September 3, 2025 • 28 mins
Delve into the eerie and enchanting world of Charles Dickens, a master storyteller with a fascination for the supernatural. In this collection, we present three of his captivating ghost stories, including the renowned The Signal Man. While these tales differ from his celebrated realistic and humorous novels, they offer a unique blend of Gothic atmosphere and intriguing characters, making them a must-listen for fans of the macabre. Summary by Vivian Chan.
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Section three of three Ghost Stories. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings or in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Three
ghost Stories by Charles Dickens, Section three The Trial for Murder.
(00:25):
I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even
among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to importing
their own psychological experiences when those have been of a
strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they
could relate in such wise would find no parallel or
response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected
(00:48):
or laughed at. A trustful traveler who should have seen
some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea serpent,
would have no fear of mentioning it. But the same traveler,
having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision,
so called dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate
(01:10):
considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence
I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects
are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of
these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation.
The consequence is that the General's talk of experience in
this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect
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of being miserable imperfect. In what I am going to relate,
I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting
any theory whatever I know the history of the book
Center of Berlin. I have studied the case of the
wife of a late astronomer Royal, as related by Sir
David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of
(01:58):
a much more remarkable case of spectral illusion occurring within
my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state,
as to this last, that the sufferer or lady was
in no degree, however distant, related to me. I mistake
an assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of
a part of my own case, but only a part
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which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred
to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I
ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I
ever had any at all similar experience, since it does
not signify how many years ago or how feel A
certain murder was committed in England which attracted great attention.
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We hear more than enough of murderers as the a
rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would
bury the memory of this particular brood if I could.
As his body was buried in Newgate Jail. I purposely
abstained from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality.
When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell, or
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I ought rather to say, for it cannot be too
precise in my facts. It was nowhere publicly hinted that
any suspicion fell on the man who was afterwards brought
to trial. As no reference was at that time made
to him in the newspapers. It is obviously possible that
any description of him can at that time have been
given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact
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be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper containing the
account of that first discovery, I found it to be
deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I
read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had
been made in the bedroom, and when I laid down
the paper, I was aware of a flash rush flow.
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I do not know what to call it. No word
I can find is satisfactorily descriptive in which I seemed
to see that bedroom passing through my room like a
picture impossibly painted on the running river. Though almost instantaneous
in its passing, it was perfectly clear, so clear that
I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the
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absence of the dead body from the bed. It was
in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation,
but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner
of Saint James Street. It was entirely new to me.
I was in my easy chair at the moment, and
the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver, which started
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the chair from its position. But it is to be
noted that the chair ran easily on castors. I went
to one of the windows there are two in the room,
and the room is on the second floor, to refresh
my eyes with the moving objects. Down in Piccadilly, it
was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling
and cheerful. The wind was as I looked out, it
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brought down from the park a quantity of fallen leaves,
which a gust took and whirled into a spiral pillar
as the piter fell and the leaves dispersed. I saw
two men on the opposite side of the way, going
from west to east. They were one behind the other.
The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The
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second man followed him at a distance of some thirty
paces with his right hand menacingly raised. First the singularity
and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a
thoroughfare attracted my attention, and next the more remarkable circumstance
that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among
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the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with
the action of walking on a pavement, and no single
creature that I could see gave them place, touched them,
or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they
both stared up at me. I saw their two faces
very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere,
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not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in
in their face, except that the man who went first
had an unusually luring appearance, and that the face of
the man who followed him was the color of impure wax.
I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife
constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain
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branch bank, and I wish that my duties as head
of a department were as light as they are popularly
supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn
when I stood in need of change. I was not ill,
but I was not well. My reader is to make
the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded,
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having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life,
and being slightly dyspeptic. I am assured by my renowned
doctor that my old state of health at that time
justifies no stronger description. And I quote his own from
his written answer to my request for it. As the
circumstances of the murder gradually unreveling took stronger and stronger
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possession of the public mind, I kept them away from
mind by knowing as little about them as was possible
in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew
that a verdict of wilful murder had been found against
the suspected murderer, and that he had been committed to
no gate for trial. I also know that his trial
had been postponed over one sessions of the Central criminal
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Court on the ground of general prejudice and want of
time for the preparation of the defense. I may further
have known, but I believe I did not when or
about when the sessions to which his trial stood postponed
would come on. My sitting room, bedroom and dressing room
are all on one floor. With the last. There is
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no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a
door in it once communicating with the staircase. But a
part of the fitting of my bath has been, and
had then been for some years fixed across it. At
the same period, and as a part of the same arrangement,
the door had been nailed up and canvassed over. I
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was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some
directions to my servant before he went to bed. My
face was towards the only available door of communication with
the dressing room, and it was closed. My servant's back
was towards that door while I was speaking to him.
My side opened, and a man look in, who very
earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the
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man who had gone second at the two along Piccadilly,
and whose face was of the color of impure wax.
The figure having beckoned, drew back and closed the door.
With no longer pause than was made by my crossing
the bedroom. I opened the dressing room door and looked in.
I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I
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felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the
dressing room, and I did not see it there. Conscious
that my servants stood amazed, I turned round to him
and said, derec, could you believe that, in my cold senses,
I fancied I saw a As I dre laid my
hand upon his breast with a sudden start, he trembled
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violently and said, oh Lord, yes, sir, a dead man.
Beginning now, I do not believe that this John Derrick,
my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years,
had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure
until I touched him. The change in him was so
startling when I touched him that I fully believe he
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derived his impression in some occult manner from me. At
that instant, I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and
I gave him a dram and was glad to take
one myself of what had preceded them. Night's phenomenon. I
told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I
was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before,
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except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression
when beckoning at the door with its expression when it
had stared up at me as I stood at my window,
I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion
it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and
that on the second occasion it had made sure of
being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night,
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though I felt a certainty difficult to explain that the
figure would not return at daylight. I fell into a
heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's
coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.
This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an
altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant.
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It was a summons to me to serve upon a
jury at the forthcoming sessions of the Central Criminal Court
at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned
on such a jury, as John Derrick well known. He
believed I am not certain at this hour, whether with
reason or otherwise, that that class of jurors were customarily
chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had
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at first refused to accept the summons. The man who
served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had
said that my attendance or non attendance was nothing to him.
There the summons was, and I should deal with it
at my own peril and not at his. For a
day or two I was undecided whether to respond to
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this call or to take no notice of it. I
was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or
attraction one way or other. Of that I am as
strictly sure as of every other statement that I may here. Ultimately,
I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life,
that I would go. Morning was a raw morning in
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the month of November. There was a dense brown fog
in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the
last degree oppressive. East of Temple Bar, I found the
passages and staircases of the court house flaringly lighted with gas,
and the court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until
I was conducted by officers into the old Court and
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saw its crowded state. I did not know that the
murderer was to be tried that day. I think that
until I was so helped into the old Court with
considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the
two courts sating my summons would take me. But this
must not be received as a positive assertion, for I
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am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point.
I took my seat in the place appropriated to jurors
in waiting, and I looked about the court as well
as I could through the clad of fog and breast
that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapor
hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows. And
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I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on a straw
tan that was littered in the street. Also the hum
of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle or
a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally a piered.
Soon afterwards, the judges, two in number, entered and took
their seats. The buzz in the court was awfully hushed.
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The direction was given to put the murderer to the bar.
He appeared there, and in that same instant I recognized
in him the first of the two men who had
gone down Piccadilly. If my name had been called, then
I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly.
But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel,
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and I was by that time able to say. Here.
Now observed as I stepped into the box, the prisoner,
who had been looking on attentive but with no sign
of concern, became violently agitated and beckoned to his attorney.
The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest that
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it occasioned the pause, during which the attorney, with his
hand upon the dock, whispered with his client and shook
his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman that
the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were at all hazards.
Challenged that man, but that as he would give no
reason for it, and admitted that he had not even
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known my name until he heard it called, and I
appeared it was not done. Both on the ground already
explained that I wished to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory
of that murderer, and also because a detailed account of
his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative.
I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the
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ten days and nights during which we the jury were
kept together, as directly on my own curious personal experience.
It is in deth and not in the murder, that
I seek to interest my reader. It is to that,
and not to a page of the Newgate calendar, that
I beg attention. I was chosen foremen of the jury.
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On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had
been taken for two hours, I heard the church clock
strike happening. To cast my eyes over my brother jurymen,
I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted
them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short,
I made them want too many. I touched the brother
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juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered
to him oblige me by counting. As he looked surprised
by the request, but turned his head and counted. Why,
says he suddenly, we are certain, but no, it's not possible.
No year twelve. According to my counting that day, we
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were always right in detail, but in the grows we
were always one too many. There was no appearance, no
figure to account for it, but I had now an
inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. The
jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept
in one large room on separate tables, and were constantly
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in the charge and under the eye of the officer's
sworn to hold us in safe keeping. I see no
reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He
was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and I was glad
to hear, much respected in the city. He had an
agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and the fine
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sonorous voice. His name was mister Harker. When we turned
into our twelve beds that night, mister Harker's bed was
drawn across the door. On the night of the second day,
not being disposed to lie down, and seeing mister Harker
sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him
and offered him a pinch of snuff. As mister Harker's
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hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a
pequliar shiver crossed him, and he said, who is this?
Following mister Harker's eyes and looking along the room, I
saw again the figure I expected the second the two
men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose and advanced
a few steps, then stopped and looked round at mister Harker.
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He was quite unconcerned, laughed and said in a pleasant way.
I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman
without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight,
making no revelation to mister Harker, but inviting him to
take a walk with me to the end of the room.
I watched what the figure did. It stood for a
few moments, with the bedside of each of my eleven
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brother Juriman closed to the pillow. It always went to
the right hand side of the bed, and always passed out,
crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from
the action of the head, merely to look down pensively
at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me
or of my bed, which was that nearest to mister Harker's.
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It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in
through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs.
Next morning, at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had
dreamed of the murdered man last night. Except myself and
mister Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second
man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man,
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so to speak, as if it had been worn into
my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place,
and in the manner for which I was not at
all prepared. On the fifth day of the trial, when
the cave for the prosecution was drawing to a close,
a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom
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upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in
a hiding place where the murderer had been seeing digging,
was put in evidence, having been identified by the witness
under examination. It was handed up to the bench and
then sanded down to be inspected by the jury. As
an officer in a black gown was making his way
with it across to me, the figure of the second
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man who had gone down Piccadilly, impiteously started from the crowd,
caught the miniature from the officer and gave it to
me with his own hands, at the same time saying
in a low and hollow tone. Before I saw the miniature,
which was in a locket, I was younger then, and
my face was not then drained of blood. It also
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came between me and the brother jurymen to whom I
would have given the miniature, and between him and the
brother jurymen, to whom he would have given it, and
so passed it on through the whole of n number
and back into my possession. Not one of them, however,
detected this at table, and generally, when we were shut
up together in mister Harker's custody, we had from the
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first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On
that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed,
and we having that side of the question in the
completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious.
Among our number was a Vestruman, the densest idiot I
have ever seen at large, who met the plainest evidence
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with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with
by two flabby parochial parasites. All the three impaneled from
a district so delivered over to fever that they ought
to have been upon their own trial for five hundred murders.
When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was
towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed,
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I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them,
beckoning to me on my going towards them and striking
into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning
of a separate series of appearances confined to that long
room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of
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my brother Juriaman laid their heads together, I saw the
head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison
of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and
irresistibly beckon to me. It will be borne in mind
that dawn to the production of the miniature. On the
fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the
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appearance in court. Three changes occurred now that we entered
on the case for the defense. Two of them I
will mention together. First, the figure was now in court continually,
and it never dare addressed himself to me, but always
to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance,
the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across.
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In the opening speech for the defense, it was suggested
that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At
that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the
dreadful condition referred to this it had concealed before, stood
at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe,
now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously
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suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a
wound having been self inflicted by either hand. For another instance,
a witness to character a woman deposed to the prisoner's
being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that
instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full
in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance
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with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third
change now to be added, impressed me strongly as the
most marked and striking of all. I do not theories
upon it, I accurately stated, and there leave it. Although
the appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed,
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its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by
some tapidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to
me as if it were prevented by laws to which
I was not amenable from fully revealing. Itself to others,
and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly and darkly
overshadow their minds. And when the leading counsel for the
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defense suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood
at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severe throat,
it is undeniable that the council faltered in his speech,
lost for a few seconds that spread of his ingenious discourse,
wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale.
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When the witness to character was confronted by the appearance,
her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its
pointed finger, and rested in great hesitation and trouble upon
the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the
eighth day of the trial, after the pause, which was
every day made early in the afternoon for a few
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minutes rest and refreshment, I came back into court with
the rest of the jury some little time before the
return of the judges. Standing up in the box and
looking about me, I thought the figure was not there,
until chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, a
sight bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman,
as if to assure itself whether the judges had resumed
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their seats or not. Immediately afterwards, that woman screamed, fainted,
and was carried out, so with the venerable, sagacious and
patient judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over,
and he settled himself on his papers to sum up,
the murdered man, entering by the judges's door, advanced to
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his lordship's desk and looked eagerly over his shoulder at
the pages of his notes which he was turning. A
change came over his Lordship's face, his hands stopped. The
peculiar shiver that I knew so well passed over him.
He faltered, excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments, I
am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air, and did not
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recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through
all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,
the same judges and others on the bench, the same
murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table,
the same tones of question and answer rising to the
roof of the court, the same scratching of the judge's pen,
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the same ushers going in and out, the same lights
kindled at the same hour when there had been any
natural light of day. The same foggy curtain outside the
great windows when it was foggy, the same brain pattering
and dripping when it was rainy. The same footmarks of
turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust.
The same key is locking and unlocking, the same heavy doors.
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Through all the wearisome monotony, which made me feel as
if I had been foreman of the jury for a
vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished covidly with Babylon.
The murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness
in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less
distinct than anybody else. I must not omit as a
matter of fact that I never once saw the appearance
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which I called by the name of the murdered man.
Look at the murderer again and again, I wondered, why
does he not? But he never did, nor did he
look at me. After the production of the miniature, until
the last closing minutes of the trial arrived, we retired
to consider not seven minutes before ten at night. The
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idiotic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so
much trouble that we twice returned into court to beg
to have certain extracts from the judge's notes re read.
Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages,
neither I believe had any one in the court. The
dunderheaded triumvirate, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for
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that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the
jury returned into court at ten minutes past twelve. The
murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the jury
box on the other side of the court. As I
took my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention.
He seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great gray veal,
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which he carried on his arm for the first time,
over his head and whold for him. As I gave
in our verdict guilty, the veal collapsed, All was gone,
and his place was empty. The murderer, being asked by
the judge according to usage, whither he had anything to
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say before sentence of death should be passed upon him,
indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers
of the following day as a few rumbling, incoherent and
half audible words in which he was understood to complain
that he had not had a fair trial because the
foreman of the jury was prepossessed against him. The remarkable
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declaration that he really made was this, my Lord, I
know I was a doomed man when the foreman of
my jury came into the box. My Lord, I know
he would never let me off, because before I was
taken he somehow got to my bedside in the night,
woke me and put a rope round my neck. And
of Section three and the end of three Ghost Stories.
(28:36):
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
Section three of three Ghost Stories. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings or in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Three
ghost Stories by Charles Dickens, Section three The Trial for Murder.
(00:25):
I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even
among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to importing
their own psychological experiences when those have been of a
strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they
could relate in such wise would find no parallel or
response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected
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or laughed at. A trustful traveler who should have seen
some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea serpent,
would have no fear of mentioning it. But the same traveler,
having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision,
so called dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate
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considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence
I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects
are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of
these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation.
The consequence is that the General's talk of experience in
this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect
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of being miserable imperfect. In what I am going to relate,
I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting
any theory whatever I know the history of the book
Center of Berlin. I have studied the case of the
wife of a late astronomer Royal, as related by Sir
David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of
(01:58):
a much more remarkable case of spectral illusion occurring within
my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state,
as to this last, that the sufferer or lady was
in no degree, however distant, related to me. I mistake
an assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of
a part of my own case, but only a part
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which would be wholly without foundation. It cannot be referred
to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I
ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I
ever had any at all similar experience, since it does
not signify how many years ago or how feel A
certain murder was committed in England which attracted great attention.
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We hear more than enough of murderers as the a
rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would
bury the memory of this particular brood if I could.
As his body was buried in Newgate Jail. I purposely
abstained from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality.
When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell, or
(03:05):
I ought rather to say, for it cannot be too
precise in my facts. It was nowhere publicly hinted that
any suspicion fell on the man who was afterwards brought
to trial. As no reference was at that time made
to him in the newspapers. It is obviously possible that
any description of him can at that time have been
given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact
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be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper containing the
account of that first discovery, I found it to be
deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I
read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had
been made in the bedroom, and when I laid down
the paper, I was aware of a flash rush flow.
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I do not know what to call it. No word
I can find is satisfactorily descriptive in which I seemed
to see that bedroom passing through my room like a
picture impossibly painted on the running river. Though almost instantaneous
in its passing, it was perfectly clear, so clear that
I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the
(04:16):
absence of the dead body from the bed. It was
in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation,
but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner
of Saint James Street. It was entirely new to me.
I was in my easy chair at the moment, and
the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver, which started
(04:38):
the chair from its position. But it is to be
noted that the chair ran easily on castors. I went
to one of the windows there are two in the room,
and the room is on the second floor, to refresh
my eyes with the moving objects. Down in Piccadilly, it
was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling
and cheerful. The wind was as I looked out, it
(05:02):
brought down from the park a quantity of fallen leaves,
which a gust took and whirled into a spiral pillar
as the piter fell and the leaves dispersed. I saw
two men on the opposite side of the way, going
from west to east. They were one behind the other.
The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The
(05:23):
second man followed him at a distance of some thirty
paces with his right hand menacingly raised. First the singularity
and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a
thoroughfare attracted my attention, and next the more remarkable circumstance
that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among
(05:44):
the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with
the action of walking on a pavement, and no single
creature that I could see gave them place, touched them,
or looked after them. In passing before my windows, they
both stared up at me. I saw their two faces
very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere,
(06:08):
not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in
in their face, except that the man who went first
had an unusually luring appearance, and that the face of
the man who followed him was the color of impure wax.
I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife
constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain
(06:31):
branch bank, and I wish that my duties as head
of a department were as light as they are popularly
supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn
when I stood in need of change. I was not ill,
but I was not well. My reader is to make
the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded,
(06:51):
having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life,
and being slightly dyspeptic. I am assured by my renowned
doctor that my old state of health at that time
justifies no stronger description. And I quote his own from
his written answer to my request for it. As the
circumstances of the murder gradually unreveling took stronger and stronger
(07:14):
possession of the public mind, I kept them away from
mind by knowing as little about them as was possible
in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew
that a verdict of wilful murder had been found against
the suspected murderer, and that he had been committed to
no gate for trial. I also know that his trial
had been postponed over one sessions of the Central criminal
(07:35):
Court on the ground of general prejudice and want of
time for the preparation of the defense. I may further
have known, but I believe I did not when or
about when the sessions to which his trial stood postponed
would come on. My sitting room, bedroom and dressing room
are all on one floor. With the last. There is
(07:57):
no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a
door in it once communicating with the staircase. But a
part of the fitting of my bath has been, and
had then been for some years fixed across it. At
the same period, and as a part of the same arrangement,
the door had been nailed up and canvassed over. I
(08:18):
was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some
directions to my servant before he went to bed. My
face was towards the only available door of communication with
the dressing room, and it was closed. My servant's back
was towards that door while I was speaking to him.
My side opened, and a man look in, who very
earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the
(08:41):
man who had gone second at the two along Piccadilly,
and whose face was of the color of impure wax.
The figure having beckoned, drew back and closed the door.
With no longer pause than was made by my crossing
the bedroom. I opened the dressing room door and looked in.
I had a lighted candle already in my hand. I
(09:04):
felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the
dressing room, and I did not see it there. Conscious
that my servants stood amazed, I turned round to him
and said, derec, could you believe that, in my cold senses,
I fancied I saw a As I dre laid my
hand upon his breast with a sudden start, he trembled
(09:25):
violently and said, oh Lord, yes, sir, a dead man.
Beginning now, I do not believe that this John Derrick,
my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years,
had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure
until I touched him. The change in him was so
startling when I touched him that I fully believe he
(09:46):
derived his impression in some occult manner from me. At
that instant, I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and
I gave him a dram and was glad to take
one myself of what had preceded them. Night's phenomenon. I
told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I
was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before,
(10:08):
except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression
when beckoning at the door with its expression when it
had stared up at me as I stood at my window,
I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion
it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and
that on the second occasion it had made sure of
being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night,
(10:33):
though I felt a certainty difficult to explain that the
figure would not return at daylight. I fell into a
heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's
coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.
This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an
altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant.
(10:54):
It was a summons to me to serve upon a
jury at the forthcoming sessions of the Central Criminal Court
at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned
on such a jury, as John Derrick well known. He
believed I am not certain at this hour, whether with
reason or otherwise, that that class of jurors were customarily
chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had
(11:16):
at first refused to accept the summons. The man who
served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had
said that my attendance or non attendance was nothing to him.
There the summons was, and I should deal with it
at my own peril and not at his. For a
day or two I was undecided whether to respond to
(11:38):
this call or to take no notice of it. I
was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or
attraction one way or other. Of that I am as
strictly sure as of every other statement that I may here. Ultimately,
I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life,
that I would go. Morning was a raw morning in
(12:01):
the month of November. There was a dense brown fog
in Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the
last degree oppressive. East of Temple Bar, I found the
passages and staircases of the court house flaringly lighted with gas,
and the court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until
I was conducted by officers into the old Court and
(12:24):
saw its crowded state. I did not know that the
murderer was to be tried that day. I think that
until I was so helped into the old Court with
considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the
two courts sating my summons would take me. But this
must not be received as a positive assertion, for I
(12:44):
am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point.
I took my seat in the place appropriated to jurors
in waiting, and I looked about the court as well
as I could through the clad of fog and breast
that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapor
hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows. And
(13:05):
I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on a straw
tan that was littered in the street. Also the hum
of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle or
a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally a piered.
Soon afterwards, the judges, two in number, entered and took
their seats. The buzz in the court was awfully hushed.
(13:28):
The direction was given to put the murderer to the bar.
He appeared there, and in that same instant I recognized
in him the first of the two men who had
gone down Piccadilly. If my name had been called, then
I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly.
But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel,
(13:50):
and I was by that time able to say. Here.
Now observed as I stepped into the box, the prisoner,
who had been looking on attentive but with no sign
of concern, became violently agitated and beckoned to his attorney.
The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest that
(14:10):
it occasioned the pause, during which the attorney, with his
hand upon the dock, whispered with his client and shook
his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman that
the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were at all hazards.
Challenged that man, but that as he would give no
reason for it, and admitted that he had not even
(14:32):
known my name until he heard it called, and I
appeared it was not done. Both on the ground already
explained that I wished to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory
of that murderer, and also because a detailed account of
his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative.
I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the
(14:54):
ten days and nights during which we the jury were
kept together, as directly on my own curious personal experience.
It is in deth and not in the murder, that
I seek to interest my reader. It is to that,
and not to a page of the Newgate calendar, that
I beg attention. I was chosen foremen of the jury.
(15:18):
On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had
been taken for two hours, I heard the church clock
strike happening. To cast my eyes over my brother jurymen,
I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted
them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short,
I made them want too many. I touched the brother
(15:41):
juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered
to him oblige me by counting. As he looked surprised
by the request, but turned his head and counted. Why,
says he suddenly, we are certain, but no, it's not possible.
No year twelve. According to my counting that day, we
(16:04):
were always right in detail, but in the grows we
were always one too many. There was no appearance, no
figure to account for it, but I had now an
inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. The
jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept
in one large room on separate tables, and were constantly
(16:27):
in the charge and under the eye of the officer's
sworn to hold us in safe keeping. I see no
reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He
was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and I was glad
to hear, much respected in the city. He had an
agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and the fine
(16:50):
sonorous voice. His name was mister Harker. When we turned
into our twelve beds that night, mister Harker's bed was
drawn across the door. On the night of the second day,
not being disposed to lie down, and seeing mister Harker
sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him
and offered him a pinch of snuff. As mister Harker's
(17:13):
hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a
pequliar shiver crossed him, and he said, who is this?
Following mister Harker's eyes and looking along the room, I
saw again the figure I expected the second the two
men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose and advanced
a few steps, then stopped and looked round at mister Harker.
(17:37):
He was quite unconcerned, laughed and said in a pleasant way.
I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman
without a bed. But I see it is the moonlight,
making no revelation to mister Harker, but inviting him to
take a walk with me to the end of the room.
I watched what the figure did. It stood for a
few moments, with the bedside of each of my eleven
(17:59):
brother Juriman closed to the pillow. It always went to
the right hand side of the bed, and always passed out,
crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from
the action of the head, merely to look down pensively
at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me
or of my bed, which was that nearest to mister Harker's.
(18:22):
It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in
through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs.
Next morning, at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had
dreamed of the murdered man last night. Except myself and
mister Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second
man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man,
(18:44):
so to speak, as if it had been worn into
my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place,
and in the manner for which I was not at
all prepared. On the fifth day of the trial, when
the cave for the prosecution was drawing to a close,
a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom
(19:06):
upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in
a hiding place where the murderer had been seeing digging,
was put in evidence, having been identified by the witness
under examination. It was handed up to the bench and
then sanded down to be inspected by the jury. As
an officer in a black gown was making his way
with it across to me, the figure of the second
(19:28):
man who had gone down Piccadilly, impiteously started from the crowd,
caught the miniature from the officer and gave it to
me with his own hands, at the same time saying
in a low and hollow tone. Before I saw the miniature,
which was in a locket, I was younger then, and
my face was not then drained of blood. It also
(19:50):
came between me and the brother jurymen to whom I
would have given the miniature, and between him and the
brother jurymen, to whom he would have given it, and
so passed it on through the whole of n number
and back into my possession. Not one of them, however,
detected this at table, and generally, when we were shut
up together in mister Harker's custody, we had from the
(20:13):
first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On
that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed,
and we having that side of the question in the
completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious.
Among our number was a Vestruman, the densest idiot I
have ever seen at large, who met the plainest evidence
(20:35):
with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with
by two flabby parochial parasites. All the three impaneled from
a district so delivered over to fever that they ought
to have been upon their own trial for five hundred murders.
When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was
towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed,
(20:59):
I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them,
beckoning to me on my going towards them and striking
into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning
of a separate series of appearances confined to that long
room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of
(21:21):
my brother Juriaman laid their heads together, I saw the
head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison
of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and
irresistibly beckon to me. It will be borne in mind
that dawn to the production of the miniature. On the
fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the
(21:42):
appearance in court. Three changes occurred now that we entered
on the case for the defense. Two of them I
will mention together. First, the figure was now in court continually,
and it never dare addressed himself to me, but always
to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance,
the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across.
(22:05):
In the opening speech for the defense, it was suggested
that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At
that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the
dreadful condition referred to this it had concealed before, stood
at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe,
now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously
(22:27):
suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a
wound having been self inflicted by either hand. For another instance,
a witness to character a woman deposed to the prisoner's
being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that
instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full
in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance
(22:49):
with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third
change now to be added, impressed me strongly as the
most marked and striking of all. I do not theories
upon it, I accurately stated, and there leave it. Although
the appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed,
(23:09):
its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by
some tapidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to
me as if it were prevented by laws to which
I was not amenable from fully revealing. Itself to others,
and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly and darkly
overshadow their minds. And when the leading counsel for the
(23:31):
defense suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood
at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severe throat,
it is undeniable that the council faltered in his speech,
lost for a few seconds that spread of his ingenious discourse,
wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale.
(23:52):
When the witness to character was confronted by the appearance,
her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its
pointed finger, and rested in great hesitation and trouble upon
the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the
eighth day of the trial, after the pause, which was
every day made early in the afternoon for a few
(24:12):
minutes rest and refreshment, I came back into court with
the rest of the jury some little time before the
return of the judges. Standing up in the box and
looking about me, I thought the figure was not there,
until chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, a
sight bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman,
as if to assure itself whether the judges had resumed
(24:34):
their seats or not. Immediately afterwards, that woman screamed, fainted,
and was carried out, so with the venerable, sagacious and
patient judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over,
and he settled himself on his papers to sum up,
the murdered man, entering by the judges's door, advanced to
(24:54):
his lordship's desk and looked eagerly over his shoulder at
the pages of his notes which he was turning. A
change came over his Lordship's face, his hands stopped. The
peculiar shiver that I knew so well passed over him.
He faltered, excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments, I
am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air, and did not
(25:18):
recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through
all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,
the same judges and others on the bench, the same
murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table,
the same tones of question and answer rising to the
roof of the court, the same scratching of the judge's pen,
(25:39):
the same ushers going in and out, the same lights
kindled at the same hour when there had been any
natural light of day. The same foggy curtain outside the
great windows when it was foggy, the same brain pattering
and dripping when it was rainy. The same footmarks of
turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust.
The same key is locking and unlocking, the same heavy doors.
(26:01):
Through all the wearisome monotony, which made me feel as
if I had been foreman of the jury for a
vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished covidly with Babylon.
The murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness
in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less
distinct than anybody else. I must not omit as a
matter of fact that I never once saw the appearance
(26:24):
which I called by the name of the murdered man.
Look at the murderer again and again, I wondered, why
does he not? But he never did, nor did he
look at me. After the production of the miniature, until
the last closing minutes of the trial arrived, we retired
to consider not seven minutes before ten at night. The
(26:46):
idiotic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so
much trouble that we twice returned into court to beg
to have certain extracts from the judge's notes re read.
Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages,
neither I believe had any one in the court. The
dunderheaded triumvirate, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for
(27:08):
that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the
jury returned into court at ten minutes past twelve. The
murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the jury
box on the other side of the court. As I
took my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention.
He seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great gray veal,
(27:31):
which he carried on his arm for the first time,
over his head and whold for him. As I gave
in our verdict guilty, the veal collapsed, All was gone,
and his place was empty. The murderer, being asked by
the judge according to usage, whither he had anything to
(27:51):
say before sentence of death should be passed upon him,
indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers
of the following day as a few rumbling, incoherent and
half audible words in which he was understood to complain
that he had not had a fair trial because the
foreman of the jury was prepossessed against him. The remarkable
(28:12):
declaration that he really made was this, my Lord, I
know I was a doomed man when the foreman of
my jury came into the box. My Lord, I know
he would never let me off, because before I was
taken he somehow got to my bedside in the night,
woke me and put a rope round my neck. And
of Section three and the end of three Ghost Stories.
(28:36):
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