Columnist

For Halloween, I present a two-part Washington ghost story based on actual events. Part 1: The Mysterious Passenger.

I had just started to pull the door of the taxi shut behind me when I felt a tug. The door swung open and a man jumped in, forcing me to scoot over on the back seat. He closed the door with a thunk.

"Hey, buddy," I said with annoyance. "This cab's taken already."

"Let me ride with you for a little while," the man said, panting. He pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow. "I'll pay the fare — and tell you a story to boot."

I met the eyes of the cabdriver in the rearview mirror. He shrugged. I nodded.

We set off down M Street and immediately came to a halt amid a chorus of impatient horns. There was a jam ahead. A truck delivering ice to the Georgetown Market had snapped an axle. The truck lay across the road in a pool of meltwater, like a great beast shot by a hunter and bleeding out where it fell. The impression was underscored by the smell from the rendering plant on the waterfront, the deathly stink of which wafted into the cab whenever the wind changed.

"Take Q Street," my riding companion said. He peered back through the cab's rear window as if expecting something to give chase. "If that's okay with you," he added, looking at me.

I nodded again and the cabbie steered the Checker left on 33rd and headed north.

Washington was a smaller city then — March of 1938 — but it shared with today a singular aspect: It was a collection of disparate neighborhoods. And even within neighborhoods the streetscape changed distinctly from block to block. This it did now, the commercial bustle of M Street giving way to a residential solitude: brick rowhouses, uneven sidewalks, trees beginning to bud.

I turned to inspect my fellow passenger. He was a bit younger than I, in his early 40s, stocky and dressed in a brown wool suit, somewhat dated in style. He was going gray at the temples but the majority of his hair was red. He looked like a man who should've been ruddy, but his complexion was pale, as if he'd spent too long indoors. He tensed as the cab crossed Prospect Street, then seemed to relax, settling back onto the threadbare seat and closing his eyes.

I should have let him rest, but I expected the ride to be a long one — I was headed to an appointment at the Naval Gun Factory — and I was peeved. I felt an explanation was owed.

"That story?" I said.

The man blinked his eyes open, gazed out the window and began.

"I'd been selling antiques in Scranton," he said. "Business was bad so I thought I'd try my luck here, maybe snag a job at the Smithsonian or Library of Congress. I may still, though I've spent the last 12 months hand-to-mouth, scrounging at flea markets and estate sales, selling on to dealers in Philadelphia and New York. From the start I've tried to economize. That's why the ad was so appealing."

"The ad?" I said.

"For lodging at 3400 Prospect St. NW. 'No dogs,' the ad stipulated. Nothing unusual in that. 'No children.' Fine. Finally, 'No electricity.' That was harder to grasp — it's the 1930s, after all, not the 1830s — but the rent was cheap and I rather like the warm glow from a kerosene lamp. And when I finally visited the house, I was sure I'd made the right decision. It was like one giant antique itself."

"How so?" I asked.

"I saw him in his own quarters only once," he said, ignoring my question. (I deduced he meant the landlord.) "I never did see his wife; Elizabeth, I think her name is. His style was . . . unusual. I signed the lease in what had been a ballroom but now was more like an office. 'The heart of the house,' he called it. It was the room of a pack rat: curios crowding shelves, books stacked floor to ceiling. I saw African gourds, Peruvian pottery, Indian baskets, rough-hewed furniture and fine stained-glass. My first thought was that I might purchase a few trinkets at wholesale to sell at retail.

"He seemed to read my mind. 'None of it's for sale,' he said. Then he added: 'You may hear noises at night. Do not be alarmed. Halcyon House is undergoing renovation and I find it as easy to work in darkness as in light.'"

I started. "Halcyon House?" I said. "But I know it. It's that fine 18th-century mansion at 34th and Prospect, with a row of porthole windows above the door. It's always struck me as jaunty, nautical, like a docked pleasure craft."

The man stared at me. "You may call it nautical," he said. "Those windows came to remind me of something else: eyes, a row of unblinking spider's eyes."

I chuckled at the drama of it.

"I kept to myself," the man continued. "And then this morning I found a note in my mailbox from a lawyer. 'Your assistance is needed in a procedure,' it read. My landlord was dead. Or seemed to be."

Tomorrow: Part 2 — The Grim Task.

Twitter: @johnkelly

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