Rat-traps Set For ‘Ghost’.
From our own correspondent, Paris, Thursday.
Rat-traps have now been set by the police to catch the guitar-playing ghost of a guillotined man, believed by terrified peasants to have returned to haunt his house at Chez Royer, central France. The man, Henri Dardillac, former owner of the village inn, was executed a month ago for double murder. A few days after his execution, his widow complained that strange noises could be heard every night in the attic over her bedroom.
Last night, armed police kept vigil in the house. Soon after their arrival faint noises were heard in the attic. The noises grew gradually louder till they were like thunder. Then came a faint twanging, as if someone were playing a guitar. The police searched every corner of the attic, but found only two empty suitcases. As soon as they left the room, however, the noises, which had ceased, began again.
Daily Herald, 9th April 1937.
Ghost Noises In The Night.
Man guillotined two months ago.
A particularly eerie ghost story – for the ghost in question is one without a head – comes from the village of St Auvent, near Limoges, where the inhabitants have been much perturbed by the unusual happenings in the house inhabited by Mme. Dardillac and her two children.
Mme. Dardillac’s husband was guillotined at Limoges two months ago for murdering a motorist and his companion. After staying with her mother at the time of her husband’s death Mme Dardillac and her children returned to their home a month ago, and ever since then a din coming from the garret fills the house between nine o’clock and midnight every evening. The noises include stamping and loud knocks on the wall and the rattling of chains and the sound of broken glass.
The garret can be reached by a step-ladder only, and several villagers who have inspected it during the day have found it empty. But even since the removal of the step-ladder the noises have continued, though, it is said, with less violence after sprinkling with holy water.
Everybody in the village claims to have heard the noise, though nobody has, apparently, ventured to visit the garret during the ghost’s activities.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 10th April 1937.