"The maggot which had dropped from his disgusting leg of mutton had been
an accident, and beyond even his horrible planning. He was hugely
delighted to learn how it had affected us.

"The moldy smell I had noticed was from the little closed stairway, when
the captain opened the panel. The door slamming was also another of his
contributions.

"I come now to the end of the captain's ghost play; and to the difficulty
of trying to explain the other peculiar things. In the first place, it
was obvious there was something genuinely strange in the house; which
made itself manifest as a Woman. Many different people had seen this
Woman, under differing circumstances, so it is impossible to put the
thing down to fancy; at the same time it must seem extraordinary that I
should have lived two years in the house, and seen nothing; whilst the
policeman saw the Woman, before he had been there twenty minutes; the
landlord, the detective, and the inspector all saw her.

"I can only surmise that _fear_ was in every case the key, as I might
say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman
was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see
the Woman. The same reasoning applies all 'round. _I_ saw nothing, until
I became really frightened; then I saw, not the Woman; but a Child,
running away from Something or Someone. However, I will touch on that
later. In short, until a very strong degree of fear was present, no one
was affected by the Force which made Itself evident, as a Woman. My
theory explains why some tenants were never aware of anything strange in
the house, whilst others left immediately. The more sensitive they were,
the less would be the degree of fear necessary to make them aware of the
Force present in the house.