Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“When I was called in the morning I sent a message to the lady of the house to say that I should not go to the University Chapel to say mass that morning, and should be present at the usual family breakfast at nine.
“On entering the dining room my hostess very kindly inquired after my health, naturally surmising that I had omitted mass from illness, or at least want of rest and consequent indisposition. I merely answered that I had not slept well, and that there was something weighing heavily upon my mind which obliged me to return at once to Woolwich.
“After the usual regrets and leave takings I started by the midday boat for England. As the first date mentioned by my visitors gave me time I traveled by easy stages, and spent more than two days on the road, although I could not remain in Dublin after I had received what appeared to me then, and appears to me still, as a solemn warning.
“On my arrival at Woolwich, as may be easily imagined, my brother clergy were very puzzled at my sudden and unlooked for return. They concluded that I had lost my reckoning, thinking that I had to resume my duties a week earlier than I was expected to do.
“The other assistant priest was waiting for my return to start in his vacation — and he did so the very evening of my return.
“Scarcely, however, had he left town when the first of my visitors sent in a request for me to go at once to attend him.
“You may, perhaps, imagine my feelings at that moment. I am sure you cannot realize them as I do even now, after the lapse of so many years.
“Well, I lost no time. I had, in truth, been prepared, except for hat and umbrella, from the first hour after my return. I went to consult the books in which all the sick calls were entered and to speak to our aged, respected sacristan who kept them. He remarked at once:
“ ‘You do not know this man, father. His children come to our school, but he is, or has always been, considered as a Protestant.’
“Expressing my surprise, less at the fact than at his statement, I hurried to the bedside of the sufferer. After the first words of introduction were over, he said:
“ ‘I sent for you father, on Friday morning early and they told me that you were away from home, but that you were expected back in a few days, and I said I would wait.’
Last Rites for the Dying
“I found the sick man had been stricken down by inflammation of the lungs, and that the doctor gave no hope of his recovery, yet that he would probably linger some days. I applied myself very earnestly indeed to prepare the poor man for death. Again the next day, and every day until he departed this life did I visit him and spent not minutes, but hours by his bedside.
“A few days after the first summons came the second. The man had previously been a stranger to me, but I recognized him by his name and appearance.
“As I sat by his bedside he told me, as the former had already done, that he had sent for me, had been told that I was absent, and had declared that he would wait for me. Thus far their cases were alike.
“In each case there was a great wrong to be undone, a conscience to be set right that had erred, and erred deeply. And not merely that — it is probable, from the circumstances of their lives, that it was necessary that their spiritual adviser should have been solemnly warned.
“They made their peace with God, and I have seldom assisted at a deathbed and felt greater consolation than I did in each and both of these.
“Even now, after the lapse of many years, I cannot help feeling that I received a very solemn warning in Dublin, and am not far wrong in calling it The Shadow of Death.—T. O. Fleming.”
A Notorious House
Is it possible that, even in this life, the spirit is able to dissociate itself from the body and go to the place where the thoughts of the mind are directed?
It is reported in history that Sir Robert Peel and his brother both saw Lord Byron in London in 1810, at a time when he was, in fact, lying dangerously ill at Patras. During the same fever Byron also appeared to others, and was even seen to write his name among the inquirers after the king’s health.
Even more remarkable, in a way, were the experiences of Samuel Wilberforce, the noted Bishop of Winchester, whose name is still familiar to the older people of this generation. They shall be related in another article, together with the story of the Seaforth curse and its dread workings down through the centuries. But the remainder of the cases given in this article shall be concerning places in this country.
One of them was the old Seward mansion in Washington, District of Columbia, over which a malignant spirit seemed to hover like an evil blight. The account which follows is quoted from a clipping of the New York Sun, dated February 3, 1890. The facts which it mentions are public history and can easily be verified.
“The house stands on Lafayette Square. It was built before the Civil War, and one of its earliest occupants was Secretary Spencer. Upon his family the evil spirits of the house first visited their fate.
“The secretary’s son was a lieutenant in the navy, and while his father lived in the house, the son was hanged to the yardarm of his ship for his alleged participation in a mutiny.
“Then the Washington Club had the place during the Buchanan administration. The men about town belonged to the club, and Philip Barton Key, the reckless, adventurous District Attorney of the District of Columbia, was one of the members.
“There had long been talk connecting him with the handsome wife of General Sickles, then a Representative in Congress. The Sickles house was on Lafayette Square also, and one Sunday morning, when the sun was shining, a handkerchief was seen fluttering from one of the windows in the house of General Sickles.
“Young Key answered it, and then stepped buoyantly up the square. Sickles, who had seen the signals, caught him in front of the house, and in a moment Key lay on the walk wounded to death. It is only a few years since the tree against which he fell was cut down.
“Secretary Seward next occupied the place. On April 14, 1865, while he lay sick in bed, a man came to the house saying that he had been ordered to bring some medicine and deliver it in person to Mr. Seward.
Leased by Mr. Blaine
“This was denied him. But the stranger knocked down Frederick W. Seward and a servant, rushed into the secretary’s room, and tried to kill him with a dagger. He was captured, but he escaped and rode off on his horse, which had been standing in the street.
“He was identified as Lewis Payne, and after a time he was caught and put to death. The War Department, fearing that other attempts might be made to assassinate Mr. Seward, ordered that a sentry patrol before the house night and day. This was done, and was continued for four years, even though for a long part of that time the Sewards were not there.
“Next, the mansion was taken by Secretary Belknap. He had not been there long before his wife died.
“That ended the occupancy of the house as a residence. The government rented it and used it for the Commissary General’s office. When the Commissary General’s staff was moved to the new building of the War Department the house was left vacant.
“No one dared to face the evil fates by taking it until it was leased by Mr. Blaine — Secretary of State James G. Blaine.
“He tore down the partitions that made rooms where the Seward assassination had occurred, and with a lavish spending of money transformed the musty old office apartments, and made them beautiful with the furnishings of a rich man’s home.