The Stains of Blood
The following narrative was personally related to Robert Dale Owen, by a clergyman of the Church of England, who was Chaplain, at the time, to the British Legation in Florence. It is as follows:
“In the year 1856, I was staying with my wife and children, at a favorite watering place. In order to attend to some affairs of my own, I determined to leave my family there for three or four days. Accordingly, on the 8th of August, I took the railway, and arrived that evening an unexpected guest at the Hall—the residence of a gentleman whose acquaintance I had recently made, and with whom my sister was then staying.
“I arrived late, soon afterwards went to bed, and before long fell asleep. Awaking after three or four hours, I was not surprised to find that I could sleep no more—for I never rest well in a strange bed. After trying, therefore, in vain to induce sleep, I began to arrange my plans for the day. I had been engaged some little time in this way, when I became suddenly sensitive to the fact that there was a light in the room. Turning round, I distinctly perceived a female figure; and what attracted my special attention was that the light by which I saw it emanated from itself. I watched the figure attentively. The features were not perceptible. After moving a little distance, it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
“My first thoughts were that there was some trick. I immediately got out of bed, struck a light, and found my bedroom door still locked. I then carefully examined the walls, to ascertain if there was any other concealed means of entrance or exit, but none could I find. I drew the curtains and opened the shutters, but all outside was silent and dark, there being no moonlight. After examining the room in every part, I went back to bed, and began thinking calmly over the whole matter. What had I seen? And why did It appear?
“In the morning, as soon as I was up and dressed, I told my sister what I had seen. She then informed me that the house had the reputation of being ‘haunted’; and that a murder had been committed in it; but not in the room in which I had slept. Later in the day I left—after making my sister promise to do all she could to unravel the mystery.
“On the following Wednesday morning, I received a letter from my sister, in which she informed me that, since I left, she had made inquiries and had ascertained that the murder was committed in the very room in which I slept! She added that she proposed visiting us the next day, and that she would like me to write out an account of what I had seen—together with a plan of the room, and that on that plan she wished me to mark the place of the appearance and disappearance of the figure.
“This I immediately did; and the next day when my sister arrived, she asked me if I had complied with her request? I replied, pointing to the drawing room table: ‘Yes, there is the account and the plan.’
“As she rose to examine it, I prevented her, saying: ‘Do not look at it until you have told me all you have to say, because you might unintentionally color your story by what you may read there.’
“Thereupon she informed me that she had had the carpet taken up in the room I had occupied, and that the marks of blood from the murdered person were there, plainly visible, on a particular part of the floor. At my request she also then drew a plan of the room, and marked upon it the spots which still bore traces of blood. The two plans—my sister’s and mine—were now compared; and we verified the most remarkable fact that the place she had marked as the beginning and ending of the traces of blood coincided exactly with the spots marked on my plan as those on which the female figure had appeared and disappeared!”