‘Ghost’ Plays Jokes.
Six years ago Brandon Davies, the picture-dealer with a gallery in Grosvenor-street, Mayfair, crashed mysteriously to his death from a window of his home. After his death his gallery, once filled with Old Masters worth thousands of pounds, became a successful dressmaking establishment. Today the occupiers believe the rooms to be haunted by a ghost which jokes with them.
[?] the dressmakers find their clothes taken from the wardrobes strewn all over the floor, as though someone had come back to [?] for the masterpieces which once hung there.
Brandon Davies, whose pale, aesthetic features and beautiful 18th-century walking stick became well known in the art world, loved peace and quiet. His gallery was one of the most pleasant in London.
Soon after his death Mrs Guy Oliver, tall, attractive society dressmaker, took over the gallery. She had been there only a short while when she felt there was something uncanny about the place. Often she found that dresses and furniture had been moved. Lights which once illuminated paintings on the walls were switched on by an unseen hand.
Roused by the noise of a crowded showroom, it would show its temper. Sample books, dress hangers and piles of stationery would crash to the floor as soon as the crowd had gone.
Now, after five years, the ghost is as active as ever. But Mrs Olliver and her assistants have got used to it and have a queer affection for it. They even like its sense of humour. But they refuse to treat the ghost as a joke and are deadly serious about it.
Weekly Dispatch (London), 29th January 1939.