"Since Sunday several attempts have been made to solve the mystery, but up to now nothing has been deduced from the observations made.... The street opposite the house has been thronged all day, and the aid of the police has had to be called to remove the crowd of sightseers."
The "metallic clanking" referred to above was so loud that it could be heard many yards away from the house, down the street. But though noises and disturbance continued each morning for several days afterwards they were never again as loud and insistent as on that Sunday. Various persons, bent on investigation of a more or less "scientific" order, soon discovered that by establishing a code of rappings they could communicate with the disturbing agent, and accordingly each morning, visitors arriving at the unconventional hour of 6.30 proceeded to the room containing the mysterious bedstead, and by means of taps held long conversations with the "ghost." These taps always came from the same place on one of the walls. Some curious statements were thus obtained, and in one case when a lady (whom I know personally) was the interviewer, some assertions made to her were quite extraordinary in correctness, containing as they did information known to no one else in the town or district. On the other hand, it does not seem as if anything new or interesting was imparted to anybody; the answers to questions in most cases seemed evidently framed to suit preconceived ideas in the listeners' minds, and however impressive at the moment, the statements when repeated certainly sounded most vague and unconvincing, _except_ in the one instance referred to. But that the knocks and rappings were in themselves absolutely genuine, and produced by some supernormal means, cannot be doubted. Any one who has ever had any experience of "table-turning" will realise that this genuineness of manifestation is quite compatible with the extreme futility of the "information" usually conveyed in such ways, and will recognise that the noises and rappings in the house at St. Govan's evidently belonged to the same class of phenomena. Manifestations of such a vehement and insistent order must surely have had their origin in some unknown psychic disturbance, some mysterious jarring sufficient to set quivering the veil between things seen and unseen. And in this and similar cases it has always seemed to me that trying, however vainly, to find a reason for these disturbances is very much more interesting than heeding or dwelling long on the "messages" which reward the efforts of the investigator. For if indeed "spirits" are responsible for the replies to our questions they seem only too often to belong to that "lying" class, with whom it is certainly best to avoid dealings.