utely distinct. The phenomena you heard
are periodical re-enactions, (either by the earth-bound spirits of the
actual victim and perpetrators, or by impersonating phantoms), of a
crime once committed within the Castle walls. A girl was obviously
murdered in the chapel and her coffin dragged into the dungeons, where,
no doubt, her remains are to be found. I presume it was her spirit you
heard tintinnabulating. Very possibly, if her skeleton were unearthed
and re-interred in an orthodox fashion, the hauntings would cease.

"Now, with regard to your friend's experience. The blurred figure you
saw pursuing the engineer was not the image of Buddha--it was one of Mr
Vercoe's many personalities, extracted from him by the image of Buddha.
We are all, as you are aware, complex creatures, all composed of diverse
selves, each self possessing a specific shape and individuality. The
more animal of these separate selves, the higher spiritual forces
attaching themselves to certain localities and symbols have the power of
drawing out of us, and eventually destroying. The higher spiritual
forces, however, do not associate themselves with all crucifixes and
Buddhas, but only with those moulded by true believers. For instance, a
Buddha fashioned for mere gain, and by a person who was not a genuine
follower of the prophet, would have no power of attraction.

"I have proved all this, experimentally, times without number.

"Mr Vercoe must have had--as indeed many of us have--vices, in all
probability, little suspected. The close proximity of the Buddha acted
on them, and they began to leave his body and form a shape of their own.
Had he allowed them to do so, all might have gone well; they would have
been effectually overcome by the higher spiritual forces attached to the
Buddha. But as soon as he saw a figure beginning to form--and no doubt
it was very dreadful--he lost his head. His shrieks interrupted the
work, the power of the Buddha was, _pro tempus_, at an end, and the
extracted personality commenced at once to re-enter Vercoe. Rushing at
him with that end in view, it so terrified him that he fled from the
room, and it was at that stage that you appeared upon the scene. What
followed is, of course, pure conjecture on my part, but I fear, I
greatly fear, that by the time Mr Vercoe became unconscious the mischief
was done, and the latter's evil personality had once again united with
his other personalities."

"And what would be the af