ment to tell the boys what had happened, I
received another shock--before I could ejaculate a word of my
experiences, I was told--told with a roar and shout that almost broke
the drum of my ears, that "the auld laird deil" was dead! His body had
been found stretched on the ground, a few feet from the hollow oak, in
the avenue shortly after sunrise. He had died from syncope, so the
doctor said, that had probably been caused by a shock--some severe
mental shock.

I did not tell my companions of my night's adventure after all. My
eagerness to do so had departed when I heard of "the auld laird's"
death.

CASE XVI

THE GHOST OF THE HINDOO CHILD, OR THE
HAUNTINGS OF THE WHITE DOVE HOTEL, NEAR
ST. SWITHIN'S STREET, ABERDEEN

In the course of many years' investigation of haunted houses, I have
naturally come in contact with numerous people who have had first-hand
experiences with the Occult. Nurse Mackenzie is one of these people. I
met her for the first time last year at the house of my old friend,
Colonel Malcolmson, whose wife she was nursing.

For some days I was hardly aware she was in the house, the illness of
her patient keeping her in constant seclusion, but when Mrs.
Malcolmson grew better, I not infrequently saw her, taking a morning
"constitutional" in the beautiful castle grounds. It was on one of
these occasions that she favoured me with an account of her psychical
adventure.

It happened, she began, shortly after I had finished my term as
probationer at St. K.'s Hospital, Edinburgh. A letter was received at
the hospital one morning with the urgent request that two nurses
should be sent to a serious case near St. Swithin's Street. As the
letter was signed by a well-known physician in the town, it received
immediate attention, and Nurse Emmett and I were dispatched, as day
and night nurses respectively, to the scene of action. My hours on
duty were from 9 p.m. till 9 a.m. The house in which the patient was
located was the White Dove Hotel, a thoroughly respectable and
well-managed establishment. The proprietor knew nothing about the
invalid, except that her name was Vining, and that she had, at one
period of her career, been an actress. He had noticed that she had
looked ill on her arrival the previous week. Two days after her
arrival, she had complained of feeling very ill, and the doctor, who
had been summoned to attend her, said that she was suffering from