The Stranger Left No Card

The Stranger Left No Card is most certainly not a ghost story, much more a tale of unease - the classic "mysterious stranger comes to town". But this harmless buffoon has a sinister purpose...

Originally made in 1952, the story was later adapted for the series "Tales of the Unexpected".

The Mysterious Mystery of The Lang House Ghost

Here's a tale from Magic Torch's American Correspondent, Mr Ray Mitchell, last seen investigating Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.

This story features two historical characters, Mister James John L_____ of Greenock (Erstwhile Ghost Hunter), and his Hardy Compatriot, Andrew ‘Sandy’ Mc_______. Both are perhaps more famous for their connection to the infamous fake "ghost photo" of Auld Dunrod.

1: I decide on my mission

Many have spoke ill of me, all the years of my life. I have been referred to behind cupped hands and raised newspapers as indolent and slothful; these words do not hurt me. It has been said that I an content to rest my laurels here at M_____ House, letting my poor late father’s money and interests work for me, never once paying a visit to the factories and retailers which keep me in the manner which I have not earned; the haughty looks bother me not. I see the way part before me wherever I go, when all I wish is to mix with the people of this town, walking where they walk. Even so, I remain unperturbed, not because I am the ignorant fop I am proclaimed to be, but because I have been witness over these past few days to sights which have blinded me to all else in my life. Sights which have me doubting everything but the evidence of my two good eyes.

There. That’s gotten all of the soul-searching mumbo-jumbo out of the way; perhaps, now, I can begin to tell you of the events which brought me to the Lang House, and what I saw there.

I had heard of the house, of course; a remarkable, imposing, turreted structure clearly visible from the road running to the Daff Glen, it tends to stand out somewhat from the surrounding trees. Still, never would I have given it a second thought, had I not begun to hear whispering and murmurings of ghostly shenanigans within the walls of the great house.

Those of you who have chanced to read my earlier forays into the world of the othernormal - The Strange Case of the Man With No Plan in Life in particular was considered for publication in no less a periodical than The Strand Magazine - will be well aware of my long-standing fascination with spookly matters and such. As you can imagine, my nose was veritably twitching at the possibilities.

I ventured an enquiry or three in the right avenues and was rewarded with very little; strangely enough, very few people seem to have any firsthand knowledge of who has ever dwelled in the great house, let alone any tragedy which may have befallen them to cause their souls to wander there still. I finally got a little closer to the truth when I ran into Jock ‘Jock’ Scott, sometime resident of the _____ ______ Public Bar, propping up the wood in said establishment.

“Ghostses it is,” intoned Jock in plummy tones, his nose almost in his ale. He was three sheets to the wind by this time, which was to be expected; after all, it was past three in the afternoon. “Ghostses, roamin’ aw ower the blummin’ place. Goin like this. Wooooooo.”

“Yes, Jock, I know that,” said I, patiently. I had a great deal of time for Jock; he had been of great help to myself and Sandy in The Dastardly Case of the French Sailors Haunting the Cemetery (I’ve never liked that title. Still; too late now), keeping a midnight watch with us three nights running until we saw the ghastly apparitions, weaving out of the fog, stinking of the nether world and singing ‘La Marseillaise’ in close harmony. Dreadful. Dreadful business. “What I need to know, Jock my dear fellow, is who they are. Why are they haunting the Lang House? What keeps them there?”

At this, he fixed his one good eye on me - the other seemed to be fixed on his own right ear - and drew in breath in a long wheezing inward cough which quite worried me.

“Terrible thing. Poor wee lassie. Lovely she wis. Lovely. Died. Died she did. Broken herted. There wis a fella, awa’ fightin’ in the war. And there wis anither fella. Don’t know who he wis. There wis love, an’ fightin’, and she died. Terrible thing.”

This momentous speech over, Jock focused the steady half of his vision on his glass, and I would get no more sense out of him on this night.

Still; I had a little information in hand. I had embarked on ghost hunts with far less. I would speak to a ghost, or I would die in the attempt.

Well. Bit drastic, there, but you understand.


2: I recruit my partner in ghost-hunting

Sandy seemed unenthusiastic for a yomp into the world of the supernatural, which surprised me, considering his standing as my hale and hearty compatriot on countless (well, 9) earlier adventures.

Granted, it was 1:23 in the hours of the morning and, also granted, I had turned up unannounced at his door in stout walking boots and carrying a bulky pack of essentials ( I had left my blunderbuss at home only after great deliberation). Also, regrettably, Sandy was still recovering from a recently broken arm. Even so, though, I feel I deserved a warmer reception than my old friend gave me.

“Whit? Whit’s your game, Jimmy? D’ye know whit time it is? In the name o’ God, Jimmy. Whit?”

Unfazed by this drowsy outburst, I pressed on with the case at hand, explaining that time was of the essence; no self-respecting spectre would walk the halls of his (her) former home by the hours of daylight.

“Well, whit’s wrang wi’ tomorra night, ya numpty-heid?” Sandy was beginning to bog me down with his belligerence, he really was.

“Tomorrow night? Tomorrow night? Can this be the Andrew ‘Sandy’ Mc_____ I know so well? I remember the time when you’d have jumped at the chance to aid me in the study of a ghostly apparition! Jumped, I say!”

“Aye. Well. That’s as may be. Ye might have noticed ma arm’s broke. Ye might also have noticed this wee note on ma arm-cast here.” He pointed to a patch of plaster, but I confess in the dim lamplight I was unable to see it. I leaned forward, squinting. “What does it say?”

“YOUR FAULT!” Sandy’s cry caused me to step back, blinking in mute disbelief. “Your fault, ya puddin’! ‘Gi’es a hand at the cinema, Sandy, this ghost’s a right bugger tae catch.’ ‘Aye, nae bother, Jimmy - aw, no, he’s awa’ and broke ma arm.”

“Sandy, now, I have time and again apologised for the events at the culmination of The Mystery of the Cinema Ghost. I didn’t expect the ghost to become corporeal.”

Sandy raised his bushy eyebrows at this. “Aye, Jimmy, funny enough, that’s jist whit Ah thought when the big bugger wis breakin’ ma arm. ‘Funny that, Ah didnae expect him tae become corporeal.’”

There was a silence, during which we stole furtive awkward glances at each other in the dim light.

I cannot remember who began to laugh first. Still, in the next few moments, we were guffawing loudly, tears rolling down my cheeks, Sandy roaring with gales of laughter, temporarily unmindful of his injury, and we were fast friends again. The cackling dried, tailed off, and Sandy looked out at me over his reading glasses.

“Will ye help me lace up ma walkin’ boots?”

Forty-five minutes later (helping a man who is basically one-armed to dress is not pleasant; I do not urge you to try it at any time) we were away, and I hoisted the pack up onto my back, holding the door for Sandy to squeeze past me. He caught sight of the grappling hooks poking from the bag’s mouth, and raised his eyebrows in a silent question in my direction.

“In case we have to go in over the roof, my dear chap.”

Sandy shook his sizeable head. “In the name o’ God,” he said in a murmur.


3: The mission proper

In the end, the grapples were not necessary; the house, abandoned now for a number of years I was not aware of, had been left unmanned, unwatched, unlocked. Our spirits (no pun intended) truly heartened by this turn of events, even Sandy seemed bolstered and keen for action as we made our way through the midnight rooms and shadow-lengthened corridors, a lantern giving us low illumination, for even an amateur ghost-grabber like myself knows that wandering spirits hate strong light.

For that reason, both of us are surprised when we see the light.

A pinpoint at first, moving slowly along the floor of the grand dining room, Sandy and I dutifully if nervously follow it as it grows; bright as a lantern; bright as summer daylight in a darkened room; finally growing too bright for our eyes, swelling in size, a ball of purest white six feet across.

“Jimmy, Ah’m feelin’ thon feelin’ Ah got jist before Ah got ma arm broke.”

“Take heart, old friend. I feel no malice from this entity. It seems benign.”

“Och, well, that’s awright then. Batter on.” Sandy’s sarcasm, I feel, often brings a touch of humour to our adventures. I sometimes lead him to believe that this is the reason I bring him along on my adventures; lucky for us that we both know better.

My lantern flickers and dies, but no matter; the room is as bright as day now, glowing from within because of this heavenly ball of light which even now has shapes, grey and dancing, flickering within it. The very air seems changed; the hairs on my body stand on end in quite unattractive fashion, and I fear to look at Sandy for fear of what this phenomenon has done to his splendid moustache.

Despite Sandy’s exhortations to “Keep back, ya middenheid!” I slowly make my way forward toward the angelic luminosity, keeping my empty hands in front of me, supplicating myself to this shade, whoever it may once have been.

With a sound like a hundred people drawing in breath at once, the grey shapes suddenly coalesce, forming into the shape of - a girl.

Here it is my turn to draw in sharp breath, for what a girl! Chimneyfire hair streaming over her shoulders, large soulful eyes - and soft, full lips that could draw stories from a mute. My mission is temporarily forgotten as this vision in plain silk blouse and dark velvet skirt faces me, and smiles.

“She better no brek ma ither arm, Jimmy,” comes to me from a distance. Sandy’s voice is lost to me; it seems as though this maiden’s ball of light swells to encompass me, drawing me closer to her. Her eyes are kind, and I can see only her as her hand reaches, reaches, finger pointing, and touches the back of my hand. Just once.

Duncan where is my Duncan gone in the war and William where is my William gone by someone’s hand though not mine I swear not mine they call me the worst of names harlot strumpet worse worse worse and I cry though what good does it they seek to hunt me out I am sure they think poor William was my fault he was only a good soul who showed a lonely girl some kindness I would never have betrayed my Duncan he was my heart and my treasure but there was someone else I could not see a face there was a flash and a cry and William lay dead and all I could do was cradle his kind head in my hands as the life leaked out of him and oh, me, oh, me, what will happen now

Duncan where is my Duncan lost in the war and William where is my William gone by someone’s hand though not mine both my fine men dead now dead now and I will find them I have spent every night since that night I gave up and used my own two good hands to join them in Heaven but I cannot find them where are they tell me where my Duncan my William my two fine men

This tirade, soft and entreating, is in my head in an instant, her nightly prayer since she took her own life, and there are tears rolling down my cheeks as I understand her.

The procedure for ‘exorcising’ a spirit, for sending it on its way to the other side, is long, and drawn out, and sometimes very unpleasant for all concerned.

The smile she gives me when she fades into darkness, the sigh she expounds as she gives herself over, is more than enough reward.

The dawn has come an hour hence when we make our weary way out of the stout doors of the Lang House. I clap Sandy, stout fellow that he is, on the shoulder, and thank him once again for his help in a thankless task. In the early light I can see tears brimming in his eyes.

“Will......will she be awright noo, Jimmy? Aye?”

I smile, my grip on Sandy’s shoulder tightening for a moment, and my voice, too, is thick with emotion.

“She will, Sandy, old man. I know it.”

We walk down the gravel path, taking our time, enjoying what will be another lovely day.

There you have it; what I am reasonably sure will be my last case. I grow too old to be chasing after spooks and spectres in all hours of the night, sending them on their way with a flea in their ear, or a blessing.

Then again, you never know what kind of trouble will seek out an amateur ghost hunter. Perhaps Mister James John L_____ of Greenock (Erstwhile Ghost Hunter), and his Hardy Compatriot, Andrew ‘Sandy’ Mc_______ will return in another adventure which is both breathtaking and enlightening.

Sandy’s arm is healing up nicely, by the way.

The Striding Place

This evening, a chilling gothic tale from Gertrude Atherton

Weigall, continental and detached, tired early of grouse shooting. To stand propped against a sod fence while his host's workmen routed up the birds with long poles and drove them towards the waiting guns, made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this West Riding of Yorkshire in hot pursuit of game worth the killing. But when in England in August he always accepted whatever proffered for the season, and invited his host to shoot pheasants on his estates in the South. The amusements of life, he argued, should be accepted with the same philosophy as its ills.

It had been a bad day. A heavy rain had made the moor so spongy that it fairly sprang beneath the feet. Whether or not the grouse had haunts of their own, wherein they were immune from rheumatism, the bag had been small. The women, too, were an unusually dull lot, with the exception of a new-minded dŽbutante who bothered Weigall at dinner by demanding the verbal restoration of the vague paintings on the vaulted roof above them.

But it was no one of these things that sat on Weigall's mind as, when the other men went up to bed, he let himself out of the castle and sauntered down to the river. His intimate friend, the companion of his boyhood, the chum of his college days, his fellow-traveller in many lands, the man for whom he possessed stronger affection than for all men, had mysteriously disappeared two days ago, and his track might have sprung to the upper air for all trace he had left behind him. He had been a guest on the adjoining estate during the past week, shooting with the fervor of the true sportsman, making love in the intervals to Adeline Cavan, and apparently in the best of spirits. As far as was known there was nothing to lower his mental mercury, for his rent-roll was a large one, Miss Cavan blushed whenever he looked at her, and, being one of the best shots in England, he was never happier than in August. The suicide theory was preposterous, all agreed, and there was as little reason to believe him murdered. Nevertheless, he had walked out of March Abbey two nights ago without hat or overcoat, and had not been seen since.

The country was being patrolled night and day. A hundred keepers and workmen were beating the woods and poking the bogs on the moors, but as yet not so much as a handkerchief had been found.

Weigall did not believe for a moment that Wyatt Gifford was dead, and although it was impossible not to be affected by the general uneasiness, he was disposed to be more angry than frightened. At Cambridge Gifford had been an incorrigible practical joker, and by no means had outgrown the habit; it would be like him to cut across the country in his evening clothes, board a cattle-train, and amuse himself touching up the picture of the sensation in West Riding.

However, Weigall's affection for his friend was too deep to companion with tranquillity in the present state of doubt, and, instead of going to bed early with the other men, he determined to walk until ready for sleep. He went down to the river and followed the path through the woods. There was no moon, but the stars sprinkled their cold light upon the pretty belt of water flowing placidly past wood and ruin, between green masses of overhanging rocks or sloping banks tangled with tree and shrub, leaping occasionally over stones with the harsh notes of an angry scold, to recover its equanimity the moment the way was clear again.

It was very dark in the depths where Weigall trod. He smiled as he recalled a remark of Gifford's: "An English wood is like a good many other things in life-- very promising at a distance, but a hollow mockery when you get within. You see daylight on both sides, and the sun freckles the very bracken. Our woods need the night to make them seem what they ought to be--what they once were, before our ancestors' descendants demanded so much more money, in these so much more various days."

Weigall strolled along, smoking, and thinking of his friend, his pranks--many of which had done more credit to his imagination than this--and recalling conversations that had lasted the night through. Just before the end of the London season they had walked the streets one hot night after a party, discussing the various theories of the soul's destiny. That afternoon they had met at the coffin of a college friend whose mind had been a blank for the past three years. Some months previously they had called at the asylum to see him. His expression had been senile, his face imprinted with the record of debauchery. In death the face was placid, intelligent, without ignoble lineation--the face of the man they had known at college. Weigall and Gifford had no time to comment there, and the afternoon and evening were full; but, coming forth from the house of festivity together, they had reverted almost at once to the topic.

"I cherish the theory," Gifford had said, "that the soul sometimes lingers in the body after death. During madness, of course, it is an impotent prisoner, albeit a conscious one. Fancy its agony, and its horror! What more natural than that, when the life-spark goes out, the tortured soul should take possession of the vacant skull and triumph once more for a few hours while old friends look their last? It has had time to repent while compelled to crouch and behold the result of its work, and it has shrived itself into a state of comparative purity. If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might obviate for my poor old comrade the tragic impersonality of death. And I should like to see justice done to it, as it were--to see it lowered among its ancestors with the ceremony and solemnity that are its due. I am afraid that if I dissevered myself too quickly, I should yield to curiosity and hasten to investigate the mysteries of space."

"You believe in the soul as an independent entity, then--that it and the vital principle are not one and the same?"

"Absolutely. The body and soul are twins, life comrades--sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, but always loyal in the last instance. Some day, when I am tired of the world, I shall go to India and become a mahatma, solely for the pleasure of receiving proof during life of this independent relationship."

"Suppose you were not sealed up properly, and returned after one of your astral flights to find your earthly part unfit for habitation? It is an experiment I don't think I should care to try, unless even juggling with soul and flesh had palled."

"That would not be an uninteresting predicament. I should rather enjoy experimenting with broken machinery."

The high wild roar of water smote suddenly upon Weigall's ear and checked his memories. He left the wood and walked out on the huge slippery stones which nearly close the River Wharfe at this point, and watched the waters boil down into the narrow pass with their furious untiring energy. The black quiet of the woods rose high on either side. The stars seemed colder and whiter just above. On either hand the perspective of the river might have run into a rayless cavern. There was no lonelier spot in England, nor one which had the right to claim so many ghosts, if ghosts there were.

Weigall was not a coward, but he recalled uncomfortably the tales of those that had been done to death in the Strid.1 Wordsworth's Boy of Egremond had been disposed of by the practical Whitaker; but countless others, more venturesome than wise, had gone down into that narrow boiling course, never to appear in the still pool a few yards beyond. Below the great rocks which form the walls of the Strid was believed to be a natural vault, on to whose shelves the dead were drawn. The spot had an ugly fascination. Weigall stood, visioning skeletons, uncoffined and green, the home of the eyeless things which had devoured all that had covered and filled that rattling symbol of man's mortality; then fell to wondering if any one had attempted to leap the Strid of late. It was covered with slime; he had never seen it look so treacherous.

He shuddered and turned away, impelled, despite his manhood, to flee the spot. As he did so, something tossing in the foam below the fall--something as white, yet independent of it--caught his eye and arrested his step. Then he saw that it was describing a contrary motion to the rushing water--an upward backward motion. Weigall stood rigid, breathless; he fancied he heard the crackling of his hair. Was that a hand? It thrust itself still higher above the boiling foam, turned sidewise, and four frantic fingers were distinctly visible against the black rock beyond.

Weigall's superstitious terror left him. A man was there, struggling to free himself from the suction beneath the Strid, swept down, doubtless, but a moment before his arrival, perhaps as he stood with his back to the current.

He stepped as close to the edge as he dared. The hand doubled as if in imprecation, shaking savagely in the face of that force which leaves its creatures to immutable law; then spread wide again, clutching, expanding, crying for help as audibly as the human voice.

Weigall dashed to the nearest tree, dragged and twisted off a branch with his strong arms, and returned as swiftly to the Strid. The hand was in the same place, still gesticulating as wildly; the body was undoubtedly caught in the rocks below, perhaps already half-way along one of those hideous shelves. Weigall let himself down upon a lower rock, braced his shoulder against the mass beside him, then, leaning out over the water, thrust the branch into the hand. The fingers clutched it convulsively. Weigall tugged powerfully, his own feet dragged perilously near the edge. For a moment he produced no impression, then an arm shot above the waters.

The blood sprang to Weigall's head; he was choked with the impression that the Strid had him in her roaring hold, and he saw nothing. Then the mist cleared. The hand and arm were nearer, although the rest of the body was still concealed by the foam. Weigall peered out with distended eyes. The meagre light revealed in the cuffs links of a peculiar device. The fingers clutching the branch were as familiar.

Weigall forgot the slippery stones, the terrible death if he stepped too far. He pulled with passionate will and muscle. Memories flung themselves into the hot light of his brain, trooping rapidly upon each other's heels, as in the thought of the drowning. Most of the pleasures of his life, good and bad, were identified in some way with this friend. Scenes of college days, of travel, where they had deliberately sought adventure and stood between one another and death upon more occasions than one, of hours of delightful companionship among the treasures of art, and others in the pursuit of pleasure, flashed like the changing particles of a kaleidoscope. Weigall had loved several women; but he would have flouted in these moments the thought that he had ever loved any woman as he loved Wyatt Gifford. There were so many charming women in the world, and in the thirty-two years of his life he had never known another man to whom he had cared to give his intimate friendship.

He threw himself on his face. His wrists were cracking, the skin was torn from his hands. The fingers still gripped the stick. There was life in them yet.

Suddenly something gave way. The hand swung about, tearing the branch from Weigall's grasp. The body had been liberated and flung outward, though still submerged by the foam and spray.

Weigall scrambled to his feet and sprang along the rocks, knowing that the danger from suction was over and that Gifford must be carried straight to the quiet pool. Gifford was a fish in the water and could live under it longer than most men. If he survived this, it would not be the first time that his pluck and science had saved him from drowning.

Weigall reached the pool. A man in his evening clothes floated on it, his face turned towards a projecting rock over which his arm had fallen, upholding the body. The hand that had held the branch hung limply over the rock, its white reflection visible in the black water. Weigall plunged into the shallow pool, lifted Gifford in his arms and returned to the bank. He laid the body down and threw off his coat that he might be the freer to practise the methods of resuscitation. He was glad of the moment's respite. The valiant life in the man might have been exhausted in that last struggle. He had not dared to look at his face, to put his ear to the heart. The hesitation lasted but a moment. There was no time to lose.

He turned to his prostrate friend. As he did so, something strange and disagreeable smote his senses. For a half-moment he did not appreciate its nature. Then his teeth cracked together, his feet, his outstretched arms pointed towards the woods. But he sprang to the side of the man and bent down and peered into his face. There was no face.



"This striding place is called the 'Strid,' A name which it took of yore; A thousand years hath it borne the name, And it shall a thousand more."

Tales of Unease - Candy Bones

Throughout December, we like to indulge in the grand tradition of Pleasant Terrors, sharing scary stories to pass the dark winter hours. When we did this on the blog last year, it seemed to go over very well, so we're curating a further selection for 2011.

Across the month we'll have lost loves, arctic terror, ritual sacrifice, trench heroics and victorian ghost hunters. We'll also have some classics from the masters, a wee bit of kaidan and some nightmares from the golden age of spooky television (which is the seventies by the way).

Stories are more fun to share, so we would invite anyone who has Christmas Ghost Story or a Tale of Unease to share to submit to us directly at aulddurod@googlemail.com. Theres no cash, only glory.

Starting us off gently, here's a new one from me.



There's loads of really good 2 minute ghost stories over on The Woman in Black Youtube page, they are running a competition just now.