Frank had come back from his bath before dinner that night in his usual costume of shirt and trousers only.  He had not dressed, and during dinner, so Darcy remembered, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to above the elbow.  Later, as they sat and talked after dinner on the close sultriness of the evening, he had unbuttoned the front of his shirt to let what little breath of wind there was play on his skin.  The sleeves were rolled up now, the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined, till they saw that the marks were pointed prints, as if caused by the hoofs of some monstrous goat that had leaped and stamped upon him.

THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY[I]

BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

“Yes,” she said, from her seat in the dark corner, “I’ll tell you an experience if you care to listen.  And, what’s more, I’ll tell it briefly, without trimmings—­I mean without unessentials.  That’s a thing story-tellers never do, you know,” she laughed.  “They drag in all the unessentials and leave their listeners to disentangle; but I’ll give you just the essentials, and you can make of it what you please.  But on one condition:  that at the end you ask no questions, because I can’t explain it and have no wish to.”

We agreed.  We were all serious.  After listening to a dozen prolix stories from people who merely wished to “talk” but had nothing to tell, we wanted “essentials.”

“In those days,” she began, feeling from the quality of our silence that we were with her, “in those days I was interested in psychic things, and had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London.  It was a cheap and dingy lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished.  I had already made a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon, and the keys from the caretaker, who lived next door, were in my pocket.  The story was a good one—­satisfied me, at any rate, that it was worth investigating; and I won’t weary you with details as to the woman’s murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to why the place was alive.  Enough that it was.

“I was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man, whom I took to be the talkative old caretaker, waiting for me on the steps when I went in at 11 P.M., for I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be there alone for the night.

“‘I wished to show you the room,’ he mumbled, and of course I couldn’t exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and table.

“‘Come in, then, and let’s be quick,’ I said.