The House in Bell’s Wynd

Part 1 (of 2) The mysterious, empty apartment in 19th century Edinburgh, suddenly abandoned twenty years ago, is a puzzle for George.

Jun 13, 2025

Context

The story takes place in the 19th century in Edinburgh, Scotland. The houses beneath Edinburgh castle were tightly packed together on the hill. Tall tenement houses loomed over narrow streets that twisted around the hill. Those streets or alleyways were known as wynds; they were dark and intimidating to outsiders, because the third and fourth floors of the houses extended over the street to provide additional living space.

At this time Edinburgh was known as ‘Auld Reekie’1 because of the thousands of coal fires that coated the buildings in soot and filled the air with smoke. This, and an inadequate sewerage system, exacerbated the problems associated with overcrowding. It was not surprising that those who could afford it chose to relocate to the newly constructed 'new town', built between 1767 and 1850 on the north side of Princes Street. These elegant Georgian houses were built on level ground with wide streets separating them. They offered the wealthy all the modern conveniences of the time - a standard of living that was not possible in the old town.

Most of the apartments in the old town vacated by the wealthy were subdivided for the poor, but a few were left empty, their shutters securely locked after the owners moved out. However, such valuable real estate did not stay empty for long.

The House in Bell’s Wynd, part 1 (of 2)

Libberton's Wynd, Edinburgh. Artist G. Cattermole (1800 to 1868)

In the old town of Edinburgh lived George Gourlay, a blacksmith and his wife Christine, in Bell’s Wynd. Below their apartment was an empty apartment that always puzzled George, because it had been empty for an unusually long time.

"I agree George,” said Christine. “You have been here only nine years, but it is twenty-one years since my father died, and a year before that he said the inhabitants suddenly disappeared. Nothing has been seen or heard of them since.”

“It is odd”, said George “that nobody has come to check on the apartment since then. No lawyer, council official or bailiff has ever come by to try and open the padlock on the door.”

“But the solicitor, old Mr Dallas died shortly after my father, and that may be the reason.”

“That is not a good reason” replied George. “Folk do not forget they own property, or the furniture and goods in their house.”

“You know my love” he continued, looking askance at her, half in seriousness and half in fun, "I am a blacksmith, and have a set of skeleton keys. I could open the padlock."

"And none of the keys will touch that padlock while we are married, George. I took you for an honest man." huffed Christine.

This was an opposition which disappointed George; for, in secret truth, he had long thought of using his skeleton keys to gain entry to the mysterious apartment. Like all people he wanted a justification for some act they wish to perform that was not altogether honest. When passing George had often in serious playfulness knocked his foot against the old worm-eaten, wood-rusted, dry-rotted door. Perhaps he was hoping the door would break open, or that he would hear a faint voice calling "Let me out, let me out!". Whereupon George would have been obliged to enter the apartment.

So George Gourlay worried about the empty apartment, and had many sleepless nights. Until one night, when he felt he had to do something. He saw his wife sleeping soundly and heard the soft tone of the old clock in the hall striking three in the morning. He slipped noiselessly out of bed and picked his clothes off the chair. At the bedroom door he looked back but his wife slept on, undisturbed.

The kitchen was dark, save for a small beam of moonlight that shone through a small hole in the kitchen shutter. George pulled on his clothes, and with a little groping he found a candle, and some matches. He lit the candle, which allowed him to find his skeleton keys, that he lifted so stealthily that even a mouse would not have been alarmed, but would have continued to nibble at the forbidden cheese.

Then there was the more dangerous opening of the apartment door leading to the old and uneven stairs. Dangerous, for Christine’s ear knew the creak of every tread and might wake up. But he managed to descend quietly, and reached the downstairs apartment without a sign that any sleeper had been disturbed.

He was at the mysterious apartment! This was the adventure that he had thought about many times over the years. George looked at the old door, that he had examined before, even by candlelight, and the padlock that he also knew.

He set the candle down, pulled out his keys, and paused to look at the door by which no one had entered for twenty years! George was not frightened of ghosts, but he did have some misgivings. Perhaps it was the cold night air (he had left his coat at home) that made him shiver. It was not helped by the sudden shout of a drunk further down the wynd. He also felt a little guilty at deceiving his wife, and had some awareness that he was breaking the law.

But he laid his hand on the old padlock, to find it filled with dust, which luckily had stopped the inside workings from rusting. Once the dust was shaken out, the skeleton key easily opened the padlock. But time had warped the door, and it would not open. George had to push hard, and the hinges made a horrible, loud sound as they gave way. But the door was open, and nobody had come to find the source of the sound.

George gathered his courage, and muttering “I will face anything but the devil”, he raised his candle and stepped over the threshold. The faint rays of the candle showed a long hallway. He sneezed at the musty, dusty smell.

Groping with his left hand, and holding the candle with his right, George discovered three closed doors, presumably opening into rooms. As he became accustomed to the dark, he saw another door at the end, which was open. He crept forward, aware that his wife slept above, and those who lived on each side might call for help if they heard a noise in what they knew were empty rooms.

George found the room at the end of the hall was the kitchen. But it was fully furnished, as though the inhabitants had just stepped out of the room. The sideboard had plates and mugs in their places, and a bottle just opened, with its cork still on the corkscrew. A square table sat in the middle of the room, with plates ready to be filled with food and carried to the dining room. Holding the candle near the fire stove, he saw that coal and wood stood ready, and over the fire was a spit with a goose, not yet roasted. George stood marvelling at the signs of a life that had stopped so suddenly. Nothing had rotted, it was all preserved as it must have been twenty years before, when the inhabitants had left.

Then he retraced his steps to the kitchen-door, and turning to the right, opened the next door. It was the dining-room. As George peered about the room his wonder grew. A long oak-table ran along the end of the room. It held a decanter of wine and two silver wine cups. Further along was a dried up lump, in the form of a loaf, with a knife lying alongside. On the chair by the fireplace was a cushion with the indentation of a human head, as though the person had been resting and just risen.

The cloth-covered table was laid with salt, pepper and two plates, each with knives and forks, no doubt in readiness to eat the goose that George has seen on the spit in the kitchen!

There were paintings on the dingy walls, all portraits, staring at him through dust. The most notable was of a woman, wearing voluminous silks, and a high flour-starched wig. George was enchanted by the beautiful face, and it looked like the lovely eyes looked back at him, charmed to see a living man after such a long time. There was a painting of a man next to the lady, clearly her husband - George presumed they were the master & mistress of the house.

When George could drag his eyes away from the beautiful lady, he moved to the door leading to the middle room. Holding up the candle, he looked in. There he saw a female figure, standing in the dark, beside a four poster bed, wearing a long white gown. George could see her plainly, though not her face.

Then she moved. She was the only thing that moved in all that still and dreary apartment. He started to shake, and his shakes made the fast-diminishing candle tremble and reduce the light in the room. He tried to control the candle so he could see clearly, and was determined, despite his fear, to move further into the room. George took first one step, and then another step. The candlelight showed little, and when he got to the bed, the figure was gone.

His candle was burning away rapidly, and he was afraid he would be left in the dark, and would find it difficult to find his way out. Yet he felt he must look behind the deep green curtains that surrounded the bed. The broad hand of Fate was upon his shoulders. In a rush George seized the curtains, and pulled them aside far enough to see inside.

The dark red bed cover was covered in a thick layer of dust. There was an odour of flesh and bone rot, it was scarcely bearable. Under the blankets there was a long, narrow mound down the middle, as if a body was there, but half its usual size. Little more was visible, until George looked at the pillow. There was a head on the pillow, partly covered by the bed cover. He looked closer and saw an empty-eyed skull with long black hair, and two rows of clenched teeth. George recoiled in horror, turned suddenly, and as the green curtain fell back into place his candle flame went out. He was in the dark.

George groped his way forward, but he had lost all sense of where he was or had been. His head was in a swirl. Would the white figure that he had seen by the bed lead him out, or was it the ghost of the woman in the bed? He found another door, but this must be a room he had not yet visited, for he felt things that were strange to him. He heard noises that un-nerved him. Managing to retrace his steps he took hold of the green curtain without realising what it was, and was appalled to see the white skull once again. Shocked back to his senses, he managed to make his way to the kitchen, then along the hall and out of the apartment. Still trembling he closed the padlock, although he had lost the candle stub, and his skeleton keys.

At last, how sweet it was to get into his own warm bed, safe and sound, with his wife still sleeping soundly.

After his late-night adventures there was a change George Gourlay’s character. Before he was a loud, cheerful man, and would not hesitate to make his views known. Now he was quiet and avoided any arguments. What was even more strange was that his wife Christine was also moody, although there seemed to be no cause. George wondered if she was suspicious of his movements that night, but she only said that the candle she had left in the kitchen seemed to have burnt away of its own accord.

The situation continued without change until late one evening, when there was a knock at the door. George started nervously, but Christine got up to open the door. Moody as she was, she was not as affected by unexpected noises as George now was, ever since that fateful night.

But if the sturdy blacksmith was concerned before she obeyed the call, he was greatly more so after Christine admitted an old man, a stranger, with hair more than usually grey for his years, a face etched by grief, and with a stick in his hand holding up his tall, wasted body. Yet he was obviously a gentleman, for he bowed to George in the same way as the Edinburgh nobles did when they passed each other on the street in the New Town.

Both George and Christine stared at the old man, as if trying to place him in their memory. Then Christine looked away and pulled her shawl up to try and conceal her face.

“You are a blacksmith, Mr. Gourlay?" asked the stranger. "Yes, sir." replied George.

"How long have you been here in Bell's Wynd?"

"Nine years, come Christmas," came the reply.

"Not so much as the half of twenty," said the stranger, to himself.

"Twenty!" cried Christine, as if she could not just help herself. George looked over at her.

"Then," continued the stranger, "you cannot tell who occupied the flat below at that long period back?"

"No."

"And who occupies it now?"

George was struck dumb, but Christine said “It has not been occupied for twenty years, sir, and it has been shut up all that time."

"Twenty years!" cried the stranger, pondering deeply, then sighing heavily and painfully. "Do any of you know Mr. Thomas Dallas, the solicitor?”

"He has been dead for eighteen years," replied Christine.

"Ah, I see," rejoined the stranger; "and so the house has been closed since then!" Then musingly, "but it will be empty—no furniture, nothing but bare walls."

"Nobody knows," replied George, examining the face of the questioner, as if it meant something to him. "You can, of course, open a padlock?" asked the stranger.

“Of course, if it is not too old”, then George recollected himself and said, “I’ve not tried it for years.”

"A padlock twenty years unopened?" repeated the stranger.

"Indeed, sir," replied Christine, who saw that her husband was under some strong emotion, “he can pick any lock."

"Then you are the very man," said their mysterious visitor. "And now, madam, will you allow me to take the liberty of asking for a few moments alone with your husband, to conduct some business of a secret nature?”

"I don’t want you to go," whispered George to Christine.

"And why not?" muttered she. "Didn’t you say to me that you were an honest man, so what have you to fear? And now, sir," she said turning round, "I will go to kitchen, so that you may talk to George Gourlay in private”.

As Christine went out, she sent a look of something like triumph at her husband.

"And now, George Gourlay," said the stranger, "the business I have to transact with you, for which I have travelled three thousand miles, is to ask you to go with me and open the padlock of the door of that apartment below, which has not been opened for twenty years."

George stuttered, "I won’t and I can’t sir. There's a dead body in a green bed, and there's a spirit in a long, white gown that watches it."

The hand of the stranger shook, as he grasped spasmodically his stick. His teeth clenched, and he plainly showed a determination not to break down. Nor did it now escape George, as he sat and gazed at him, that he was the original of the picture of the man in the dining-room, which hung by the side of the beautiful lady.

"Then you must have entered into the apartment?"

George was silent, meditating on the new information gradually breaking in upon him.

"You must have been in, and - and - know the secret?" said the stranger.

"I know no secret, except that the goose which has been on a spit over the fire for twenty years is not yet roasted."

That goose at the fire even yet!" cried the stranger.

"Yes, and the bottle standing on the dresser alongside the pewter mug," replied George.

"Mug!"

"Yes, and the half-cut loaf on the oaken table, with the knife."

"Knife!"

"Yes, and to cap it all, the green bed with the dark red bed cover, and in it lies a corpse," finished George.

"Corpse!" cried the stranger. "So, I have been wandering the wide world for twenty years to escape from myself, as if a man could leave his shadow in the east when he has gone to the west. Nowhere, not on the prairies, or savannahs, not in the thick woods which exclude the sun, or in the rocky caves by the seashore, where there is only heard the roaring of the waves, could I escape my painful memories.

“Other things rot and pass away, but these things have been enchanted and preserved to remind us of a terrible hour. For what purpose? Speak to me - has the sight of these things shown you their purpose? Why do you look at me in such a way, what are you thinking?”

“That you will never get me to enter that apartment again,” said George.

The stranger's head was bent down in sorrow. After being silent for a while, he rose, and bidding Gourlay good night he left, saying he would find another locksmith.

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