Architects have probably never studied construction with reference to the needs and convenience of ghosts, but if the builder of the tower had considered these things carefully he could not have designed arrangements more satisfactory from a spectral standpoint.
I found the door leading into the big room on the ground floor unfastened and it was creaking sadly on its hinges. I opened it, stepped inside to light my pipe, and had just thrown the match aside when I noticed a tiny ascending wisp of something that looked like smoke at the base of one of the large wall stanchions near the first stairway. Thinking that it probably came from the dropped match I went toward it to make sure that it was quite extinguished. To my surprise the little wisp of vapor increased in volume as it ascended. There was a patch of moonlight on the floor, and a dim diffused light in the room that enabled me to make out various objects. The rising vapor seemed faintly luminous. I could not account for its strange visibility by the direction of the moonlight entering through the high window. The pale misty wreaths were slowly expanding in wavy convolutions and disappearing through the open steps of the stairway along the opposite wall that led to the floor above.
There was something uncanny in this and while I had often joked with my friend Jacobs about a possible ghost in the tower, and had read many thrilling tales of specters, both benignant and malign, I never had an idea that I would ever be confronted with a situation that would suggest the actual presence of anything of the kind. I had always prided myself upon freedom from superstition, but I distinctly felt a cold chill between my shoulder blades, as if an icy hand had suddenly been placed there, and was conscious of a slight nervous flutter and a clammy feeling. Just then something dropped on one of the upper floors and rolled across it. It had probably been displaced by a gust of wind somewhere far up in the tower but this inference did not help matters any, and, although I knew of no reason for it, I concluded that my nerves must have got into difficulties among themselves and refused to continue their normal functions.
I began to consider the advisability of a cautious retirement from the scene, thinking that a good night’s rest would probably correct the state of mind that made such a medley of unpleasant sensations possible.