An invisible ghost.
To the editor of “The Referee”.
Sir, – When I married in 1889 we went to live in a very pretty creeper-covered cottage in the Kenilworth district – a fuller description might be unpleasant to the present tenant. For more than two years nothing particular occurred, though we constantly heard peculiar noises. As we had very eccentric neighbours, and the house was semi-detached, we put all unexplained noises down to them. After a time, however, our neighbours left, and still odd noises occurred pretty regularly.
The chief noise was like the sound of a woman’s skirts swishing as she ran. This noise I often heard pass my door as I lay in bed. The sound seemed to begin in the room we used as a nursery and go to the empty room in front of the house, used occasionally as a spare bedroom.
At last, one day in October, 1892, a few days before the birth of my second son, I had for convenience to sleep in the spare room. I felt very ill, and, as I could not sleep, I sat up in bed with the gas turned full on. I had not been to sleep for hours, and was not drowsy. Suddenly I heard the swishing noise coming along the passage. I looked at the door, expecting someone to enter. The noise reached the door, the handle turned, the door opened wide, and no one came in.
Afterwards we let the house furnished, but the tenants complained.
About nine years later I was engaging a servant, and asked her reason for leaving her last place. She answered that the doors used to open by themselves, and she dare not stay. I asked where she had lived, and she gave me the address of my first house. This is quite true and my own actual expreience. The house was comparatively new one, not more than forty years old, and had no history that we could find out.
I am, Sir, yours, &c., Josephine J. Hart. Weston in Arden, Bulkington, April 2, 1907.
The Referee, 7th April 1907.