The Skeleton's Revenge; Or, What Not to Do With Ancient Bones

I like a quiet life.  Therefore, if I should happen to run across a mysterious skeleton, I leave it strictly alone.  And if, for whatever reason, it should wind up in my house, I certainly don’t play silly buggers with the bones.  You avoid a lot of nasty surprises that way.  The wisdom of this course of action is illustrated in a cautionary tale that appeared in the July 1922 issue of “Occult Review.”  The author, Katherine Godefroi, heard the story directly from the doctor at the center of the incident.

Godefroi’s friend, whom she gave the pseudonym “Dr. Smith,” lived on some property adjacent to the ancient castle of Herstmonceux, in Surrey, England.  Godefroi described him as “very strong-minded, hard-headed, and extremely clever, and quite the last person in whose way one would think that anything supernatural would be likely to come.”

At the time our story opens, Smith had been married for two years.  His wife had a brother who was a medical student at St. George’s Hospital.

Like so much of the English countryside, Smith’s property boasted a number of archaeological relics.  He occasionally let parties conduct excavations on his land, and if they discovered any ancient treasures, they were allowed to keep them.  One morning, he received a letter from a London archaeological society, asking for permission for several of their members to examine a barrow which had never been opened.

The barrow was near Smith’s house, which initially made him reluctant to grant the request.  His wife was heavily pregnant with their first child, and he naturally did not want her disturbed.  In the end, however, he decided to permit the dig.  The three archaeologists arrived a week later.

At first, nothing was discovered in the barrow other than a few Roman coins.  However, on the second day, they uncovered a “most perfect specimen” of a man’s skeleton.  This fleshless body so impressed Dr. Smith that he told the men he could not resist keeping it for himself.  The visitors, naturally, agreed.  Smith set up the skeleton in his study, where it “remained a joy to his eyes for some weeks to come.”

To each his or her own, I guess.

Not long afterward, Mrs. Smith gave birth to a son.  Once she had recuperated, her brother came for a visit.  He was as delighted with the skeleton as Dr. Smith had been.  The young medical student was about to start a course of anatomy, so he asked his brother-in-law for permission to remove a little finger, for dissection purposes.  Smith agreed.

After two or three days of working on the finger, the brother-in-law noticed something odd.  His own little finger became increasingly painful.  It then gradually shrunk to the point where it was so withered, the digit had to be amputated.

Some months later, a friend of Dr. Smith, who was also a physician, came to call.  He, too, was dazzled by the ancient skeleton.  He was so enthralled, he begged to be allowed to take the skull home so he could examine it in detail.  Smith agreed, and the skull was given pride of place in the friend’s baggage.

Several days after acquiring the skull, Smith’s doctor friend was walking down a street when he tripped on a curb and landed with such force that he broke his jaw.  His face was so damaged that he had to keep his jaw in splints for over a month.  Before leaving the hospital, he ran into Smith’s brother-in-law, where he heard the sad tale of losing his finger after removing the corresponding bit of bone from the skeleton.

Smith’s friend was quite capable of putting two and two together.  He immediately returned the skull to Smith, thanking him for the loan, but suggesting that he now felt it was perhaps wisest to keep the skeleton together.  After hearing his friend’s story, Smith resolved not to make any more presents of the bones.  Smith had a small cupboard where he kept poisons used in medical prescriptions.  The cupboard was always locked, and the key was kept attached to his watch-chain.  He put the skull and finger bone in this cupboard until he could have them reattached to their rightful owner.

Several weeks later, a man came down from London to do this task.  When Smith unlocked the cupboard, he was deeply unnerved to see that the skull and finger were gone.  He was so rattled, he immediately telephoned the vicar.  It was clearly time to bring a little divine assistance into the situation.

Smith told the vicar everything that had happened.  After a brief discussion, they agreed that the wisest thing would be to rebury the skeleton.  The following day, the bones were reverently interred in the local churchyard, with the vicar saying a few prayers for the dead.

Godefroi added, “Since then nothing unusual has happened to Dr. Smith or to any of his friends.”