Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

It was decided then that everybody should watch inside the house. One of the constables was sent into the room where Paredes had slept on the first night he visited the place. When the man went to sit down on a bench it was pulled away so suddenly that he fell down.

The other constable, Paredes, and the policeman stationed themselves at other strategic points on the ground floor. Christo’s wife and the servants remained in their rooms on the second floor with the doors locked.

As on the previous night Christo stood on a landing of the stair leading to the ground floor.

They had hardly taken their positions before the strange noises and blows started. The racket was particularly loud in a small room next to one of the bedrooms. When this was investigated only a small trunk was found in it, and the trunk was empty. There was no outside entrance to the room. The men returned to their posts again.

As soon as the lights were out a tremendous noise and the sounds of a terrific struggle were heard from the guest room. Every one rushed in, thinking that the constable had at last caught the offender.

The Drama of Fear

But they were disappointed. When they got there all they saw was the infuriated constable striking with his sword right and left. As they appeared he dashed back into a little boudoir where there was a wardrobe with a mirror, which he broke in his fury.

He had to be restrained by force, and told them that something had struck him several times. Christo writes:

“He came out of that dark place declaring that he would sooner resign as a defender of the peace than start again on that kind of war.”

Christo himself was the next man attacked. After the constable had been quieted he had returned to his post on the stair landing. The lights were put out again.

Suddenly he received a blow on his left cheek so hard that he screamed in agony and surprise. It seemed as if fangs had hooked themselves into the flesh to tear it.

The lights were turned on again. Four finger-prints could be plainly seen on his left cheek, which was red, while his right was an ashen hue. It was now about midnight. Of the succeeding events Christo writes:

“Boxes of linen, yet unpacked because of our recent arrival, were found emptied on the floor by hands which could never be caught in the act. Blows sounded throughout the cursed dwelling in the ears of the protectors who had come to help us. Cries and jeers smote them without giving them any possible idea why they were persecuted.

“There were no cellars in this specially haunted house where wires, good or bad conductors of electricity, could have been concealed; no thickets in the garden where clever disturbers of the peace could have concealed themselves.

“No. It was mystery taking possession of a very modern scene and playing the drama of Fear without accessories or scenery, addressing itself only to the mentality of incredulous man, perhaps in order to show him that whatever the times, the unknown forces always remain formed.

“To tell the truth, I was more angry than frightened. I could not admit discovering any trickery. But it seemed humiliating to turn my back on this cowardly and dishonest enemy who struck in the dark.

“Yet we had to go and leave an uninhabitable spot in the night, because of the infant which cried, and the mother who became more and more nervous.”

White Lady of the Hohenzollerns

Although the mother and the baby were given as the reasons for the flight from the house, yet the men were equally terrified. The entire party went to a hotel to spend the rest of the night, and the stupefied police went home, swearing never again to enter such a place.

Christo sublet the house. But after two days the new tenant moved away, declaring that it was uninhabitable. It had to be left empty.

The above is the record of the experiences passed through by Homen Christo in 1919. In some ways they are even more amazing than those events which took place in the haunted castle of Calvados, and which will be told about at another time.

The facts have been verified by several investigators. And as one reads them one wonders. Are there invisible beings? Is there an invisible world? Do we know all the forces of nature?

For centuries “The White Lady of the Hohenzollerns” has appeared to the members of royalty to warn them of approaching death or misfortune. First heard of about four hundred and fifty years ago, she has since been seen by many people, among them Napoleon and Frederick William IV of Prussia.

During the World War she again appeared. The Kaiser, aware of the sinister significance of her appearance at the Imperial House, was so much disturbed over her visits that he forbade the mention of her name at the court.

The White Lady is supposed to be Lady Bertha von Lichtenstein, the beautiful daughter of Catherine of Wurtemberg and Ulrich von Rosenberg, lieutenant governor in Bohemia, and commander in chief of the Roman Catholic troops against the Hussites.