York Court was one of four or five blind alleys off York Street, crowded, the Cambrian said, with children and washing tubs. Mrs Bond lived in a cottage there with latticed railings and a yard, next to a patch of ground that had once been a vegetable garden. One Tuesday night, sitting alone in her kitchen at midnight waiting for her husband, she heard a loud crash. Turning to the door she saw a short woman dressed in white, with silver hair, carrying a box that seemed very heavy. The figure stood for a moment and then withdrew.
The next night Mrs Bond got a neighbour, Mrs Carlton, to sit up with her. At midnight the woman in white came again, and Mrs Bond cried out, "In the name of God, what have I done?" The figure left without a word. On the third night another neighbour, Mrs Bell, kept watch. This time the ghost beckoned. Mrs Bond followed it to the door and saw it standing on the garden plot, where it seemed to open the lid of the box with its thumb, pointed at the ground three times, and vanished. The daily papers added that two women had dreamt the same dream of a box buried near the gateway.
At daybreak Mrs Bond's husband and some neighbours dug where the figure had pointed and found part of a skull. The police took possession of it, and it was thought to be the skull of a dog. The Cambrian's writer was frankly amused, but noted that the people of the court clung to the belief that the bones were human and were weaving a story of murder around them. The episode is well documented as a local sensation, even if what the women saw remains an open question.
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