Ghost Stories of an Erudite Man

By Terence M Warr and Robert Warr

‘Glancing to my left I could see that the hut door was no longer obstructed and there was no sign of the sheep either there or anywhere else that I could see. What was important was that the way to the gate was clear and taking my chance I sprang up and raced for the gate, and as I did the cloud covered the moon again and the wind sprang up.
I had got about a third of the way when I tripped on a grave kerb and went sprawling headlong. A snigger echoed the sound of my fall.
I did not have to look to know that they were there.
All round me hemming me in and closing in on me. I could sense them and there came from all round me a cold clammy blast of air which the raging wind did nothing to dispel.
A clogging stench like rotting meat and singing hair rolled over me; Catching at the back of my throat causing me to cough and choke. The smell seemed to be almost and I fancied I could feel it plugging my nose so that I gasped for air and nearly fainted. I fell to my knees on the grave.
It was this that saved me then for my right knee banged on the lamp. And snatching it up I switched on.
The bright beam of light shot out and lit up the beast in front of me. The sheep slowly began to fade and become transparent as the beam played on it. I focused the light on to another and that started to fade. I understood that there was a way of escape, all I had to do was shine the light on the sheep that were between me and the gate and then move towards it as they faded.
I faced towards the gate again and shone the beam directly in front of me. In its light was not one beast but dozens all crowded together between me and safety,
Thankfully though in the light of the torch they started to fade and I thought my scheme would succeed. But then they all looked directly at me and all their eyes glowed in the dark like live coals. While the light of my lamp lost its brilliance and started to dim, gradually fainter and fainter until it went out...’

I had known from my childhood that my Father enjoyed ghost stories. For a while he would read one of M.R. James’ tales, every year, by the light of the fire and Christmas tree, and these evenings led to my own enjoyment of the classic English ghost story.
I knew that he had written a few ghost stories of his own, but in the age before computers and with a long drive to work everyday his stories were hand-written into large notebooks in the infrequent moments when he could spare the time to write.
In the last few years before his death we often discussed my writing and the stories he wanted to either complete or start. Unfortunately old age and ill health prevented my Father from fulfilling his literary ambitions.
For several years it looked as if his work would be forgotten and would fade away completely on the death of the last person to have heard them. Then while looking for something else entirely I found an old carrier bag full of large legal notebooks and some old cardboard folders. It was an unexpected treasure trove containing not only his ghost stories, a part written children’s story and the outline of an autobiographical account.
I felt like I’d found a real-life ‘Flashman Paper’ and decided to publish his work. It was sensible to start with the few pieces that had been typewritten by a cousin of mine as these I could scan into my computer and then moved onto the completed written tales and finally those unfinished stories we had discussed most often while I was cooking our evening meals.

I hope that you take pleasure in these stories and, if so, why not read them to youngsters some dark Christmastide night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terence M Warr
• Release date: Dec 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463440049

Terence M Warr

Born in 1925 this Author joined the army while still underage and was a Sergeant by the time he was 18.He joined the Middlesex Regiment and became one of the sergeant Instructors for the newly formed Long Range Desert Group. He was commissioned into the King's Own Scottish Borderers and ended the war as a liaison officer for the Arab Desert Legion.After the war, he served as a Colonial policeman in Northern Rhodesia before returning to the United Kingdom and a career in the legal profession.He was interested in many subjects, ranging from archaeology to heraldry and calligraphy to history.

Book preview

Ghost Stories

of an

Erudite Man

Ghost Stories of an Erudite Man

by

Terence Miles Warr

and

Robert Warr

This book is dedicated to my father:

Terence Warr

(1925 – 2012)

In the hope that his ghost stories will give pleasure to many.

Ghost Stories of an Erudite Man

Copyright © 2012 Robert Warr

Smashwords Edition

All rights Reserved

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work with obvious acknowledgment to my Father’s original creativity.

The people, with the exception of obvious historical figures, and events described in this book are fictitious and bear no intentional resemblance to any real person living or dead.

Contents:

Introduction

The Moustache Cup

The Evil Sheep

The Gun That Fired Itself

The Music Maker

Come back Pussycat

The Bequest

You Can’t Keep A Good Dog Down

About The Author

Introduction

I always knew that Dad enjoyed ghost stories. He introduced my brother and I to the wonders of M.R. James when we were still quite young. I remember him, one Christmas, our sitting room lit only by the lights on the tree and the glow coming from the fire, reading the Mezzotint. This experience hooked me on classic English ghost stories as distinct from horror with a ghostly twist. Stories where the writer leaves it to the reader’s imagination to fill in anything horrific; hinting rather than describing.

My father had the type of life that nowadays would only be found in the pages of adventure stories. He did indeed have a full life. He was a born Londoner and by the time the second world war began had started an engineering apprenticeship at the Woolwich Arsenal. He joined the Home Guard as soon as he could, lying about his age, as he was not yet seventeen. He was detailed to stand guard at night in the grounds of an old building and some of the older soldiers tried to spook him with tales of the ghost that haunted it. He told me that he was disappointed not to see it there and then. This was, I think, the moment when his love of ghost stories really began.

One day a German plane strafed a road on which my father, and a colleague, were road testing a van that they had just finished repairing. This incident annoyed him and soon afterwards he once more lied about his age and joined up.

He was reticent about his war time service, but I know that he joined the Middlesex Regiment as a private and ended the war commissioned into the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. During the war he transferred to the Reconnaissance Corps and became a liaison officer for the Arab Legion. After the war, he stayed in the Army and served in Palestine during the Emergency. He ended his military career with a posting to Edinburgh.

Not content with civilian life he joined the British South African Police before transferring to the Northern Rhodesian Police. He enjoyed his time as a mounted policeman and would speak with great affection of those days. One of the requirements of the police service was that an officer had to speak several of the native languages and to understand the tribal cultures. During this period, he studied part time and gained a law degree.

Military service in the North of Africa and the Holy Land allowed him to visit the major archaeological wonders of Egypt as well as Petra and, later, the sites in the Holy Land. These experiences confirmed a lifelong love of history and archaeology.

During his service in Africa he learnt a lot about African folk lore and tribal beliefs including the role of witch doctors. He was interested in the history of all Africa’s people.

In the early sixties, married and with two young sons he returned to the United Kingdom and a career in the legal profession.

The title of this volume is I feel a fair description of my father. A man who could speak Arabic and at least four African languages, who taught himself to understand hieroglyphs and later heraldry, who read widely and deeply on subjects such as archaeology and history, as well as voraciously reading across a wide range of other non-fiction and fiction. Such a man is erudite.

Dad also enjoyed writing stories, longhand in legal notebooks, when he had time to engage in this passion. Unfortunately, his leisure time was sparse and he never had the luxury, during his working life, of having a regular daily time to write. Thus, only four of his stories had been properly finished and typed up into a proper draft. The remainder, either partial or finished, were scattered over different notebooks. Some of them, for example Come Back Pussycat had several versions.

This book, hopefully only the first volume of my father’s ghost stories, has been a labour of love. I have scanned, where possible, the original typewritten stories on to my computer. Those that hadn’t been finished I have transcribed onto the computer then edited or finished them as well as I could.

The layout of this book is simple. The first few stories are my father’s work; all I have done is edit them. From then on, the amount of work needed to reconstruct and complete them increases.

The last tale in the book is my first published ghost story and I include it so that the readers may contrast our styles.

Any gross affronts to the English language are my fault.

The Moustache Cup

Ever since I was a very small boy I have been interested in old and ancient things. This has brought me, over the years, to a more than passing interest in archaeology which has led, in its turn, to my collecting antiques whenever the state of my finances enabled me to purchase any special item which took my fancy.

I am proud of my collection which I keep in a rather fine glass-fronted cabinet that is, itself, set to the best advantage in the sitting room of my flat. I also have a ledger in which I have recorded all the information I have; date of purchase, price, and history etc. in respect of each item once I have taken it into my collection. Every piece, that is, except one.

That one exception was an interesting item, not really an old antique, for it was made in about 1870 so far as I could judge, but it had intrigued me and that is why I had bought it.

It was a moustache cup.

Have you ever seen a moustache cup? Do you even know what a moustache cup is?

If you don’t, I'll tell you. They had their origin in the days when gentlemen grew large and luxuriant moustaches and a moustache cup was an ordinary drinking cup with a bar across the top of it which prevented the gentleman's whiskers from drooping into his tea, cocoa or whatever.

It was made of the same material as the cup and was usually straight.

This one though, was different in that the bar was shaped like a large and curly moustache and was hollow throughout its length, so that it would fit over the moustache of the user, and this seemed to indicate that it had been made for a left-handed man.

I came across it by chance in a small antique shop on the corner of a side street off the Portobello Road.

I had never been to that shop before but, coming across if one day during my wanderings went in to see what was on offer.

There were two or three good pieces, priced way above my pocket, the usual junk, and oddities and, up on a shelf at the back of the shop, the moustache cup.

Why I was attracted to it I don't know but I asked to see it and shortly afterwards brought it for seventeen shillings and sixpence.

The owner of the shop was not present and his nephew who was standing in for him could not tell me anything of the cup’s history. He agreed that it was unusual and believed it was of a rare type. Beyond that he could not go.

As I had to go home on foot and by Public Transport I had my purchase placed in a cardboard box on a bed of shavings and carrying it carefully, walked to the nearest underground station.

The train I had to catch was very crowded; however, I was able to get a seat by the doors and carefully put the box on my knees.

Several men were standing on the nearby platform part of the coach and one of them close to me seemed to have severe respiratory trouble for as the journey progressed I was very much aware of his harsh, laboured breathing. I thought it was either a short tubby florid faced man or a tall, pale thin one but I could not be sure.

I had not made my mind up when the train pulled into my station and I got out and forgot about them and the breathing.

On getting home I looked at the cup again and decided not to put it in the cabinet with the other things, it was unusual, so I made room for it on the mantel piece in the sitting room.

There then followed some ten days or so of very bad weather during which I started to develop a cold and worry about my health caused me to turn on the central heating.

It was during this period that I often heard a noise similar to the gasping breath on the underground train and I attributed it to a fault in the system and paid no further heed to it.

Then one day the sun shone again and I took a trip into the country returning at about 7 p.m. with a small bunch of primroses and the knowledge that my cold was much worse and that the only place for me was bed.

I resolved to make a hot toddy and go there at once, but what of my primroses? I know I said to myself I'll put them on the table by my bed; they'll cheer me up.

The trouble was, being a bachelor, I had no flower pots or vases and as I was gazing round to see what I would put them in my eye fell on the moustache cup.

Of course, the very thing. It was the work of a moment to fill it with water, pop the primroses in it and place it by my bed.

This done I made myself a strong toddy got into bed, took two aspirins, drank my drink, and settled down to sleep.

I had a terrible night. I had expected to sleep soundly and wake refreshed and lot better the following morning but this was not the case for the whole of that night was one long nightmare.

Part of my subconscious knew this and. I was outraged that my sleep was being disturbed and my privacy invaded.

I desperately wanted to wake up but I was unable to do so and I was being pursued by a formless, nameless terror that intended me nothing but harm, and I was running furiously to escape it.

I was dimly aware that I was racing through alleys and dingy back streets, sometimes in daylight and then under the light of flaring gas jets, I knew, somehow, that I was in Victorian London and that I was being hunted by my would-be murderer, that he could see me and was hunting me by night and, that strive as I may, he was closing in on me and that unless a miracle occurred I was done for.

Soaked in sweat, my heart going like a steam engine I raced on and as I did so I could hear a dreadful wheezing breath gasping behind me and gradually getting closer and closer.

The miracle happened, I awoke with a start my heart still pounding and there still grating in my ears was the harsh panting breath and I suddenly realised that I was not imagining it, it was there with me, in my room.

Hurriedly I switched on the light and the noise stopped.

I looked round. The room was completely empty and absolutely normal. But wait - everything was not normal - for by my bed there should have been a bright and cheerful bunch of primroses, but there was nothing in the cup except dry, straggly, and dead stalks and on the table, itself, in a ring round the cup, brown dusty petals.

Utterly astounded I reached out towards the cup and then, before I could pick it up or even touch it, I fell into a deep sleep which lasted till morning when the sun, streaming in through my window, woke me up.

After I had shaved and had my breakfast I sat down and puzzled over the incident of the night before and tried to find a rational explanation for the death of the primroses and I soon realized that it was my own fault entirely. I had not washed the moustache cup out and there was obviously something toxic in it and it was this that killed my flowers off.

Well it would not happen again and taking the cup, I went with it to the kitchen and then washed it thoroughly in a strong soapy solution. I then rinsed it well and left it to drain while I went out to buy another bunch of flowers. I was determined, you see, to have that cup serving a useful, common function.

At a nearby florists I bought a bright posy composed of four or five bright species and at once took it home determined that this bunch of flowers would live out their allotted span.

To ensure they had as good a chance as possible I again washed out the cup with clear water. Having dried it I sniffed at it and could detect nothing unusual.

I filled it with water again and, after five minutes or so during which time the water just stood in the cup, I did a litmus test. It was negative and then, greatly daring, I put my finger into the water and conveyed a drop to my mouth.

It was perfectly wholesome, sweet as a nut, I thought, and so being satisfied beyond all doubt that there was nothing in the cup to harm the flowers I put them in, arranged them and put the cup back by my bed.

I spent that day in reading going every so often to the door of my bedroom to look at the flowers. There was no change in them as far as I could see and they retained their fresh loveliness. I've cured it, thought I, and experienced a strange glow of triumph and, oddly enough, safety; a sense which persisted all through the day until the light began to fade and it was time to draw the curtains and switch the lights on. Then I began to be aware of a depression which increased imperceptibly until I made ready for bed.

When I got into bed I decided to do the day's crossword. The first clue, for one across, was '’travels in a spirituous manner. At once the answer came to me. If one travels one goes somewhere and a spirit is a ghost. The answer was a five-letter word and while a rather poor clue and answer it would serve; I wrote it in saying the word again Ghost" and as I did so my eye involuntarily turned to the moustache cup and, as I looked at it, my brand new and bright nosegay of flowers began to wilt.

One by one they drooped over the side of the cup and before my very eyes shrivelled, died, and withered still further so that they could have been picked ten or even a hundred years ago and not early on that same day. At the same time came that dreadful panting noise. It was most definitely coming from the cup.

I got out of bed and, putting my dressing gown on sat on the edge of the bed to consider this phenomenon. At this stage I was not frightened, that was to come later, but I had never come across anything like this before, I did not believe in ghosts. I did not believe in spirits except those that came out of bottles and I was quite sure that I was in no mood to be haunted by anything and certainly not by a piece of my own property.

So, I addressed myself quite firmly to the cup, told it I did not believe in ghosts and that there was obviously some form of trick involved here and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

I took the dead flowers out of the cup and threw them away. I took the cup itself into kitchen and filling a bucket with water poured in a very large measure of household bleach,

I then dropped the cup into the bucket and the whole flat rang with the most ghastly blood-curdling scream I have ever had the misfortune to hear either before or since.

I’ll swear my hair stood on end and I staggered back and slumped onto a chair and watched horrified as the