Mrs. Packard was still out,--so much Nixon deigned to tell me in answer
to my question. Whether the fact displeased him or not I could not say,
but he was looking very sour and seemed to resent the trouble he had
been to in opening the door for me. Should I notice this, even by an
attempt to conciliate him? I decided not. A natural manner was best; he
was too keen not to notice and give his own interpretation to uncalled
for smiles or words which contrasted too strongly with his own marked
reticence. I therefore said nothing as he pottered slowly back into
his own quarters in the rear, but lingered about down-stairs till I was
quite sure he was out of sight and hearing. Then I came back and took up
my point of view on the spot where the big hall clock had stood in the
days of Mr. Dennison. Later, I made a drawing of this floor as it must
have looked at that time. You will find it on the opposite page.
[transcriber’s note: The plan shows the house to have two
rows of rooms with a hall between. In the front each room
ends in a bow window. On the right the drawing-room has two
doors opening into the hall, equally spaced near the front
and rear of the room. Across the hall are two rooms of
apparently equal size; a reception room in front and the
library behind it, both rooms having windows facing on the
alley. There is a stairway in the hall just behind the door
to the reception room. The study is behind the drawing-room.
Opposite this is a side hall and the dining-room. The
library and dining-room both open off this hall with the
dining room also having doors to the main hall and kitchen.
The side hall ends with a stoop in the alley. A small room
labeled kitchen, etc. lies behind the dining-room and the
hall extends beyond the study beside the kitchen with the
cellar stairs on the kitchen side. There is a small
rectangle in the hall about two-thirds of the way down the
side of the drawing-room which is labeled A.]
Near the place where I stood (marked A on the plan), had occurred most
of the phenomena, which could be located at all. Here the spectral hand
had been seen stopping the clock. Here the shape had passed encountered
by Mr. Weston’s cook, and just a few steps beyond where the library door
opened under the stairs Mr. Searles had seen the flitting figure which
had shut his mouth on the subject of his tenants’ universal folly.
From the front then toward the back these manifestations had invariably
peeped to disappear--where? That was what I was to determine; what I
am sure Mayor Packard would wish me to determine if he knew the whole
situation as I knew it from his wife’s story and the record I had just
read at the agent’s office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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