December 28, 19 16 
•LAND & WATER 
II 
behind you in the street. But there was this differ- 
ence : in such cases you have only to turn round to have 
your intuition confirmed by your sense of sight, whereas 
in tliis case my sense of sight ga\'e the He to my intuition 
while my sense of hearing confirmed it. 
" I was trying to puzzle out this contradiction of my 
senses when I saw the cupboard-doors move. They 
moved slowly oiitwards and I heard them creak. But 
stare as I did I could see nothing. There were those 
cupboard doors slowly but perceptibly advancing to- 
wards me as if they moved of their own accord. For a 
moment I was really afraid — afraid of myself, intimidated 
by the incoherence of my senses. I remembered reading 
in a morbid phase of mind, when I was recovering from 
shell-shock and fancied I had the symptoms of every 
disease I could lay a name to, that there is such a thing 
as ' mental blindness.' It occurs when a man has 
suffered some lesion of the nerve tracts connecting the 
occipital lobes with other centres -that's how the book 
put it. A man sees but doesn't see right. He can't 
classify the optical impressions his eyes receive and he'll 
call a clothes-brush a pair of spectacles. Or he may have 
mental deafness —he'll hear a bell but be powerless to 
recall what a bell looks like ; he'll say he's heard a drum. 
His senses play fast and loose with one another until his 
mind capitulates altogether. It's often the first stage in 
delusional insanity." 
Kennedy paused for a moment to gaze at the dying 
embers of the fire. 
"I think what kept me sane," he resumed, "was the con- 
viction, a kind of psychic conviction,' that there really 
was someone there". I felt its presence far more than I 
heard it. And then in a flash I remembered my staff 
maps and Intelligence papers and with an effort I quelled 
the insubordination in my brain. Some spy, I felt 
assured, was playing a trick on me to take advantage 
of my confusion. The thought of it aroused in m.e a 
wholesome anger and from that moment I had myself 
well in hand. 
"I deb.Tted with myself what to do. Not only were all 
my confidential papers in the dressing-room, but so was 
my Webley revolver, which I had left on the table. If I 
so much as turned in my bed, the visitor, whoever he was, 
would be aole to seize it and cover me with it from 
where he was before I could reach the dressing-room. 
What was I to do ? I have acquired the habit of prompt 
decision —you learn that out on patrol —and it didn't 
take me long to decide that my best course was to lie 
still and wait till he tried to pass again through my room, 
for he could have entered nf> other way. He must have 
had a key of liis own, for I had locked the door from the 
inside before I went to bed. But how had he managed 
to imlock it and enter without awaking me ? That 
puzzled me. 
"There followed what seemed an interminable interval 
of silence, during which I could hear my wrist-watch 
ticking as loudly as if it were an eight-day clock. Then 
I heard the footsteps recommence. They started at the 
cupboard and approached my room. I seemed to be 
listening with every nerve in my body, and, as they 
approached, it struck me that there was something very 
odd about them. They were not so much a walk as a 
shuffle, and one foot seemed to be reconnoitring before 
the other as if a blind man were exploring the floor. 
They approached my bed. I lay rigid with my head on 
my pillow and with my eyes wide open, but T could see 
nothing— no ! not so much as a shadow. The man 
seem:xl to be holding his breath all the time. It's curious 
when I come to think of it— I never once heard him 
breathe. I was waiting my chance to leap out of bed 
and spring on him from behind, as soon as I should 
hear liim fumbling with the bedroom door, when I sud- 
denly felt the touch of a hand at the foot of my bed. 
It touched the outline of my feet and then drew sharply 
away as though the owner were startled ; the ne.xt 
moment it began groping the bed-clothes. I felt it 
through the counterpane travelling up my body. But it 
didn't feel like a human hand at all. It was more like a 
claw ; it seemed to be a hand without any finger-tips 
and it moved with a kind of stealthy uncertainty. You 
know how a dog paws your bed ? There was something 
hypnotic about that touch ; I tried to shake it off arid I 
couldn't. I was paralysed. I felt again that strange 
insubordinntion in my brain, and tliat T was losing all 
control over my senses. For my eyes were wide open 
and I could still see nothing. 
" How loiig I lay hke that 1 don't knoW. I could hear 
the -valves of my heart beating against my ribs and there 
was a cold feeling down my spine ; my throat was dry as a 
furnace and my skin crept. Do you know the kind of 
nightmare in which you dream you are tied down to two 
lines of rails with a train approaching along the track and 
you strain and strain to break your bonds till your heart 
seems to be going to burst ? Then you wake. But I 
couldn't wake, or if I was awake I couldn't move. As 
the hands travelled up to my chest I made a violent 
effort to break the spell and sprang in a cold sweat from 
my bed. There was ;< startled shuflUe of tlK> feel , as though 
the owner had sprung back from the bed, and they 
scuffled back towards the dressing-room. I hurled myself 
after them, hit out wildly in their direction, and bruised 
my knuckles against the folding doors. There was 
nothing there. My hands were tingling with jiain, but 
action had ri'stored ray circulation and I rushed into 
the dressing room. I didn't want to strike again - 1 
felt a sudden sense of pity ; I didn't know wliy. lUit I 
was determined to corner him. The footsteps were 
retreating towards the window ; I tried to intercept them, 
but as T did so I felt a cold blast upon my face, the window 
suddenly shut to, and tlie footsteps ceased. 
"I opened the window. The night was still ; there was 
no wind, nothing but the soft sighing of the poplars. 
I could see nothing. But as I stood at the window, listen- 
ing to the beating of my own heart, I heard the dog whin- 
ing in the courtyard below, tlu^ rattle of his chain like 
an anchor-chain drawn through a hawse-hole, then a 
pause, and then the rattle of the thain followed 'bj' 
another pause. This went on for several minutes and I 
knew that the dog was wildly pacing to and fro to the 
very hmit of its tether. I called to him, but instead of 
barking furiously at the sound of my voice, as he usually 
did, he merely whined. 
"The dressing-room itself seemed undisturbed. Indeed 
what jHizzled me more than anything else was that the 
cupboard was shut, and when I tried to open it I found it 
was locked. And then I reflected that the fact it was 
Ibcked was the most reassuring thing I could have ex- 
pected. I must have had a nightmare after all ! After 
that I felt more cheerful and I determined to have a pipe 
before turning in again. I filled my pipe, struck a match, 
and was about to light up when I suddenly caught sig'ht 
of the cupboard door in its flickering glow. On the jamb 
of the door was the impression of a thumb and four 
mutilated fingers. I stood staring at this with the match 
in my hand until the flame burned my fingers and I let 
the match fall to the floor. It went out. I stood 
staring at the cupboard, imconsQious of my blistered 
fingers, conscious of nothing except that mark upon the 
door." 
Kennedy stopped in his narration and gazed into the 
fire, as though he could see some image there. After a 
long pauso he resumed. " Mechanically I reached out 
my hand for the box of matches, never taking my eyes 
ofi the door, and tried to strike another, but I struck so 
hard that the head of the match came off. I struck 
again, lit the candle,.andheldit uptothe cupboard. The 
marks were still there : the very cuticle of the skin was 
clearly traceable in a dirty pattern, as though a dusty 
hand had left its imprint upon the door. The thumb was 
clearly outlined, so was the hand, but the fingers stopped 
at the knuckles as if they had been amputated. I stared 
at them for a long time, 
"Had I delusions ? For a moment there came back to 
me the awful days I had gone through when I was on sick 
leave and heard xmfamiliar ^•oices coming from great 
distances and was afraid to be alone with my own shadow. 
I asked myself the question ; was that baneful image 
really impressed upon the door or was it a projection of my 
own disordered brain ? I tried looking at the walls and 
the ceiling ; it was not there. I then looked at the cup- 
board doors again ; it was still there. I reasoned with 
myself that if it was really there it would rc'flect itself. I 
took the mirror from the dressing table and, standing 
at an angle to the door, I held it up so that the door was 
reflected in it. The image appeared in the mirror. 
F'inally, to put the matter beyond a shadow of doubt, 
I took a piece of oil-paper such as one uses for map tracing.s 
and haxing licatcd it slightly over the canclle I held 
