18 - Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart

When English professor William A. Porter unexpectedly inherits a grand seaside mansion from his late Uncle Horace, his curiosity is piqued by the unexplained circumstances surrounding his uncles death. Along with his wife and niece, he decides to spend the summer in the propertys lodge, renting out the main house. As darkness falls, the quiet seaside neighborhood takes a sinister turn, with strange occurrences and eerie events becoming the norm. At the heart of these mysteries is an ominous red lamp, a subject of local folklore and believed to cast a malevolent spell. Can Professor Porter unravel the truth behind these oddities, or will he himself become a suspect in this webs of mysteries?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eighteen of The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Reinhardt
the LibriVox recordings in the public Domain Conclusion chapter two.
In recording the events leading up to the amazing denoument
that night the details of the seance, I am under
certain difficulties. Thus I kept no notes. For the first time.
I found myself a part of the circle, sitting between

(00:21):
Livingstone and Jane, and with Cameron near the lamp, prepared
to make the notes of what should occur. Of course,
he said, as we took our places. We are not
observing the usual precautions of what I would call attest seance.
All we are attempting to do is to reproduce as
nearly as possible. I conditioned, existing at the other two sittings,
and he glanced at me and smiled. If mister Porter's

(00:42):
admission to the circle proves to be disturbing, we can
eliminate him. He asked us to remain quiet no matter
what happened, and to be certain that no hand was
freed without any immediate statement to that effect. Not that
I expect fraud, of course, he added, but it is
customary under the circumstances. I am quite certain that nobody

(01:03):
except myself saw Halliday touched the bell. As the light
was reduced to the fainting glow of the red lamp.
It was not surprising, I dare say, that, beyond certain
movements of the table and fine wraps on its surface,
we got nothing at first. In fact, that we got
anything at all was probably due solely to Jane's ignorance
of the underlying situation. Livingstone, next to me was so
nervous that his hands twitched on the table across. Halliday

(01:26):
was beside Heyward, and as my eyes grew accustomed to
the semi darkness, I could see him forbidden recourse to
his fingers, jerking his head savagely, and for the life
of me, I could not see where all this was
leading us. A breaking of the circle was, by Caimmeron's order,
immediately to be announced, even in complete darkness. When that came,
as I felt it would, What was it that Halliday

(01:46):
expected to happen? But the table continued to move, It
began to slide along the carpet. My grasp on Livingstone's
hand was relaxed, and indeed, later as it began to
rock violently, it was all I could do to retain
conduct the table at all. I began to see possibilities
in this, but when it had quieted, the circle remained
as before. Very soon after that came the signal for darkness,

(02:09):
and Kimberon extinguished the lamp. Soon Edith near the cabinet
said the curtain had come out into the room and
was touching her. The next moment, as before, the bell
fell from the stand inside the cabinet, and the guitar
strings were lightly touched. Without warning, Kimmeron turned on the lamp.
The curtain subsided and all sounds ceased. He was apparently satisfied,

(02:30):
and after a few moments of experiment with the lamp
on resulting only in a creaking and knocking on the table, again,
extinguished it. On a repetition of the blowing out of
the curtain. However, he left his chair for the first
time and with the pocket flash, examined the cabinet thoroughly,
even the wall, coming in for close inspection. When he
had finished with that, however, I sensed a change in him.

(02:50):
I believe now that he suspected fraud, but I am
not certain. He said rather sharply that he was there
in good faith and not to provide an evening's amusement,
and that he hoped any suspicious movement would be reported.
That says not a game, he said shortly. Jane was
very quiet. And now I heard again the heavy breathing
which I knew preceded the trance condition, or that utterle

(03:11):
hypnotism which we know as trance. How is that, Cameron asked,
in a low tone, I, says Parter Halliday said, quiet, everybody.
The room was completely dark, and save for Jane's heavy breathing,
entirely quiet. Strangely enough, for the moment I forgot our
purpose there forgot Greenow and his men scattered through the house.

(03:31):
I had a premonition, if I may call it that,
that we were on the verge of some tremendous psychic experience.
I cannot explain it. I do not know now what
unseen forces were gathered there together. I even admit that
probably I, too, like Jane, hypnotized myself. And then two
things were happening. And at the same time, there was
something moving in the library, a soft footfall with it

(03:52):
seemed to me an irregularity for all the world, like
the dragging of a partially useless foot, and Livingston was
quietly releasing his grip of my hand. I made a
clutch at him, and he whispered, savagely, let go you fall.
The next moment he had drawn his revolver and was
totally getting to his feet. The dragging foot moved out
into the hall. Lyvingston, revolver in hand, was standing beside me,

(04:15):
and there was a quiet movement across the table. Cameron
was apparently listening also. He made no comment, however, and
in the darkness and the silence, the footsteps went into
the hall and there ceased. I had no idea of
the passage of time ten seconds or an hour. Lyvingston
may have stood beside me ten seconds or an hour,
And then Greenow's voice at the top of the staircase,
all right, care for all below. Lyvingston moved. Then he

(04:39):
made a wild dash for the red lamp and turned
it on. Heyward was not to be seen at Halliday,
revolver in hand was starting for the cabinet marlight. He
called light quick. I had a confused impression of Halliday
drinking the curtains of the cabinet, aside of somebody else
there with him, both on guard as it were, at
the wall of some sort of rapid move went upstairs,

(05:01):
of the door from the den into the hall being
open where it had been closed before, and of a
crash somewhere not far away, as of a falling body,
followed by a sort of dreadful pause, And all this
in the time it took me to get around the
chairs and to the wall switch near the door. And
it was then in the shocked silence which followed the
sound of that fall, in the instant between my finding
the switch and turning it on, that I will swear

(05:22):
that I saw once more by the glow of the
red lamp, the figure at the foot of the stairs,
looking up, saw it and recognized it, watched it turn
toward me with fixed and staring eyes, felt the cold
wind which suddenly eddied about me, and vertically, turning on
the light, saw it fade like smoke into the empty
air behind the curtains of the cabinet. Somebody was working
at the wall. Edith very pale, was supporting Jane, who

(05:47):
still remained in her strange autohypnotic condition. Livingstone's arm was
about his wife. And this was the picture when Greno
came running triumphantly down the stairs, the reward apparently in
his pocket, and saw us there. He paid no atriation,
mentioned the rest of us, but stirred at livingstone with
eyes which could not believe what they saw. Good God,
he said, then, how is I there? He pointed to

(06:08):
the wall behind the cabinet. End of Section eighteen.