Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1890-07-25
Confined from First Page.

tangible - be seen. Ne SAT down to-
eether q little way from the fire. she
holding my hand. which she would catch
At hard and bold on to. at. / suppose,
poignant instants Of her vision
Shesaw the golden haired child sit on
footsto0l quite close 70 the FIRE. and the
black kitten sit near her. both gazing in
tently. and. a. il were, with content,
At the flames. They sat. and the Goals
assuring us Of our touch with the real
world blew Kissing jets Of smoke, which
would break into rushing flame illumi-
mating all the room, and the cinders
cracked and fell together, dropping
fragments out upon the brass fender
with clatter that made US start-all
that. Of course, at intervals which seemed
hours long. Then at length she saw
handwriting but a shapely ghostly
hand and wTist-fash from the dark on
the left hand side Of the fire place, seize
the black kitten by the neck, and catch
It away; an instant after the same hand
flashed down upon the child; the child
fell forward against the fire, and with
piercing scream of agony disappeared!
Nv wife started forward with a
scream; so that to this day it is impossi-
BILE for me to decide for myself which I
heard-the scream of my wife or the
cry of the child-the sound of this world
or of the other.
Ny wife had tainted; / carried her out
of that room and locked the door. /
thought it was not worth while to dis
turb the house; but when had brought
4. a 4. Ill 4 81,
sisted that she could not rest that night
till an attempt had been made to solve
the mystery, and to lay the ghost.
/ returned down stairs, found Clyde
and old Vansittart. and told them what
we had done. Clyde seemed a good
deal put out; he believed nothing but
trouble would come of this meddling;
however, since we had gone so far. he
was prepared to see US through with it.
SO we all went to the haunted room
women and all.
We all agreed that the ghostly hand
was the center and origin of the whole
machinery, SO to say. of the apparition;
and my wife and Mrs. Vansittart declared
that the hand came from the left hand
side of the fireplace. Now there las all
fastened some greenish colored material
OF canvas texture as a background for
his pictures, which were here as every
where. Receiving his permission to unds
that part of it. drew the pins, and dis
closed an old fashioned flock paper. He
swore and declared he had instructed
the workmen to strip the walls before
putting his stuff up. Stripping away
piece of the flock paper, l disclosed first
one common wall paper and then another,
till l came to fat sound woodwork.
Stripping everything freely away from
that, saw on close examination a small
tight fitting cupboard door.
That discovered, paused, and we all
looked at each other What strange
secret of the house might be exposed by
the opening of that doorl
prise awayl" said Clyde to me, hand
ing a chisel with malignant ferocity
which startled me.
With some effort the door was forced
open-and lol grisly sight that made
the women screaml A skeleton hand-a
right hand-with precious flashing rings
slipping over the joint of one of the
fingers hung by loose silken cord from
a hook, while below it on the floor of the
cupboard lay a small complete skeleton
of four footed creature, which we de-
termined could be none other than a
kitten,
Strange and horriblel And what did it
meang gave my guess then, as give it
now. The hand was the hand of the
foreign woman who had hated her own
child and hated cats, who had in that
very room struck at her child through
her child's ktten-had probably Gas the
vision seemed to signify seized the cat,
and in her passion had killed it and in
her fear had hid it-and then had struck
at her child, not with intent to kill, prob
ably, but so rashly and violently that the
child had fallen against the fire and had
died of her injuries. The buccaneering
husband with the rose of health in his
check, but with the evil of hell in his
eye, had somehow found out all that,
and in passion for revenge had cut off
his wife's cruel right hand. and hung it
up there in memorial of her crueltyl
If that be not the explanation, there is
none.
II think you must be right, said Clyde,
~and in corroboration of your view
point to that portrait of the lady over
there in the corner, in which, you will
see, the right hand is as if hid under the
mantle.
There are two or three curious points
in the story which my attempted expo
sition of the original mystery does not
explains, for instance, why the injured
Al.
in complete ghostly guise, and why it APP
peared only to women, and among wo-
men only to mothers-but have never
yet seen or heard the theory that COM
pletely met and routed all difficulties in