I opened my gate and began to walk up the long avenue of sycamores leading to the house, arched to make a vault-like tunnel, with banks of flowers on either side, then lawns where flowerbeds formed vague ovals among the pale shadows. As I approached the house, I was gripped by a strange feeling of foreboding. I stopped in my tracks. There was not a sound to be heard. Not a leaf rustled. What on earth was the matter with me, I wondered. I had been coming home like this for ten years with never a hint of any anxiety in my mind. I was not frightened. I have never been afraid of the night. Had I spotted some prowler or burglar, anger would have translated itself into physical action and I would have hurled myself at him without the slightest hesitation. Besides, I was armed. I had my revolver on me. But I never touched it. I knew that I needed to control by myself the fear I could feel stirring into life within me.

What was it? Some premonition? The mysterious kind of premonition which grips a man’s senses when they are about to witness something inexplicable? Perhaps so. Who knows? As I moved forward, my flesh began to creep. When I reached the outside walls of my vast house with its closed shutters I felt I needed to wait a few minutes before opening the front door and going in. I sat on a garden seat under my drawing room windows. Trembling a little, I leaned my head against the wall and focused on the shadowy bushes beyond. For the first few moments I noticed nothing unusual. I had a little roaring in the ears but I get that often. It’s as if I can hear trains passing, bells ringing, or the stamp of a crowd on the march.

Soon, however, this roaring became more distinct, sharper in tone and more specific. I had been wrong in thinking this was the usual sound of blood coursing through my arteries. This was a very particular sound which, however difficult to define, was coming, there was no doubt about this now, from within my house itself.

Through the wall I could hear it continuously, more of a tremor than a noise, the vague shifting of a host of things, as if all the furniture were being picked up, shaken, then dragged quietly off. Well! As you can imagine, for a very long time I wondered whether I was hearing things. But having glued my ear to the shutter to try and find out what this disturbance inside my home was, I came to the firm conclusion that something incomprehensible and abnormal was going on. I was not so much frightened as … how can I put it? … terrified with astonishment. I did not load my revolver, guessing quite correctly, as it turned out, that there was no earthly reason to do so. I waited.