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Show A TRUE GHOST STORY By Mary Roberts Rinehart not go into his office If they could help it, that there was a ghost In It. "I have never laid any of the disturbances dis-turbances to the so-called earth-bound earth-bound spirit of Mr. Penrose. But we have never found an explanation. explana-tion. We even had a special type of Yale lock on the entrance door to our apartment. I myself checked on such things as the ringing of the bedroom bell, and that repeatedly. "Suddenly, dreadfully, the matter terminated in my mother's death. For fourteen years she had been paralyzed, and had never attempted to get into her bath without help ; it was considered an impossibility for her to do it. "One night Marie turned on the hot water, and then was called away. And in the few?, moments of absence my mother didthe supposedly impossible, im-possible, got into the scalding water in the tub, there to die from it." CoDvrierht. WNU Service. called In an electrician to examine for a short circuit; there was none. "After that we accepted the bell, and in time became accustomed to It. But other queer happenings took place ; curious and unexplainable noises and stirrings disturbed not only Marie, but myself, two aunts who came to visit us, and my sons. "My eldest son, who came home for a visit was unwarned of the situation. situa-tion. Just before his" arrival the hall floor had been painted, and the furniture furni-ture had been set back for the first time. "The following morning he called me. and I found him In the hall staring at something. He had come in late, and gone to sleep at once, to be awakened with a feeling of intense in-tense cold and a sense of terror he could not explain. Following that, as he lay there, outside his door in the hall, a heavy piece of furniture had apparently commenced to move, and for an hour it had creaked and moved without stopping. We examined ex-amined the floor and found on the freshly painted surface a series of new scorings around a heavy leather chair. These scorings were very deep. "A few days later we were all out of the apartment which was locked. When we returned we found to our amazement the pandanus plant sitting sit-ting neatly upright on the living room floor, minus Its crock, and some thirty feet from where it belonged. "One night we gave a dinner. The next clay the papers ran a tale that the Penrose apartment was haunted, and that the dead Senator was ringing ring-ing his bell. Whereupon a statement state-ment came from the senate office building, that the bell from his private pri-vate office had rung for some time after his death, two short sharp peals. Also a page from the senate later told me that the boys would "In 1022, after the death of Bols Penrose, my family took occupancy of his apartment in Washington. From our first night there a strange phenomenon pervaded the place," related re-lated Mary Roberts Rinehart famous novelist. "The distraction was only to end with my mother's death. "The account of the phenomenon .has been told before, and I am telling tell-ing It now, not because I believe in any physical manifestation of survival sur-vival after death, but because I know one cannot say that because he or she cannot see a thing, It does not exist. 'Terhaps the disturbances were, .warning us of danger to my mother; J perhaps some child, Incarnate, was playing around our rooms. Whatever it was some strange phenomenon did exist. "The scene was set there, of course, for the rumor of a ghost. "Immediately after Senator Penrose's Pen-rose's death the colored maids were stating that the dead man was walking. walk-ing. On our first night in the apartment, apart-ment, after we had turned off our lights, there was a rush of something some-thing through the room. The effect was as If a large black curtain had been drawn swiftly across us. Doctor Doc-tor Rinehart sat up In bed. "What on earth was that?" he asked. "We turned on the lights, but everything was as it should be. The windows were open, but there was no wind, and the narrow curtains were held flat to the wall by heavy bands that could not blow under any circumstances. "The next morniug brought an unusual un-usual Incident. We had no servants save Marie, the personal maid for my mother and myself. At seven the next morning Marie entered with my coffee. I reproved her for coming early. " 'But you rang, madam. Rang twice.' "Later Marie complained repeatedly repeated-ly of my ringing the bell which connected con-nected my room with hers, when I did not ring. One day I myself heard the bell ringing In her room, when I was In the study opposite her room. We |