“Yes, I’m almost sure I shall. But I must have your help, and Gaunt tells me you’re quite new to these matters. Almost a sceptic, I believe?”
“I was until a few days ago, but I’m not now. Certainly I know very little about it.”
“The doctor shall teach you all you need to know while I go about my preparations. I think we may say that there is little doubt but that the seat of the manifestations is in the crypt, eh, Gaunt?”
The doctor nodded. “No doubt at all,” he said. “Nothing has ever been seen up here, has it, Tony?”
“Not so far as I know, Doctor. The rooms we don’t use are all shut up, but I suppose we can rule them out. Everything points to the crypt, and yet when you took me down there we didn’t find anything unusual.”
“No, but we must have missed something. There must be another exit. The whole place will have to be searched thoroughly. Our examination was of a rather perfunctory nature, you must admit.”
“We will start our investigations there,” said Vaughan in a decided tone; “if they yield nothing of note, then we must try elsewhere. But first there is an old book, isn’t there? A history of the curse. The doctor told me of it.”
“Yes, I’ll get it for you. It’s in the library.” And Tony fetched the ill-fated volume.
Vaughan took it, saying:
“Thank you, Sir Anthony. Now if you and the doctor will take a little walk I’ll read this through and get my facts in order.”
Outside, in the bright sunshine which warmed half the courtyard, Tony asked Gaunt:
“What will he do first, Doctor?”
“I cannot say for certain. He has his own methods. But I should imagine that he will first endeavour to find the exact spot from which this evil influence operates. Then he will proceed to administer some corrective treatment, the exact nature of which will depend upon the class to which this being belongs. That is the usual procedure with haunted houses.”
“And are all haunted houses occupied by an evil influence such as this?”
“By no means. Many so-called ghosts are nothing more than impressions caused by past events of great significance, which at the time of their happening became photographed, as it were, upon the spiritual fibre of their surroundings, and which can be perceived by a sensitive mind.”
“Then do the spirits of the dead never return to earth, Doctor?”
“It depends what you mean by spirits, Tony,” the doctor replied, sitting down upon a garden seat against the outer wall. Tony joined him and lit a cigarette.
“Explain, please,” he said.
Gaunt marshaled his thoughts and began once more.
“The human being is composed of three individual parts, each with a life of its own; there is the material body, which ceases to live at the moment of corporal death; there is the astral body, or vital principle, called by the old Egyptians the Ka, or Double; and there is the ego, the soul itself. At the moment of death these last two are released. What happens to the immortal soul, the personality, each must answer for himself in the light of his own faith. But the astral body, which, unlike the soul, is a replica of the material body, although composed of immaterial substance, may remain near the corpse, or on the scene of its death, for varying periods of time. It has no separate intelligence of its own, and without the guidance of the mind, which has gone with the soul, it may wander aimlessly about, or re-enact the circumstances of the corporal death perpetually. Here you have the explanation of another class of hauntings. Incidentally, it is possible for a trained mind to project this astral shell from the body during life, and, moving on the astral plane, to visit distant places and effect material results through its agency.”
“I take it, then, that our particular haunting belongs to neither of these classes?” put in Tony.
“No. Here we have an example of an inhuman entity, a being or spirit which has never occupied a bodily form, and never will. Such are often called elementals, or elemental spirits. Generally they are moderately harmless, and not particularly intelligent. They are responsible for the so-called poltergeist phenomena — aimless throwing about of furniture and crockery. In such cases they often operate through a medium of low mentality — a half-witted servant girl, say.
“This curse of yours, however, seems to operate without the proximity of a medium, unless I am mistaken, and that in itself distinguishes it from the more ordinary type of elemental. Also it is definitely evil, and probably very powerful. I suspect that it is actually a monstrosity from the Outer Darkness — a sentient being from the chaos which exists behind the veil of created matter. If I am right in this assumption, then our task of expelling it presents enormous difficulties and fearful danger.”
Tony sat still, absorbing this as best he could. When he spoke, he said:
“Tell me, Doctor: where did you learn all this? And again — you keep referring to the unlimited power of properly trained minds. Where can such training be had?”
Gaunt smiled enigmatically and looked up at the sky, against which a solitary seagull was sailing, its motionless white wings against the blue vying for purity with the rare, fleecy clouds far above. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind, for a faint line appeared between his brows and his lips compressed themselves. After a couple of minutes he came to a decision, and, looking back towards Tony, said:
“That is a question which I may not answer in detail. I am bound by oath not to reveal the source of my training, but let it suffice that ever since the world began there has been this secret knowledge, handed down from generation to generation amongst a chosen few. There have been, and there are still, secret societies formed to safeguard it, and to train initiates. The Rosicrucians were one, and still are, for that matter, though they do not advertise in the newspapers.
“There are other so-called secret societies in existence today which used to have the secret wisdom, but which have lost all but the outward symbolism. I can think of one at this moment — I will not mention its name, though you must know to what I am referring — which with great wisdom has wrapped its true nature in so many veils that only a minute proportion of its members ever reach the inner mysteries. By an ingenious system of degrees and grades, only the most earnest seeker after knowledge is ever permitted to attain to complete initiation. Most of its members remain in the lower orders, practically ignorant of the possibilities which are open to them, content with philanthropy and symbolism.
“In bygone centuries the mysteries of Crete and Samothrace, the Egyptian priests of Isis, the Druids — all knew the ancient wisdom. In this modern world of ours, so insistent upon material things, these high spiritual matters are still more closely guarded. One day the world will learn, in bitterness and desolation, that matter is not all, and that machinery cannot do everything, and it will cry out for guidance in the great dark, and we who keep the Mysteries will come back into our own.”
The doctor spoke quietly, and yet with such seriousness and tremendous authority that Tony could not doubt his words. Turning them over in his mind, he realized at last what he had longed for unconsciously for so many years: a meaning in life; a purpose in existence. His soul, drugged with material things, suddenly awoke, and finding itself in darkness, began to cry out in a still, small voice for light. In the last few days his whole world had turned upside down, all values had strangely altered, and he felt that he could not go on in ignorance any longer. A great thirst for knowledge sprang up in his breast, and, his mind reeling, he mentally prostrated himself at Gaunt’s feet.
“Doctor, help me! I want to know — so much. What death is — and, more, what life is. What is it all for? What does it mean? I’ll do anything you say, only help me!”