The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

He wanted someone to talk to, and there was no one. Meantime he lounged on the horsehair sofa with the advertisements, and his pleasant grey eyes followed line after line with intolerable boredom. Then, suddenly, “Halloa!” he said, and sat up. This is what he read:

A HAUNTED HOUSE. Advertiser is anxious to have phenomena investigated. Any properly-accredited investigator will be given full facilities. Address, by letter only, Wildon Prior, 237, Museum Street, London.

“That’s rum!” he said. Wildon Prior had been the best wicket-keeper in his club. It wasn’t a common name. Anyway, it was worth trying, so he sent off a telegram.

WILDON PRIOR, 237, MUSEUM STREET, LONDON. MAY I COME TO YOU FOR A DAY OR TWO AND SEE THE GHOST? – WILLIAM DESMOND

On returning the next day from a stroll there was an orange envelope on the wide Pembroke table in his parlour.

DELIGHTED – EXPECT YOU TODAY. BOOK TO CRITTENDEN FROM CHARING CROSS. WIRE TRAIN – WILDON PRIOR, ORMEHURST RECTORY, KENT.

“So that’s all right,” said Desmond, and went off to pack his bag and ask in the bar for a time-table. “Good old Wildon; it will be ripping, seeing him again.”

A curious little omnibus, rather like a bathing-machine, was waiting outside Crittenden Station, and its driver, a swarthy, blunt-faced little man, with liquid eyes, said, “You a friend of Mr Prior, sir?” shut him up in the bathing-machine, and banged the door on him. It was a very long drive, and less pleasant than it would have been in an open carriage.

The last part of the journey was through a wood; then came a churchyard and a church, and the bathing-machine turned in at a gate under heavy trees and drew up in front of a white house with bare, gaunt windows.

“Cheerful place, upon my soul!” Desmond told himself, as he tumbled out of the back of the bathing-machine.

The driver set his bag on the discoloured doorstep and drove off. Desmond pulled a rusty chain, and a big-throated bell jangled above his head.

Nobody came to the door, and he rang again. Still nobody came, but he heard a window thrown open above the porch. He stepped back on to the gravel and looked up.

A young man with rough hair and pale eyes was looking out. Not Wildon, nothing like Wildon. He did not speak, but he seemed to be making signs; and the signs seemed to mean, “Go away!”

“I came to see Mr Prior,” said Desmond. Instantly and softly the window closed.

“Is it a lunatic asylum I’ve come to by chance?” Desmond asked himself, and pulled again at the rusty chain.

Steps sounded inside the house, the sound of boots on stone. Bolts were shot back, the door opened, and Desmond, rather hot and a little annoyed, found himself looking into a pair of very dark, friendly eyes, and a very pleasant voice said: “Mr Desmond, I presume? Do come in and let me apologize.”

The speaker shook him warmly by the hand, and he found himself following down a flagged passage a man of more than mature age, well dressed, handsome, with an air of competence and alertness which we associate with what is called “a man of the world”. He opened a door and led the way into a shabby, bookish, leathery room.

“Do sit down, Mr Desmond.”

“This must be the uncle, I suppose,” Desmond thought, as he fitted himself into the shabby, perfect curves of the armchair. “How’s Wildon?” he asked, aloud. “All right, I hope?”

The other man looked at him. “I beg your pardon,” he said, doubtfully.

“I was asking how Wildon is?”

“I am quite well, I thank you,” said the other man, with some formality.

“I beg your pardon” – it was now Desmond’s turn to say it – “I did not realise that your name might be Wildon, too. I meant Wildon Prior.”

“I am Wildon Prior,” said the other, “and you, I presume, are the expert from the Psychical Society?”

“Good Lord, no!” said Desmond. “I’m Wildon Prior’s friend, and, of course, there must be two Wildon Priors.”

“You sent the telegram? You are Mr Desmond? The Psychical Society were to send an expert, and I thought—”

“I see,” said Desmond; “and I thought you were Wildon Prior, an old friend of mine – a young man,” he said, and half rose.

“Now, don’t,” said Wildon Prior. “No doubt it is my nephew who is your friend. Did he know you were coming? But of course he didn’t. I am wandering. But I’m exceedingly glad to see you. You will stay, will you not? If you can endure to be the guest of an old man. And I will write to Will tonight and ask him to join us.”

“That’s most awfully good of you,” Desmond assured him. “I shall be glad to stay. I was awfully pleased when I saw Wildon’s name in the paper, because—” and out came the tale of Elmstead, its loneliness and disappointment.

Mr Prior listened with the kindest interest. “And you have not found your friends? How sad! But they will write to you. Of course, you left your address?”

“I didn’t, by Jove!” said Desmond. “But I can write. Can I catch the post?”

“Easily,” the elder man assured him. “Write your letters now. My man shall take them to the post, and then we will have dinner, and I will tell you about the ghost.”