“Almost immediately, the room began to take on a stuffy feeling, as if it were getting somehow smaller and closer. I experienced a kind of dizzy sensation, and I began to think that I had had perhaps a swallow too many of the sherry we used for the toast. But I quickly realized that it wasn’t a simple inebriate dizziness, because my senses were all fully acute. I let my head fall back, and allowed my neck to rest on the back of the chair while I began to perspire. After a few minutes I heard a few gasps and I opened my eyes. To my indescribable horror I saw that I was partially illuminated by a bright substance which seemed to be smeared over my face. My first thought, of course, was to wipe it away, but I found myself once again powerless to move. I simply sat there while this substance—presumably ectoplasm—dripped all over me, flowing, I was told later, out of my mouth. It felt sticky, and with each moment I felt weaker.
“The room was, of course, getting brighter as the glow of this infernal material got stronger; eventually the stuff began to float in the air, slowly, I fancied, assuming a shape. At first it was indistinct, just a round mass; then it gradually began to—how shall I describe it—fall together, brighter and darker areas falling together to create a face—a large, round face. It hung in the air for what seemed like several minutes—probably not much more than a couple of seconds, really—until it had become perfectly clear. It was round and hairless, with great closed eyes. It seemed like a corpse laid out on view, pale and serene, yet there was something about the structure of the face that suggested something less than human. Its nose was flat with wide nostrils, and its lips—if it had any—were drawn back to reveal great, craggy teeth, wholly unpleasant to see.
“As we watched it hover above us, the gelatinous white substance began to form something of a body—long, gaunt, yet somehow suggestive of great power. Then, slowly, the lids began to raise, revealing, God help me, great green eyes, pupiless, malevolent and terrifying. We could not be sure that it saw anything, whether it looked upon us or not, but I—and I was later to find out, the rest of them as well—felt that it did indeed behold us. Then, all at once, the horrible mouth opened and the room was filled with a great whispering sound like a distant waterfall. Gradually the sound grew, until its intensity was deafening. It was at that point that I fainted.
“I was revived later by Tice. I was lying on the cellar steps, my clothes torn. Tice was bloody and bruised, and Walters had gone to get an ambulance. Jessica and young Wilson were dead.
“Later, in hospital, I was told by Walters that the thing had begun to move—awkwardly at first, with sort of a swaying motion—then with agility and finally speed. First it simply ranged about the room—Tice described it as looking as if it were trying to get out—then, as the roaring increased, a great wind began to whirl about, knocking over the ash trays and unlit lamp on the table. By this time, everyone was up out of his seat and trying to get out of the room, though Tice said that Jessica tried to reach me through the maelstrom. The last that both Tice and Walters remembered was that creature actually grabbing at them. They managed to get the door open, and, with what must have been superb bravery, repeatedly went back to pull the rest of us out. They both concurred that after dragging me out, they could not find Wilson, and Jessica was obviously beyond help.
“Wilson was later found, crushed under the marble table which had been literally flipped across the room to land legs up in the opposite corner from which it had stood. Jessica was crushed beyond recognition. I obtained leave from hospital to attend her funeral; after the service, I prevailed upon the undertaker to open the closed casket for one more look at my lovely Jessica. There hasn’t been one moment since then that I haven’t regretted that request; she was smashed to a pulp—nothing but a mass of bruises and lacerations; all semblance of facial bone structure had entirely disappeared. The sight so shocked me that I fainted, and was taken to hospital again, this time for a stay of several months.”
The old man finished his drink with a gulp, and stared down at his lap. “The Chelsea Society was disbanded, of course; and the cellar room shut. I never really regained my health. Some part of me, some vitality had been drained; and for all I know, that vital force may still be down there in the cellar room, waiting for release.”
Sir Harold sat back in his wheelchair, apparently exhausted with the effort of dredging up such horrible memories and relating them, perhaps for the first time, to another human being. I moved in my seat sluggishly; it was completely dark outside now, and the room was quite chilly.
“My dear Sir Harold,” I murmured, trying to console the old gentleman, “that is a frightful tale.” I did not really believe the story, yet I did not doubt his sincerity; I believed that he believed it. I began to question tactfully.
“Perhaps a good deal of this was a… subjective occurrence—that is a hallucination of sorts rather than a literal, physical event?”
Sir Harold jolted upright in his seat, eyeing me with a hot ferocity again out of character with his physical weakness. “You doubt my story?”
“Oh, not at all,” I hastened to assure him. “But you yourself admit that you were unconscious during most of the physical activity. Possibly Tice and Walters…”
“Tice and Walters were gentlemen,” he interrupted. “I do not doubt their testimony. It was sworn later at a private inquest. Tice is now dead, and Walters left for South America about a decade ago, and is out of touch.” He looked directly at me in an unmistakable challenge. “Is it proof you want?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I should like to be positive that the material that I’m to release to the public is valid. I imagine that a man of your reputation would be of the same mind. Look at it from a point of law; the evidence you present is really no more than hearsay.” I warmed to my argument. “Without Walters or Tice to corroborate your story, critics both within and without the Spiritualist camp would make a laughingstock of you.” I stopped, afraid I’d gone a bit too far. The old man’s temper was still healthy.
“What do you want as proof at this rather late date?” he asked.
“A seance,” I replied. “We must prove to the world that there is a daemonic force in the cellar. Let me get a group of Spiritualists from the Marylebone Society here. We’ll hold a controlled seance, and the results will either prove or disprove…”
“No. No groups,” he said calmly. “You want the proof, and I can furnish it. There need be no more than the two of us. I want no repetition of the last debacle. Two deaths per seance is enough.”
“But I did not mean to suggest that you conduct it, Sir Harold,” I said, astonished that the old man would be willing to relive that experience. “You must consider your age and health.”
“Neither is important to me. Besides, I am the agent of the creature; I think that it needs me to manifest itself. It got half of me last time; this time it can have the rest, or give me back that part that it has. Either way, I’ll be satisfied.”
I don’t know why I agreed to it; curiosity, for the most part, though, not to my credit, I must admit that the thought of the impending notoriety—whatever the outcome—excited me. I really did believe that little or nothing would happen, and that the great neurotic burden with which Sir Harold had lived might be lifted when he realized that it had all been his imagination or the fancy of Tice and Walters. I forgot to consider the deaths of Jessica and the student. At any rate, we decided to hold the seance that night.
Sir Harold lit another lamp and beckoned me to begin pushing. Slowly and laboriously, for it is not an easy thing to let a man in a wheelchair gently down a flight of stairs, we began to make our way, the lamp throwing a dancing light down the mahogany paneling of the walls. The immense silence was broken by the dissonance of the large, hard rubber wheels of the clumsy chair.