Ghost of Black Abbot Haunts City Office.
Weird Bell Ringing.
Chairs thrown across room at night.
The Black Abbot of Fleet-street is frightening typists. He has driven them howling from the office. He has rung bells and hurled chairs. Here is a ghost story which is taking place in the prosaic distance between Ludgate-circus and Temple Bar, London. A tenant rented an office in Fleet-street. He also rented a Black Abbot. “I’ve seen him,” said the tenant. “A great hooded shape crouching on the stairs. And what’s worse is the fact that suddenly, at dead of night, all the bells in the place start ringing violently, and chairs hurl themselves off the floor and crash against the walls. This happens at all times of the day. It is rather difficult.”
“That is quite right,” said an eye witness. “I have seen a heavy office chair leap up and smash against the wall, and the staff here is scared silly.” A policeman knows all about it. “It’s a bloke in an ‘ood,” said the policeman, “a black bloke.” “Who is he?” “Dunno,” said the policeman, “but that office is just near the site of an old plague pit.”
I have visited that office. It has an eerie quality, which natty furniture and bright adornment cannot dispel. Then I met the typist. “I’ve seen him,” she said, “a huge black outline like a monk, which flits across the wall, and afterwards all the furniture starts to rattle.” “That’s right,” said the tenant. “Sure,” said the policeman, who is highly interested.
A few weeks ago the tenant brought a celebrated mathematician to sleep in the office, a man who absolutely refused to consider the idea of ghosts. “Next morning,” said the tenant, “he came out of the place as pale as death!” “What happened?” “He saw that abbot,” said the tenant, “and an office stool hit him.” “Was he convinced?” “Bruised!” said the tenant.
All the neighbouring offices know the Black Abbot. He has become almost a mascot. “There is no doubt that he had been seen scores of times,” said a neighbour, “and I know many people who have seen him. The legend is that a priest took money from those who confessed to him during the Great Plague of London, and caught the disease from a penitent, and was buried in a pit in the neighbourhood.”
Of course, you need not believe it, but many reliable witnesses vouch for that Black Abbot, and there is no doubt that the furniture does fly about.
The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 21st January 1932.