The Mask

it.”
    “Which puts me right back at square one,” Paul said, folding his hands around his coffee cup.
    “I’m sorry you spent all this money without getting an answer,” Alsgood said. “I really feel bad about that.”
    “It isn’t your fault. I’m convinced you did a thorough job. In fact, if I ever buy another house, I’ll definitely want you to inspect it first. At least I now know the trouble isn’t structural, which rules out possibilities and narrows the field of inquiry.”
    “Maybe you won’t even hear it again. It might stop just as suddenly as it started.”
    “Somehow, I suspect you’re wrong about that,” Paul said.
    Later, at the front door, as Alsgood was leaving, he said, “One thought has occurred to me, but I hesitate to mention it.”
    “Why?”
    “You might think it’s off the wall.”
    “Mr. Alsgood, I’m a desperate man. I’m willing to consider anything, no matter how farfetched it might be.”
    Alsgood looked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then back along the hall that lay behind Paul, then down at his own feet. “A ghost,” he said quietly.
    Paul stared at him, surprised.
    Alsgood cleared his throat nervously, shifted his eyes to the floor again, then finally raised them and met Paul’s gaze. “Maybe you don’t believe in ghosts.”
    “Do you?” Paul asked.
    “Yes. I’ve been interested in the subject most of my life. I have a large collection of publications dealing with spiritualism of all sorts. I’ve had some personal experiences in haunted houses, too.”
    “You’ve seen a ghost”
    “I believe I have, yes, on four occasions. Ectoplasmic apparitions. Insubstantial, manlike shapes drifting in the air. I’ve also twice witnessed poltergeist phenomena. As far as this house is concerned…”
    His voice trailed away, and he licked his lips nervously. “If you find this boring or preposterous, I don’t want to waste your time.”
    “Quite frankly,” Paul said, “I can’t picture myself calling an exorcist in to deal with this. But I’m not entirely close-minded where ghosts are concerned. I find it hard to accept, but I’m certainly willing to listen.”
    “Reasonable enough,” Alsgood said. For the first time since he had rung the doorbell more than two hours ago, color rose into his milky complexion, and his watery eyes brightened with a spark of enthusiasm. “All right. Here’s something to consider. From what you’ve told me, I’d say there might be a poltergeist at work here. Of course, no objects have been hurled around by an unseen presence; there’s been no breakage, and poltergeists dearly love to break things. But the shaking of the house, the clattering pots and pans, the little bottles clinking against one another in the spice rack—those are all indications of a poltergeist at work, one that’s just beginning to test its powers. If it is a poltergeist, then you can expect worse to come. Oh, yes. Definitely. Furniture moving across the floor all by itself. Pictures flung off the walls, lamps knocked down and broken. Dishes flying around the room as if they were birds.” His wan countenance flushed with excitement as he considered the supernatural destruction. “Levitations of heavy objects like sofas and beds and refrigerators. Now mind you, there are some recorded cases of people being plagued by benign poltergeists that don’t break much of anything, but the overwhelming number of them are malign, and that’s what you’ll most likely have to deal with—if indeed you’ve got one here at all.” Having warmed to his subject, he finished in an almost breathless rush of words: “In its most active form, even a benign poltergeist can completely disrupt a household, interfere with your sleep, and keep you so on edge that you don’t know whether you’re coming or going.”
    Startled by Alsgood’s passionately delivered speech and by the odd new light in the man’s eyes, Paul said, “Well… uh… it’s really not that bad. Not nearly that bad. Just a hammering sound and—”
    “It’s not that bad yet,” Alsgood said somberly. “But if you have a poltergeist here, the situation could deteriorate rapidly. If you’ve never seen one in action, Mr. Tracy, you simply can’t understand what it’s like.”
    Paul was disconcerted by the change in the man. He felt as if he had opened the door to one of those wholesome-looking types who turned out to be pushing crackpot religious pamphlets and who proclaimed the imminence of Judgment Day in the same bubbly, upbeat tone of voice that Donny Osmond might use to