The Gosling Experiment

The Gosling Experiment

Simon Forbes reclined in his leather swivel chair as he talked on the phone, he liked a job well done, and he liked John Simpson. He liked him because he felt that he could count on the man. It was Simpson on the phone now, and Forbes could barely mask his boyish anticipation with the customary professional reserve with which he dealt with his small staff of writers.

"Go to it then. Call in when you've got something." Forbes briskly terminated the conversation, replaced the receiver and pursed his lips thoughtfully. His eyes returned to the small pile of magazines on his desk. The first three issues of Ghosts Monthly were all that he had hoped them to be, but what of the fourth? As editor he was concerned. With wrinkled brow he picked up the first issue and flicked through its pages, it had sold well enough but had made promises that the following two issues had failed to live up to. GM 3 had sold very badly despite reasonable expectations of success.

Even in a country like Britain where ghosts are something of a national obsession, public interest had waned so surprisingly quickly. He picked up GM 3 and eyed it with critical distaste, what people want, he reflected, is something concrete, dramatic and downright nasty. Simpsons' feature on the old woman in the attic was typical of the disastrous nature of the issue. He peered at the full-page photo in frustration. A semi-transparrent old biddy was clearly visible poking at a non-existant fire. Her hair, face and clothes were clearly defined. Such quality evidence of the supernatural was a major triumph, an extremely lucky break, and yet it had failed to sell the issue. What more could one hope for? He fumed, here was photographic proof positive of an after-life and the damned issue wouldn't sell! Forbes had to admit that the sweet old Victorian granny singularly failed to raise the hackles.

He was beginning to get worried about GM 4, what they had so far was rather mundane, they badly needed something with bite, something that would jump out at the shopper and shriek "Buy Me!"

"People want to be scared" he recalled his words to Simpson, "We need something nasty." He fervently hoped that Gosling Hall would furnish Simpson with just that. At least three ghosts were reputed to haunt the place and the owners, a stock broker and his wife who lived in the city and who had bought the place as an investment were most obliging and insistant upon the point that the spirits were periodically active. They had kindly driven down to Gosling to show Simpson around and provide an interview for the article, but were unable to remain at the hall due to 'pressing engagements' in the city. Simpson would spend four days at Gosling Hall and the survival of "Ghosts Monthly" depended upon his provision of a good cover story.

********

After reporting his arrival and first impressions to Forbes, Simpson pocketed his cellular phone and squinted down the tasteful avenue of trees that lined a gravel path leading to the central feature of Gosling's large landscaped garden, a broad circular lilly pond. He was sitting on a bench positioned to give a good unimpeded view down the central tree-lined path. He checked the notes that he had made of the interview, dutifully photographed the scene and then resumed his stroll around the perimeter in search of inspiration and hopefully a sighting of the figure of the Cavalier reported to haunt the garden. The flint gravel scrunched underfoot as he passed the tastefully planted herbaceous border that lined the red brick garden wall. He was no gardener himself, but he appreciated that successive owners had paid a great deal of attention to the planting and tending; it was impressive even now that it was October, he mused that it must be delightful in the summer. Every now and then he came upon some piece of statuary, it seemed that the past owners had a great fondness for pot-bellied cupids, Pan-like fawns and lions.

As Simpson made his way to the great circular pond he wondered whether he hadn't been too enthusiastic to Forbes about Gosling. Of all the places he had covered for GM, this was the least atmospheric. Admittedly he had only been here two hours, but he had already been given a tour of the house and he hadn't found anywhere the least bit threatening. He wondered whether his four days here would provide the shock value that Forbes demanded, somehow he doubted it. He laid his satchel and camera down upon the gravel beside the raised stone rim of the pond and peered in casually to ascertain its depth and the presence if any, of ornamental fish.

What he saw there made him start in surprise. It wasn't his own reflection alone that appeared in the cold black water. Behind his startled visage was that of a taller man with long wavy hair, pointed beard, rakish moustache and determined expression. Before Simpson had time to react, he found himself violently propelled from behind.

Simpson tripped over the parapet of the pond and fell face forward with his arms desperately extended to ward off the inevitable. Goldfish scattered before his terrified eyes. The water was ice cold and his flailing feet couldn't find bottom. He surfaced, spluttering swear words, and turning fearfully to face his assailant - found himself alone and his opinion of Gosling much revised.

Still recovering from the shock of the indignity done to him and the clear absence of any attacker he wiped the wet hair clear of his forhead and glanced around him. Two things were starkly apparent, the first was that there was simply no one in sight who could have pushed him, and the second was that from the centre of the garden he became suddenly aware that all the statues faced his way as if the plunge he had taken had simultaneously drawn their attention. To a rational man both observations were problematic, the first for the simple reason that he didn't believe it could be humanly possible for a man to cover the distance to the nearest shrubs to conceal himself, and the second because he had photographed one of the cupids not fifteen minutes ago and it had been facing quite another direction entirely. He swung his leg over the parapet of the pond and regained dry gravel. Grabbing his satchel he squelched over to the cupid he had photographed earlier. He extricated his camera, glanced about him warily and then retook his previous shot. "Gotcha" he breathed hysterically, and was winding on for a second safety shot when he realised that the figure had somehow resumed its original attitude. It had moved in a shutter-click. 1/125 of a second. Simpson blinked stupidly at the Cupid. The Cupid smiled vaccuosly back at Simpson. Had he caught it? Shivering with cold he returned to the house, numbed fingers attempting to restore his soaked cellular phone to no avail. The Gosling phone was disconnected.

After changing out of his wet things Simpson decided to call his boss, he had seen a red phone box in the village half a mile away on his way to Gosling. He drove there and called in briefly as he was short of change. Having heard Simpson's account of what had happened Forbes reluctantly agreed to pull Chalmers from the Bletchley Poltergeist piece that he was currently working on and send him down to Gosling Hall. As they talked Simpson's eyes strayed toward Gosling's public house, The Half Moon. After hanging up he strolled accross the road for a pint and information.

As he entered the unlit tap-room it struck him that the pub must be roughly of the same period as the hall - early seventeenth century and a fine old building too. The place was empty and cold, for all he knew it could have been closed. There was a bell on the bar and he rang for attention.

The attention wasn't long in coming. The aged publican lurched in from a back room with the rolling gate of a painful hip joint.

"Good day. What'll your pleasure be?" he asked.

"A pint of best and ..... are you serving bar meals?" Simpson enquired to which the publican looked at his clock and seeing that it was nearly twelve answered in the affirmitive, "...and a haddock and chips then, please." Simpson selected from the small menu board.

He then took his beer to a table beside a window and sat himself down. As he drank he perused his notes. The Whittackers had been very helpful in providing an orientation to Gosling and its ghosts. They had only owned the hall for two years, but could assure him that it was genuinely haunted. They maintained that there were at least three resident spirits. One was a misty man-shaped thing that haunted the staircase and its vicinity, another was a "knocker" that was heard in the kitchens and raided the refrigerator, and the third was presumed to be free roaming but had been seen three times by themselves in the master bed room, twice in the corridors and once in the dining room by the fireplace. They called him the Grey Cavalier for that was his appearance. They mentioned that the previous owners had sold upon account of a personal tragedy; the unfathomable disappearance of their five year-old son. Though vexed by the sometimes "nightly disturbances", they hadn't let on about the haunting until some months after the sale. They had then sent a detailed letter via the estate agents. The Whittackers had allowed him to see it, and it made fantastic reading. It was typed and unsigned, it described several of the phenomena that they had themselves witnessed plus an appeal that the new owners should on no account venture into the gardens after dark, nor should they attempt to rearrange the living room furniture, nor leave crocks out in the kitchen overnight.

Simpson asked whether they had complied with such instructions and they said that they had for the most part - on one occasion they had left some cold roast on the sideboard and had found it inexplicably on the floor the next morning, surrounded by sherds of the dish that it had been resting upon. Since then they had religiously put things away whenever they visited. Food was sometimes taken from the refrigerator.

Simpson was diverted from further thoughts on the matter by the arrival of his fish, which was excellent. After lunch he asked directly whether the landlord knew of any reputedly haunted houses in the area and was surprised by his forthright answer.

"The Church has a ghost. I saw it myself when I was nine. I saw it during choir practise one night and I shan't forget it. A tall man in fine clothes was on his knees in the rear pew, he was wringing his hands like this" he mimed "and I could see straight off that he was a ghost. I told the old Parson and he sent me home. Years later, when I was grown and he was very old he told me that he'd seen him too on several occasions, sometimes in the Church, sometimes in the lane, and once at a garden party at the manor." The man sniffed thoughtfully, "He said he thought it was Sir Charles Gosling, and that he believed he had done some dreadful wrong." The landlord smiled as Simpson settled his bill, adding "I expect every village has its ghost story." Simpson agreed with this remark and bade him farewell, eager to visit the church.

Simpson's visit to the Church was unremarkable except for his dramatic discovery of Sir Charles Gosling's tomb. An effigy of the Knight lay atop it and Simpson was immediately struck by the familiarity of the features. He shuddered involuntarily at the recognition of his assailant, reclining in marble with his head resting upon one hand and the other hand placed fondly upon a sleeping Spaniel. "Why do you haunt, Gosling?" Simpson murmured aloud in an awed, accusatory tone. The marble visage stared back at him. Simpson thought that he read a propensity for cruelty in its sensuous mouth, of fastidiousness in the tapering moustaches, and awful knowledge in its blank stare. He resolutely photographed the figure and turning to leave he spied the simpler tomb of Sir Charles' wife, Emily. He returned to the hall to await his colleague and plan a course of action.

On his return to the Hall Simpson took one of the kitchen chairs and placed it in the long entrance hall so that he could sit within clear view of the stair-case. He set up his camera upon a tripod and set the zoom lens at somewhere between 28 and 35mm in order to squarely frame the stairs and landing. A cable release hang down within easy reach and he set the flash-gun to sleep mode - as it could be a long wait before anything happened. He thought of himself as a real pro. There were two sets of spare batteries in the car. It was such patience and attention to the little details that separated him from the likes of Chalmers. That's why he had been ready for the old lady. He had caught her after four hours of waiting. Chalmers just didn't have that kind of tenacity.

Simpson reckoned that the real difference between them was that he took pride in his work, that's why his pieces were consistently better than the rest. He settled back in the chair and popped a yellow gum drop. He chewed slowly reflecting that he hated the flavour, why couldn't they just make red and black ones? He didn't even like the orange ones much.

After quarter of an hour, he took out his interview notes and flipped to a fresh page for sketching out his plan. He and Chalmers would rotate between the master bedroom and the hall, periodically checking the other rooms in the house. They had better get some sleep this afternoon if they were going to make it through the night. If nothing materialised, they'd have to do a bit of furniture rearrangement and see if that prompted phenomena. He began to sketch out the background story for the piece. It bothered him that short of the dead parson's theorizing there was no background myth for the haunting. Were there three ghosts? Or was it one ghost that varied its haunting patterns? His rear was getting stiff with the sitting. He checked his watch, he'd been there over an hour. He decided to make a brew. He left his notes on his chair and went into the kitchen.

He rinsed out the electric kettle, ridding it of loose lime-scale and set it to boil, he then heard the front door bell. Chalmers. He went to greet him.

Chalmers enterred chattering about the glories of the place, and how they were bound to get some good material for the magazine. Simpson agreed and told him to dump his stuff by the stairs and join him in the kitchen for a brew and briefing. He picked up his notes on the way through to the kitchen.

"I'll tell you what we've got so far while you make the tea." Said Simpson. He kept the summary brief and Chalmers whistled appreciatively and passed him his tea.

"So what's the plan, Stan?" asked Chalmers as he sat down on the edge of the kitchen table and sipped from his steaming mug.

Simpson flipped to the plans he had sketched earlier, "We'll bed down until 7 or 8...." he began and then stopped and stared hard at the foot of the page. There was writing there in the same ink, in his own hand. The letters were small and beautifully regular; he could not remember writing them. They said:

This house is cursed. Pray God for fogiveness and depart.

"What's the matter?" asked Chalmers. Simpson turned the page. The following page was blank.

"Ghost writing." Simpson said, dismayed, showing the pad to his companion. "That must have happened while I was in the kitchen. I didn't write that. This place is incredible!"

"It looks like your writing! ...... Well? .... Should we?" asked Chalmers uneasily.

"What? Leave here? No way." Simpson was firm on the matter, " I am setting the alarm for eight. It's going to be a long night."

Chalmers slept in the master bedroom while Simpson slept on the chaise-longe in the living room. Both slept fitfully, the alarm roused Simpson at eight. He groped for it and flicked it off. It was cold outside his sleeping bag. He lay back and listened intently in the darkness. The room smelt of old upholstery and wood polish. The silence was total, he resolved to get up in a few minutes.

It took Chalmers over an hour to drift off to sleep. It wasn't that the four poster was uncomfortable, he supposed that he just wasn't used to sleeping under such strange circumstances. He awoke with a start in total darkness under the distinct impression that he wasn't alone any more. He lay there frozen listening intently to the squeak of floor-boards from the corridor.

"Oh God!" he prayed silently, "forgive me, forgive me."

The door opened and Chalmers whimpered in terror. The light clicked on.

" Wake up." it was Simpson's voice. "Time to get up."

"Ahhh." Chalmers' relief was intense. He got up and hastily dressed.

While they had coffee and dined on Pot Noodles in the kitchen Simpson outlined his plans. First Chalmers would sit by the stairs and Simpson would take the living room. After two hours Simpson would patrol the ground floor and Chalmers the first floor, then they'd switch. If they saw or heard anything, then they would investigate.

It was a simple enough plan; one that would maintain silence for most of the time. If there was anything to hear then they would hear it. They took their respective stations and sat down to wait.

Chalmers was bored after just ten minutes of sitting. He started to doodle on the pad on his lap. He sketched out a sportscar, of the type that he wanted to buy, a silver Tigra, and then added a shapely lady with sunglasses for good measure.

Simpson sat in one of the comfortable arm chairs and waited quietly. Rain pattered on the windows in a desultory fashion. His mind drifted forwards and backwards, sifting his limited knowledge of the case. What wrongs could Gosling have committed? He wondered. Time trickled by slowly. He fervently hoped for further manifestations to take place.

After a non-productive hour, he stood and stretched. He approached the book shelves and ran an eye over the titles. While he was thus engaged there was a happening in the hall.

He heard Chalmers call out, and as he opened the door to the hall, the click of a camera shutter as he was temporarily blinded by the flash.

"What's up?" he called as he ran to where Chalmers stood by the tripod.

"There was something on the stairs." Chalmers said, still staring at the staircase. "It was half way down when I shot it."

Simpson saw nothing. "Its gone." Chalmers said.

"Hmm. Well done for getting the picture." Simpson said. "What did it look like?"

Chalmers thought a moment and said "I don't know really. It's hard to describe .....like a column of brown smoke, er... only denser, the particles were like white noise on a TV set. In random motion. It moved smoothly. I hope it comes out."

"Good work." Simpson smiled. "Nothing's happened in the living room. Let's patrol." He took the torch and tested it briefly. "You start upstairs, I'll do the cellar and garden."

*****

Chalmers found nothing remarkable upstairs, other than one door that was locked for which none of the keys would fit. Returning to the corridor from a minor bedroom, he was possessed by the impression that it had recently been vacated, but he heard and saw nothing for indeed at that juncture there was nothing there to observe.

Simpson found the cellars quite empty save for a small area of wine wracks. Returning to the ground floor he noticed that the door to the kitchen was now shut when he was fairly certain that it had been left ajar the better to hear any disturbance from within.

He investigated the kitchen but found it as they had left it. He retired leaving the door ajar.

His garden walk was lonely and unpleasant, the sky was overcast and rain still fell, the scrunching of the flint gravel was altogether too loud for his taste. His skirting of half the garden's perimeter yielded no sign of the supernatural and he returned promptly by the central path. He saw something white on the pond and with pounding heart shone his torch over its rain spotted surface. At the sight and alarmed quackings of two startled ducks he exhaled sharply in relief and then hurried back to the house, eager to be out of the rain. Odd that he hadn't seen the ducks earlier in the day, but he reasoned that such fowl come and go at their whim.

In this assumption he was partly right. The Gosling ducks came and went on a nightly basis, but not at their whim.

Back at the house Simpson and Chalmers exchanged brief reports and then changed places for another lonely vigil. Nothing more of note occured that night.

******

They slept late into the following day and woke tousled and befuddled. They saw no harm in taking lunch at the Half Moon and while there partook of several good pints of Bishop's Finger.

They had for company a young couple on a driving holiday and a retired labourer who was garrulous on the point of his rheumatism. When questioned on the topic of local ghosts he said he'd seen none himself, but retold how last autumn his friend who had been gardener at the manor had died. Apparently he had seen queer things in his time there.

"What manner of things?" Simpson asked.

"He didn't go into much detail, seeing as he thought none would believe him, but he told me once, and mark you this was before the lad disappeared, that things weren't the same there when the moon shone full. That's what he said. He said sometimes there was carp in the pond."

Chalmers wasn't impressed "Carp?"

"I have myself seen goldfish there, but what does that matter?" Simpson asked.

"Not the goldfish, I've seen them. Great brazen carp fish he said and ducks." The labourer shrugged. " Old Tom wasn't a liar."

"Perhaps both fish live there." Chalmers reasoned.

"That's more or less what he was saying." The labourer nodded with a strange look "Sometimes there were carp."

Unsure that the conversation was leading anywhere useful Simpson changed the subject to that of the missing youth.

"Did anyone have any idea about the missing boy?" He asked.

"Well, there was a mighty search for the lad. Police and dogs and volunteers from the village, but no one ever found anything. He just vanished." The old man looked at his empty glass.

Simpson ordered him another Finger.

"I was involved in the search. The lad was adventurous, and robust for his years. It was thought that he had wandered in the night a few times, perhaps for midnight feasts. Anyway we dredged the pond, it's uncommon deep, and searched the area but found nothing. None of the village children ever said anything about it. Old Tom was all but accused, though he never would have harmed the boy." The old man coughed " He told the police what he thought, that the boy lay drowned in the pond. That was that. It hit his parents awful hard."

"I imagine it would. Did you search the well?" asked Simpson for he had noticed the structure beside the house and had thought it a possible source of danger to a child.

The old man shook his head slowly.

"No. For it was covered and barred. The latch was so rusted as no grown man could shift it. It's likely nobody has drawn water from it this century."

Simpson and Chalmers thanked the man for his time and drove back to the Hall. As the afternoon was fair they spent some time in the garden. The ducks were absent but they fed scraps of bread to the goldfish before returning to the house to sleep. They examined the well for themselves. On the extreme right of the patio, constructed of brick, it bore an aged circular cover that was indeed bolted hard and sealed with rust.

They slept until half past seven.

******

It was Chalmers who woke Simpson this time. He shook him roughly awake. "Get up quickly! The electricity is off. Something's happening." Chalmers insisted.

Simpson was chilled.

"I'm freezing." He groaned.

"Massive energy drain!" Chalmers babbled excitedly. "It happened at ten past seven. The clock stopped. No power, the flashlights are dead, the camera batteries, everything drained. Even the ambient temperature has fallen drastically."

Simpson sprang off the sofa and drew the curtains. In the moonlight, Chalmers could see clouds of his breath in the chill air.

"Blimey!" Simpson grinned. "This is it! The real business!"

Shivering, he checked his watch, it too had stopped. Then he noticed something. "Ducks on the pond! Come on, let's get out there." He hastily put his boots on.

The two men ran down the central path toward the pond, which gave off vapours of itself into the chill night air. Stars and moon shone brightly upon their surroundings.

They stared at the water as a great smooth V-shaped ripple approached. Even in such light as there was, Simpson clearly made out the curved back and scales of the fish, lighter than the dark waters in which it swam.

"Carp!" Announced Chalmers breathlesly.

"I'm going in." declared Simpson as he pulled off his shirt.

"You'll catch your death...." Chalmers gasped, but Simpson had already taken off his trousers and climbed up on the parapet. He turned once more to look upon Chalmers and then jumped to the great consternation of his friend and the ducks. As Simpson hit the water, it seemed to Chalmers that there was great and sudden movement from the statuary.

********

Simpson found the water to be cold and surfaced spluttering to again see the moon and starlit garden. However, as his hand clasped the stone parapet for support he saw at once that his friend no longer stood there. He turned about him and saw lights in the Manor windows.

Shivering, he pulled himself from the pond and stepped down upon the gravel. The sharp stones hurt his bare feet as he ran dripping to the back of the house.

He stepped upon the flower bed and peered in on the living room. What he saw there filled him with wonder, for a great fire filled the room with warm light and revealed period furnishings in their richness of youth. Highly polished woodwork of cabinet, shelves, chairs and harpsichord reflected the firelight. But of the occupants there was no sign.

He walked on to the dining room windows pausing only to disengage the painful clutch of a rose briar, and then looked in there to find the family and person of Sir Charles Gosling at candlelit dinner. He knew Gosling well enough and could guess that the lady beside him was his wife. Two sons and a daughter were apparent and an aged couple perhaps Sir Charles' parents. A servant entered bearing wine for the diners.

Finding the cold to be pressing Simpson returned again to the living room windows. Clearly he risked exposure to remain outside and so tried to open them from without. Sadly he found all four to be secured and he hurried to the back door for what promised to be an embarrassing encounter, undressed as he was.

His knocking upon the door roused the barking of dogs within and stirred someone else besides as the door was opened by a tall greying man in simple livery. At his feet Simpson recognized a Spaniel who growled cold welcome. Colder still was the muzzle of a pistol in the manservant's possession that touched Simpson's chest in warning.

"Who art thou? And what do you in the gardens?"

"My name is Stan Simpson, Sir. I ask your help and want to speak to your master." Simpson stammered.

"Hast thou been after the carp, knave?" the man asked harshly. His eyes fell to Simpson's Y fronts. "You are swaddled like a babe!"

"Please let me in to be warm and to explain myself." Simpson begged.

The manservant conceded and Simpson found himself brought through to the kitchen that he knew so well that yet was so entirely differently furnished now.

A matronly figure brought him a blanket while the manservant looked on still ready with his weapon.

"Please tell Sir Charles that I am here. I need to talk with him in confidence." Simpson pleaded. "Give him this as a sign of my coming." He took off his watch and held it out to the matron.

She looked at in wonder and then left the room.

She returned to say that Sir Charles would see him at once, in the living room.

*****

Simpson entered to find Sir Charles pacing by the fire, the watch clasped in one fist as his other played with his beard in anxiety.

"Come in , sir, welcome and sit here before the fire. You are cold from your swimming, I see." Simpson thanked him as he himself sat in another great chair and folded his arms defensively. "When are you from?" He asked.

"I am from 1997 and am keen to return there, um, I mean then." Simpson answered.

Gosling nodded "Perhaps you shall. Why! I believe you are the man that I pushed into the pond! You are tenacious, Sir. I thought that act a fair warning. Are you a relative of the boy's?"

"No Sir, I am a guest in your house. An investigator." Simpson answered.

"An investigator!" Gosling's face darkened "Come to pry into my philosophies no doubt. Well, you shall learn nothing of the moon clock. Nothing!" With this he drew forth his rapier and in an eye-blink had the point at Simpson's throat.

"No. I am not here for your clock, nor anything save a private exchange of information, mine for yours." Simpson said hurriedly.

"With what information do you bargain for your life?" Asked Gosling menacingly.

"August 12th, 1647." Answered Simpson cautiously.

"The day of my death?" Gosling leered. "You think I wouldn't know that? 'Twas one of my first discoveries. I am pleased enough with my sepulchre. Believe me I have explored a good deal more than that." The rapier lowered.

"What else have you..... been up to?" Simpson asked.

"I have been a most diligent student of history and the sciences, but quite unobtrusive." Gosling answered carefully.

"I investigate ghosts, Gosling. Your house becomes full of them. You will die unshriven. Your wailing spectre will haunt this house and the church for years to come." Simpson leaned forward, more confident now. "Eternal misery awaits you Gosling, and your wife too, unless you avert the wrong that you have perhaps yet to accomplish."

Gosling sniffed, but looked unruffled. "I keep Church, as does my wife. I have done no wrong. Perhaps you mistake my occasional visits to your era for some grisly haunting? I borrow some books and occasionally partake of some provender from the cold white engine. It has been my pleasure to keep my furnishings in their proper places and sometimes to watch of the television."

"Even so the house is haunted. Your spirit will be unquiet." Simpson insisted.

Gosling looked bemused. "I do not see why." He said flatly. "Though now that you mention it, occasionally I have sensed some menace in the house, particularly about the stairway."

"What happened to the boy then?" Simpson asked.

"Do not accuse us of his death. Like you, he went aswimming on a night when the clock was active. Unlike you he emerged half drowned. We tended him some five days before time sickness killed him. We buried him under one of the lions." Gosling sighed. He then enquired whistfully "Do you like them? They are from Florence, very expensive. I was brought up there, you know."

"I now know all that I really came to find out, Sir Charles, and I have warned you of the need to spend your life in Godly ways." Simpson tried to sound calm. " I would like to return to my own time now."

Gosling tugged at his beard nervously. "I am not sure that you can. How can I trust you to keep my secret?"

"What do you mean? You mean to bar me?" Simpson stood up. Though dressed poorly, he was strong and desperate.

Gosling raised his rapier and then suddenly seemed to yield.

"Very well. I see that you mean to return and it would be wrong for me to prevent you. Come follow me. We must observe and adjust the Moon Clock to reopen the gate." Gosling stood up and led Simpson upstairs.

They walked the full length of the corridor and waited while Gosling unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal an open room with views of the garden. Near the window was a table in full moonlight bearing a complex mechanism that Simpson guessed was the Moon Clock. Its face bore peculiar sigils and numerous queer dials. A central spike rose from the mechanism, upon which rested a crystaline prismatic tube that was aimed squarely at the pond. From this vantage point Simpson noted that the statues were stationed equally around the pond like numerals upon a clock face.

Seeing his realization the Cavalier nodded and said "Yes they are a Zodiac."

"Did you design this clock yourself?" Simpson asked.

"No, that was Manzini's work, but I assembled it here and succeeded in establishing the gate where he had failed. Now. Look through the tube." Gosling instructed.

Simpson did so and Gosling turned one of the dials 180 degrees. Simpson suddenly saw ducks appear upon the pond.

"It's open now?" Simpson asked.

Gosling reached for the tube and snapped it briskly in half.

"No. The gate is forever closed." Gosling turned and ran. Shouting for his servants as he gained the corridor.

"I'll kill you!" Screamed Simpson in stark horror. He dived after the retreating Gosling.

Gosling was fleet, it was all that Simpson could do to reach the stairs as Gosling was half way down them. As Simpson rushed forward he saw the manservant take aim and fire upon him. The bullet struck him in the chest. Simpson stopped for a moment and then clutching his wound walked slowly down the stairs with measured paces as the Cavalier retreated before him, all the time his eyes were fixed upon Gosling. On the last step he fell dead.

******

The police searched hard for Mr.Simpson, they again dredged the pond, but to no avail. In answer to their enquiries Mr. Chalmers stood by his story that Simpson had entered the pond and then about half an hour later some ducks had disappeared in front of his eyes. He had eventually returned to the house in dismay.

A week later Ghosts Monthly 4 was published with great publicity surrounding the journalist's disappearance and it sold extremely well. The cover photograph clearly showed the ghostly figure of a man descending the stairs with one arm clasped to his chest. The features were indistinct, but Mr. forbes felt that they were strangely familiar somehow. With his work on GM4 Mr. Chalmers career really took off. Within the year he was driving the Tigra and had every expectation of further success.

Gosling Hall was bought the following year by HM Government to be used as a country retreat for members of the Cabinet. There were no more kitchen raids or encounters with the Grey Cavalier, but the presence on the stairs was a fairly common sighting for men of the special security service.

The Stanley Simpson missing persons case remains open and is likely to remain so until in some distant future the packed earth at the bottom of the well should be excavated.

THE END