Death is not so bad when you get chance to have some fun revenge

Of course, nobody who knows it will be found anywhere near it after dark. That’s that sixteenth-century-old impostor’s doing. But people from the South who take an expensive shoot have to go where the birds are, so young Lord Henry and his house party pretended they didn’t believe in the Wicked Sir Giles.

But I ask you: If they didn’t believe in him why did they try to stop me from sleeping in his room?

“I’ll bet you my new yacht against your guns that you don’t!” young Henry mocked me (you see he wanted me out of the way because of Lady Beryl).

“The bet,” I said, “is on,” and Beryl clasped her hands together and looked imploringly at me, and half a dozen of them gathered round me, and argued with me, and told me not to be such a fool. This, as I am telling you, was only last night.

But I’d said it, so it had to stand, and last night there they all were, huddled together at the end of the long wainscoted gallery with their bedroom candles in their hands, whispering and watching me.

“Don’t, John, don’t!” Beryl begged me for the last time, and at that young Henry gave a laugh.

“He’s got the key. He’ll slip out again the moment he thinks we’re all in bed,” he said, and that settled it. I handed him the key.

“Lock me in,” I said. “Good-night – see you all in the morning”, and Henry turned the key.

Well, there was the great four-poster, and they’d given me a good fire, and as the bed looked comfortable enough I slipped out of my clothes and got straight into it. Really rather jolly it was, watching the firelight on the ceiling and thinking of Beryl, till I remembered that one of Sir Giles’s little tricks had been to crunch up glasses and tumblers with his teeth. So when I remembered that I began to hear him crunching every time the fire shifted or settled. But I got to sleep at last, and when I woke again the fire was nearly out and my spine felt as if somebody had taken all the marrow out of it and put an icicle there instead. Then I suddenly thought I heard somebody give a laugh.”Hallo!” I said. “Who’s there?” And a voice replied: “I’m here. Are you? Because you aren’t going to be five minutes from now!”

“Who says so?” I tried to say, but I couldn’t. You see, they were right. I was being frightened to death, and it isn’t very easy to talk when you’re in the middle of being frightened to death.

So he gave me a good five minutes, and then – would you believe it? I wasn’t there. I mean I wasn’t in the four-poster. I was standing at the foot of it, looking down at myself, and the Wicked Sir Giles was standing there, too, as thin and shadowy as a skeletonised leaf, and as lantern-jawed and hungry-looking as if he hadn’t had a mouthful of glass for an age.

“Phew!” I whistled. “You’ve made a mess of things now! See what you’ve done!”

“What have I done?” he asked, as if he was going to eat me, but there wasn’t much of me to make a meal of now.

“Why, don’t you see? Now there are two of us!”

“Two what?” he said, but I saw his jaw drop.

“Why, two ghosts. What does one castle want with two ghosts?”

“Odds bodikins!” he muttered. “I never thought of that! All the others went without making the least trouble – as quiet as lambs they went – “

“Well, I should say the best thing you could do is to put me back again,” I said

“Put you back again?” he said faintly. “But I can’t! I don’t know how! I only know how to – to get them out,” and I began to despise him a bit.

“You don’t know how? Well, I’m sure I don’t. I shouldn’t know how to lift one of its fingers”; and I pointed at it. “No, you made the mess and you’ve got to get out of it.”

But he began to whimper. “Oh, what have I done, what have I done!” and then I had my idea.

“You know, Giles,” I said, “people have got a bit tired of you. They only believe in you at all because it gives the place a bit of a tone. They’ve all gone like lambs? Well, I’m not going like a lamb. In fact, I’m not going at all. I’m taking over, castle and all the lot.”

“Taking over!” he gasped. And then he began to implore: “Oh, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it! Please, please help me!”

“Me? How am I to help you? I’ve never been like this before. I’m only a beginner. But you’re just an old sixteenth-century humbug. You’ve been living on your reputation too long. So I’ll make you a fair offer. What about getting into it yourself?”

“What? Into that?”

“There’s no need to be rude about it. If it was good enough for Lady Beryl it’s good enough for you,” and there the old impostor stood, snivelling and trembling, and looking down at the late me on the four poster.

“Would you mind,” he mumbled at last, “if I – if I pulled you about a bit? I mean your legs won’t fit unless they’re stretched and you’re a bit baggy about the shoulders for me. I might get it on if it was altered a bit – like a suit of clothes – you could have my doublet and boots – “

“Anything you like, only be quick,” I said, for this was Christmas, you see, and while he was standing jittering there I was missing the best haunting-time of the whole year.

“Gramercy,” he sniffed, and set to work as sulkily as you please.

He loosened me up here and there, shaking his miserable cobweb of a head all the time, and after a lot of squeezing and grimacing, managed to get first his head in, then the rest of him, a limb at a time. When he had got me all on he looked very like a scarecrow that had forgotten to put its arms through the sleeves, but it wasn’t so bad, really, and I tried to cheer him up.

“Man alive, you’re first rate!” I said. “You might have been measured for me! Look at those hands – they fit you like a pair of gloves! Are you comfortable?”

“No – it tickles – it catches me here, and there – “

“That’ll soon wear off. I rather like these boots of yours; I like the fancy tops. Help yourself to anything of mine, and don’t forget to remind Henry about the yacht. You’ve got a yacht coming to you as well.” So, as walls and doors didn’t matter to me now, I just waved my hand to him on the four-poster and slipped out through the panelling.

But you see the joke. This was last night, and to-night they’re having their big party down in the great hall. They’ll all be there, and they’ll all think I’m here, too, all, perhaps, except Beryl. She may think there’s something a bit funny somewhere – I was very fond of Beryl yesterday – but the others will think it’s the haunted room that’s shaken me up a bit.

Then – ha ha! – this Wicked Sir Giles fellow will lift his glass, Henry thinking it’s me, and he’ll say, “Merry Christmas, Henry, and thanks for the yacht,” and then he’ll crunch the glass up, and the bottle after it, and start to make a meal of all the glasses on the table. He’s been used to transparent food every since the sixteenth century. And if Henry thinks I’ve suddenly gone crackers that’s his look-out.

And now that I can go anywhere I like they needn’t think I’m going to hang round that mouldy old castle for all time. I’ve a better game on than that. For when Sir Giles says “Merry Christmas, Henry,” and then starts on the glasses I shall whisper in Henry’s ear, too.

“How are you feeling, Henry?” I shall say. “Off back to London are you? So am I! Off to that bran-new Mayfair flat of yours, eh? I’ll be there! A Happy New Year when it comes and many of ‘em – tra-la-la, Henry – I’ll be seeing quite a lot of you from now on – “

Talk about Love, Jealousy, Murder, and a Supernatural Revenge!

But I always did feel that what this haunting-business wanted was a bit of waking up.