The Weird Story of the "Waeful Dagger" of the Jarnock Family
Carnacki had just returned to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. I was aware of this interesting fact by reason of the curtly worded postcard which I was re-reading, and by which I was requested to present myself at No. 472, not later than seven o'clock on that same evening.
Mr. Carnacki had, as I and the others of his strictly limited circle of friends knew, been away in Kent for the past three weeks; but, beyond that, we had no knowledge. Carnacki was always secretive, and generally curt, and spoke only when he was ready to speak. When this stage arrived, I and his three other friends, Jessop, Arkright, and Taylor, would receive a card or a wire, asking us to call. Not one of us ever willingly missed; for after a thoroughly sensible little dinner, Carnacki would snuggle down into his big armchair, and begin to talk. And what talks they were! Stories, true in every word,; yet full of weird and extraordinary incidents that held one silent and awed until had made an end of speaking. And afterwards, we four would shake him silently by the hand and stumble out into the dark streets, fearful even of our own shadows, and so with haste to our homes.
Upon this particular night I was the first to arrive, and found Carnacki sitting, quietly smoking over a paper. He stood up; shook me firmly by the hand; pointed to a chair and sat down again, never having uttered a word. A man such a mixture of curtness and courtesy I never met.
For my part I said nothing. I knew the man too well to bother him with questions or the weather, and so took a seat and a cigarette. Presently the three others turned up, and after that we spent a comfortable and busy hour at dinner.
Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down luxuriously into his great chair, filled his pipe, and puffed for awhile, his gaze directed on the fire. The rest of us made ourselves comfortable, each after his own particular manner. A minute later Carnacki began to speak, ignoring any preliminary remarks, and going straight to the subject of the story we knew he had to tell.
"I've just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most extraordinary things have been happening there lately, and Mr. George Jarnock, the eldest son, wired me to come over and see if I could help to clear things up a bit. I went. When I got there I found that they've an old chapel with a fine reputation for being haunted. They've been rather proud of this, I could see, until, suddenly, quite lately, the ghost has started being dangerous - deadly dangerous, too - the butler being nearly stabbed to death in the chapel with a queer old dagger. It's this dagger that's supposed to haunt the chapel. At least, there has always been an old yarn in the family that this dagger would attack any enemy who should dare to venture into the chapel after night-fall. But, of course, it's all been taken as most ghost-tales are. Yet, now, it would seem that there must be something in the old story about it being able to act on its own, or in the hand of some invisible thing. At least, that's how it seemed to everyone when I arrived and began to look into things a bit.
"Of course, the first thing I did was to make sure that there was no obvious human agency in the matter, and this I found to be a simpler thing than I had anticipated; for the butler was stabbed when there were other people in the chapel and the place lighted up. Stabbed there right before the onlookers, and no one could tell how it had been done, not even the man himself. And the force used must have been prodigious, for he was driven back into the body of the chapel as though he had been kicked by a horse. Fortunately, his injury was not mortal, and when I got there he was sufficiently recovered to be able to talk to me. Yet I got little from him to help me to any sane conclusion. He had just gone up the chancel to extinguish the candles on the altar when he was attacked. He had seen nothing, heard nothing - just been stricken down with tremendous power and hurled down the aisle.