But I think the matter will be more intelligible if I narrate it exactly as it came under my own observation.

The names of persons and places are all fictitious, and are the same as those used in the documents published by the S.P.R.
HALF-PAST ONE O'CLOCK In October, 1893, I was staying at a town which we shall call Rapingham.

One night I and some kinsfolk dined with another old friend of all of us, a Dr.Ferrier.

In the course of dinner he asked a propos de bottes:-- "Have you heard of the ghost in Blake Street ?" a sunny, pleasant street of respectable but uninteresting antiquity in Rapingham.
We had none of us heard of the ghost, and begged the doctor to enlighten our ignorance.

His story ran thus--I have it in his own writing as far as its essence goes:-- "The house," he said, "belongs to my friends, the Applebys, who let it, as they live elsewhere.