pish bounds, sprang up the
staircase and disappeared in the gloom.

This was the climax; Mrs. Gordon felt another such encounter would
kill her. So, in spite of the fact that she had taken the flat for a
year, and had only just commenced her tenancy, she packed up her goods
and left the very next day. The report that the building was haunted
spread rapidly, and Mrs. Gordon had many indignant letters from the
landlord. She naturally made inquiries as to the early history of the
house, but of the many tales she listened to, only one, the
authenticity of which she could not guarantee, seemed to suggest any
clue to the haunting.

It was said that a retired Captain in the Merchant Service, many years
previously, had rented the rooms she had occupied.

He was an extraordinary individual, and, despite the fact that he had
lived so far inland, would never wear any but nautical clothes--blue
jersey and trousers, reefer coat and jack-boots. But this was not his
only peculiarity. His love of grog eventually brought on delirium
tremens, and his excessive irritability in the interval between each
attack was a source of anxiety to all who came in contact with him. At
that time there happened to be a baby in the rooms overhead, whose
crying so annoyed the Captain that he savagely informed its mother
that if she did not keep it quiet, he would not be answerable for the
consequences. His warnings having no effect, he flew upstairs one day,
when she was temporarily absent, and, snatching up the bread knife
from the table, decapitated the infant. He then stuffed both its head
and body into a grandfather's clock which stood in one corner of the
room, and, retiring to his own quarters, drank till he was insensible.

He was, of course, arrested on a charge of murder, but being found
"insane" he was committed during His Majesty's pleasure to a lunatic
asylum.

He eventually committed suicide by opening an artery in his leg with
one of his finger-nails.

As the details of this tragedy filled in so well with the phenomena
they had witnessed, the Gordons could not help regarding the story as
a very probable explanation of the hauntings. But, remember, its
authenticity is dubious.

CASE IV

JANE OF GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH

"The news that, for several years at any rate, George Street,
Edinburgh, was haunted," wrote a correspondent of mine some short time
ago, "might cause no little surprise to many