Great Australian Ghost Stories Read Free Page B

descended over the watchers, broken only by the sobbing of the widow and the moans of several swooning chorus girls.
    â€˜Federici’ was the stage name of Frederick Baker, a thirty-eight-year-old Italian-born Englishman who enjoyed some success in London and New York before being signed up by J. C. Williamson Ltd for Australia. He had made his reputation in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, creating the roleof the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance and making a speciality of the title role in The Mikado . When he arrived in Melbourne in June 1887 with his wife and two children he was already suffering from chronic heart disease. A certain hauteur in his manner and lack of abandon in his acting, remarked on by the press, may have been due to the precarious state of his health.
    On the Monday following his death, Federici was buried in the Church of England section of Melbourne General Cemetery. The minister officiating collapsed at the grave side and had to be cared for by a doctor while the rest of the service was read by one of the mourners. The Princess Theatre remained closed that night as a mark of respect for its late star, but the Faust season recommenced the next night, a substitute singer taking the role of Mephistopheles.
    When that performance ended and the cast assembled on stage for their curtain calls, some of them swore that Federici’s ghost was with them — that two Mephistopheles in identical red costumes stepped forwards to take their bows that night. The substitute, Ernest St Clair, was not among those who claimed to have seen his ghostly counterpart but he did complain that invisible hands kept shoving him back into line every time he stepped up to the footlights. Such fanciful claims might be put down to overwrought emotions (or the desire for publicity) but it was not long before reports of Federici’s ghost that could not be so easily dismissed began to emerge.
    The impresario George Musgrove, a partner in the firm of J. C. Williamson Ltd and one of the most respected men in his profession, spotted a strange man sitting in the dress circle during a late night rehearsal and took one of his staff to task for allowing a visitor into the theatre. The employee was adamant that he had admitted no one. A search was made butby then the stranger had vanished. Musgrove never claimed it was Federici’s ghost he had seen but others did and after that many claimed to have also seen it. Even more said that they had felt the ghost brush past them in the theatre’s narrow corridors and any mishap or equipment failure that occurred was blamed on him. Never slow to capitalise on publicity, the theatre owners put it about that they were willing to pay 100 pounds to any member of the public prepared to spend a night alone in the theatre, but there is no record of anyone taking up their challenge or that they were really prepared to part with such a large sum.
    Around 1900 a new fire alarm system was installed in the theatre. The resident fireman was required to punch a time clock every hour, which triggered a light on a switchboard at nearby Eastern Hill fire station. If the fireman failed to clock in the alarm was raised and a brigade despatched to the theatre. One night during a heat wave that happened. No message came through on the hour and within minutes a brigade set off, horses’ hooves striking sparks off Nicholson Street and bells clanging frantically.
    When they reached the theatre the station firemen could find no sign of a fire but did find their colleague — huddled in a corner, quaking with fear. When he recovered sufficiently the fireman explained that he had decided to open the sliding section of the theatre’s roof to let the heat out and some fresh air in. As the panels opened, bright moonlight flooded the auditorium then the proscenium, revealing a figure standing, statue-like, on centre stage. It was, the shocked man said, a tall, well-built man with