E. Nesbit

“ Desmond had been working his head against the thing behind him, easing the knot of the handkerchief down till it slipped from head to neck. Now he got his mouth free, and said, quickly:—
"That was not true what I said about the Chinamen and that. I was joking. My mother's people were all Devon."
"I don't blame you in the least," said Prior, quietly. "I should lie myself in your place."
And he put back the handkerchief. The candle was now burning clearly from the place where it stood—on a stone coffin. Desmond could see that the long things on the shelves were coffins, not all of stone. ”

“ The last thing Desmond heard before he fainted in good earnest was the scream Prior uttered as he turned at the crash and saw the white-shrouded body leaping towards him.
"It's all right," he heard next. And Verney was bending over him with brandy. "You're quite safe. He's tied up and locked in the laboratory. No. That's all right, too." For Desmond's eyes had turned towards the lidless coffin. "That was only me. It was the only way I could think of, to save you. Can you walk now? Let me help you, so. I've opened the grating." ”

“ Desmond, and Verney here assists me."
Verney murmured something that sounded like "only too proud," and subsided.
"We all have our hobbies, and chemistry is mine," Mr. Prior went on. "Fortunately, I have a little income which enables me to indulge it. Wildon, my nephew, you know, laughs at me, and calls it the science of smells. But it's absorbing, very absorbing."
After dinner Verney faded away, and Desmond and his host stretched their feet to what Mr, Prior called a "handful of fire," for the evening had grown chill.
"And now," Desmond said, "won't you tell me the ghost story?" ”

“ The last part of the journey was through a wood; then came a churchyard and a church, and the bathing-machine turned in at a gate under heavy trees and drew up in front of a white house with bare, gaunt windows. ”

“ The law's like that, you know."
"But you—the police—won't they——"
"It's quite safe," said Verney, dully. "Nobody knows but the old man, and now nobody will believe anything he says. No, he never posted your letters, of course, and he never wrote to your friend, and he put off the Psychical man. No, I can't find Lopez; he must know that something's up. He's bolted."
But he had not. They found him, stubbornly dumb, but moaning a little, crouched against the locked grating of the vault when they came, a prudent half-dozen of them, to take the old man away from the Haunted House. ”

“ One couldn't expect them to sacrifice their health. I sometimes think—village gossip is a deadly thing, Mr. Desmond—that perhaps they were prepared to be frightened; that they fancy things. I hope the Psychical Society's expert won't be a neurotic. But even without being a neurotic one might—but you don't believe in ghosts, Mr. Desmond. ”

“ What is true is that you had on your throat just the same little white wound that all the others have had. I wish"—he frowned—"that I could get that vault gate shut again. The key won't turn."
"I wonder if I could do anything?" Desmond asked, secretly convinced that he had hurt his throat in falling, and that his host's story was, as he put it, "all moonshine." Still, to put a lock right was but a slight return for all the care and kindness. "I'm an engineer, you know," he added, awkwardly, and rose. "Probably a little oil. Let's have a look at this same lock." ”

“ Desmond thought he was listening, but presently he roused himself and dragged his attention back to the words that were being spoken.
"——that made the fifth death. ... There is one every hundred years, and always in the same mysterious way." ”

“ It is not considered safe, and they can't afford to restore it. Claret to Mr. Desmond, Lopez." And the swarthy, blunt-faced man filled his glass.
"I find this place very convenient for my experiments. I dabble a little in chemistry, Mr. ”