Quite suddenly, these inexplicable occurrences ceased. Nothing was touched in my room. It was over. I began to feel much better in myself. I felt a sense of relief return, particularly when I learned that Monsieur Legite, one of my neighbours, was showing many of my own earlier symptoms. Once more I was sure it must have something to do with our location and that it was something in the atmosphere. My coachman, incidentally, had become extremely ill and had stopped working for me a month earlier.

Winter had passed and it was now early spring. One day I was walking near one of my rose-borders when I saw, I tell you I saw with my very own eyes and right next to me at that, the stalk of one of the most beautiful roses break off exactly as though an invisible hand had plucked it. The flower described the curve which an invisible arm would have made to bring it to someone’s face, then hung terrifyingly suspended in mid-air all by itself, no more than three feet away from my eyes. Scared witless, I lunged forward to grab it. Nothing! Gone! I suddenly became furious with myself. No man in his right mind could have hallucinations like that! But was that what it was? I looked for the stem of the rose again and found straight away where it had been broken off between two other blooms on the same branch. I knew there had been three earlier on. I had seen them.

I went indoors, shaken to the core. I assure you, gentlemen, I am quite clear about this. I do not now and never have believed in the supernatural. But from that moment onwards, I knew as surely as I know night follows day that somewhere near me was an invisible being. It had haunted me before, left me for a while and was now back.

A short while later I had proof.

My staff began to quarrel among themselves every day. It was always over seemingly trivial matters, but for me they were full of significance. One day one of my best glasses, a beautiful Venetian piece, fell for no apparent reason from the dining room dresser and smashed into smithereens. My manservant blamed the maid who in turn blamed somebody else, and so it continued. Doors firmly locked in the evening were found next day wide open. Every night milk was stolen from the pantry … and so on and so forth ad nauseam. What was all this about? What on earth was happening? I vacillated, terrified, torn between wanting to know and dreading what I might learn. Once again the house returned to normal and once more I began to think I must have dreamed the whole thing, until the following events occurred.