“Blind Man’s Hood” (1937)

This story by John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson) is mainly a ghost story, though for some reason it also has elements of a locked-room mystery—possibly Carr’s market instinct for detective fiction kicking in. He was more generally a mystery writer. But the most effective moments in this story, which are usually matters of precise detail, make it a reasonably unsettling spook story. It’s set at Christmastime, with a young couple arriving late on Christmas Eve for a visit with the family of friends at an isolated mansion in the countryside. All the lights in the house are on and the door is ajar (in December!), but no one appears to be home. They bang on the door, then gather up their things and enter. A young woman appears who claims she didn’t hear them knocking. They don’t know her. It was immediately evident to me this was a ghost, and further small details confirm it. The corner of her eye is gray rather than pink, for example. She has a convoluted story to tell them—about why the house is empty, about the things that happened there, about betrayal and revenge of a sort. It really doesn’t make much sense but often feels ominous. This story tends to telegraph its basic plot twists and is basically a straightforward ghost story, the kind of tale told around campfires and designed chiefly to produce feelings of unease. Making sense is not a requirement of these things. The young woman ghost is toting around a kind of opaque pillowcase she says is more effective than a handkerchief for a blindfold in games of blind man’s buff (here called blind man’s bluff). She says the way to do it is by draping it over the player’s head and cinching it closed at the neck. She says it’s too easy to cheat and peek out from under a handkerchief. The game is key to the story’s climax, which is why this is all explained so early and in such detail. Actually, the whole locked-room mystery side of this story was a little bit of a hindrance to me. Things don't necessarily have to add up in a ghost story. In the best of them, blatantly impossible things with no explanation at all often make the story better. On the other hand, the best of them often work toward some kind of smash-bang surprise at the end. This one just sort of peters out. But it has the holiday spirit about it and some effective moments.

Realms of Darkness, ed. Mary Danby (out of print)
Story not available online.