near them began to move about in an unaccountable manner, and they retreated, telling each other lurid tales of traditional hauntings. Farmer Stokes loosed off his gun, and the result was a perfect cascade of small articles down the stairs. He proposed to mount the stairs, but finding that the others had all deserted him, he gave up the idea and followed them back to the road.
"There the whole group waited for about twenty minutes, but he could not persuade the others to return with him to the house. Next day, after Evensong, my dear father, with Farmer Stokes, Mr. Morant from the Hall, Mr. Carter and old Everett, the shoemaker, went to the haunted house, but found it perfectly quiet. They climbed in, but the furniture was all in place, and everything seemed to be in order.
"The moment they turned their backs on the house, however, and were walking down the weed-grown drive towards the road, the most unearthly pandemonium broke out behind them. They hastened back, but all was quiet again, and nothing found out of its place."
"Amazing," said Mrs. Bradley.
"Was it not?" said Miss Biddle, very much pleased by this reception of her account of the hauntings.
"And how long after that was it that the news of the poltergeist became general? In other words, what made Mr. Turney decide to rent the house in order to study the hauntings?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.
"Now it is very interesting and curious that you should ask that," replied Miss Biddle. "He must have had hearsay of it, for nothing had appeared in the papers then. All the same, it was not more than three or four days after that Sunday that we heard the house had the To Let board taken down, and that the owner, who was living at Torquay, had told old Joe to go in and cut the grass and tidy up the borders. Then, funnily enough, the To Let board went up again, but only for about ten days."
"And did Joe experience anything strange whilst he was attending to the garden?"