peculiar, but not strong nor
displeasing odour, came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood
that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this
odour, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even
the two workmen who were in the room--a creeping tingling sensation from
the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine
the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass
went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that
ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor.
The liquid was spilt--the saucer was broken--the compass rolled to the
end of the room--and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a
giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which
we had descended from the trap-door; but seeing that nothing more
happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in a plain red leather,
with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on
that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old
monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus:--"On all that
it can reach within these walls--sentient or inanimate, living or
dead--as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and
restless be the dwellers therein."

We found no more. Mr J---- burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed
to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room
with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house
himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not
be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his
tenant has made no complaints.

But my story is not yet done. A few days after Mr J---- had removed into
the house, I paid him a visit. We were standing by the open window and
conversing. A van containing some articles of furniture which he was
moving from his former house was at the door. I had just urged on him my
theory that all those phenomena regarded as supermundane had emanated
from a human brain; adducing the charm, or rather curse, we had found
and destroyed in support of my philosophy. Mr J---- was observing in
reply, "That even if mesmerism, or whatever analogous power it might be
called, could really thus work in the absence of the operator, and
produce effects so ex