“Spirited blows”
Free fight about existence of a spook.
A judge, an inspector of police, and the chief of the Grenoble (France) detective force interviewed a mysterious spirit at Grenoble. The ghost is a rapping spirit, and it has excited Grenoble for some weeks past. It frequents the flat of an elderly lady named Mme. Massot, in a house which belongs to M. de Beylie, the presiding judge of the Commercial Court. It has worried Mme. Massot so much that she has called on her landlord to allow her to cancel her lease and leave the flat.
The landlord thought that his position as a judge made it necessary that he should disprove the presence of the tapping spirit, with the help of unromantic men of the police, in and out of uniform. At dusk five Grenoble policemen were posted on the roof, one was posted in every room of the house, and a cordon of police was placed round the house in the street. In Mme. Massot’s drawing-room sat Judge de Beylie, his tenant, Mme. Massot; an inspector of police in uniform, and the chief of the Grenoble detective force.
At ten o’clock nothing had happened, and the authorities rose to go. As they rose from their seats a loud rapping was heard, which seemed to come from both sides of the room at once. M. de Beylie turned a little pale, but in a stern voice he asked the spirit to reply to his questions. “Are you a soldier or a civilian, you uncivil man,” he asked, glancing round for applause at his joke. “If you are a soldier you may rap twice; if a civilian rap once; but please do not damage the wall.” Two raps answered the judge’s question, and further questions elicited the peculiar story that the rapper was the spirit ofan artilleryman twenty-six years of age, who had died before finishing his military service, and who was in love with Mme. Massot’s niece.
Mme. Massot had opened her mouth to ask another question ,or to remonstrate, when midnight struck, and the authorities and the spirit all went home.
The mystery has not been elucidated yet, and large crowds collected round the house all day. During the afternoon believers and unbelievers in the spirit came to blows and had to be dispersed by the police, who did a little rapping on their own account.
Belfast Telegraph, 2nd February 1907.