"Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that what I am going to say will spoil your appetites; but the truth is beautiful at all times, and I have to state that Mrs. Lovett's pies are made of HUMAN FLESH!" –The String of Pearls by James Malcolm Rymer, source of the story of Sweeney Todd

When I learned that this episode was called "Sweeney Todd", I had some… fears? hopes? …that GHI was searching for the ghost of yet another fictional character like Robin Hood. When I heard that they were instead going to be investigating an inn which was the location of murders which might have inspired the tales of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, I was relieved/disappointed.

According to the episode, John Jarman was the innkeeper of the Ostrich Inn, and like many innkeepers, he had developed a few minor quirks over the years. His most amusing habit was boiling his guests alive for the following night's supper. I can see how that might be pretty impressive cost savings in the short term, but that's not a good strategy for gathering repeat business. Jarman accomplished this by means of a trapdoor and specially hinged bed located directly over the kitchen, which allowed him to send the guests into a pot of boiling water. Had the GHI team found the ghost of a real person to hunt this time?

Imagine my disappointment/glee to learn that the villainous innkeeper was yet another work of fiction. In Thomas of Reading, one of Britain's earliest novels, a clothier named Thomas Cole is murdered by an innkeeper named "Iarman" using Jarman's signature method. (See "The Forteana Blog" for details.) So probably neither Thomas Cole nor Jarman ever lived outside the pages of a book. Still, the Ostrich may well have inspired these tales because of an odd architectural feature. The Inn was on a major travel route, and so catered mainly to (not WITH) guests traveling by coach. And so, until at least 1925:

In a room on the first floor are the remains of a curious arrangement whereby a flap could be let down from the window to enable passengers to enter the room directly from the top of a coach. ("A History of the County of Buckingham.")

The haunting symptoms reported by the current innkeeper appear to be the usual mixed bag: sudden shifts in mood, creepy feelings, possible hypnagogia, and coldness. Guests see the ghost of Thomas Cole, which is a neat trick; see above. Our host, Scott Malpass, claims that he doesn't want the current customers to be scared. He seems sincere enough, yet he has a model showing how Jarman murdered his customers. Let's just say there's a conflict of interest here. On a side note, I do admire how Malpass seems, quite naturally, to slip the name of his inn into the conversation whenever possible. Why not?

After a fairly normal investigation, there's an amusing episode in the downstairs bar. Ashley and Paul are scouting around with the FLIR, and Ashley reports that one of the chairs is blazing hot. This seems strange, since none of them are currently on fire. When Paul walks in front of the "chair", Ashley realizes her mistake: it's not really a chair, but a chair-like image on the FLIR thermal camera caused by the heater on the wall. "Wow, we look dumb," says Ashley. No comment from me, except that it shows how easy it is to make mistakes when identifying objects via FLIR.

The big event comes when Barry hears a murmur coming from the bedroom and asks Paul to check on it. Paul looks in the door, then closes it without letting us see inside, claiming he saw a foot sticking out of the bed. This startles them, since they're supposed to have the building for themselves for the evening. Instead of radioing down to other GHIans, they wait a few moments, then decide to barge in again. In Barry's words: "Paul, open the door and see if everyone's out of the flat. Hopefully, he's not naked!" Instead, they find only an empty, very rumpled bed.

This could certainly have been a simple misperception on Paul's part– anyone could mistake the corner of a crumpled comforter for a foot. However, there's something strange about their interaction. It almost seems like an after-the-fact reshoot. Why does Barry tell Paul to look in the room, instead of checking it himself? Hell, why wasn't there a camera in there, or if there was why don't they show what it saw? Why don't they already know that the place is empty? Why doesn't Paul wave the camera crew over? After all, even if they find a naked, living person, they can certainly edit it out. It's not a moving chair or a jacket tug, but it's the first suspicious event I've seen on GHI. Guys, when I said "make me love you or make me hate you," I was kidding about the "hate you" part!

After all of this fanfare, they don't seem to have much for the reveal. They've managed to debunk reports of moving lights by the old ghost hunting standby, reflected lights from cars on the road. They caught some high EMF readings, and Robb repeats the unsubstantiated claim that high EMF can cause emotional changes and hallucinations. They don't claim that it's haunted, but say that they'll have to come back and check again.

So aside from Barry and Paul's Mysterious Phantom Foot, it's another classic GHI investigation: subjective "evidence" and fictional ghosts propounded by more-or-less well-meaning people. Paul's foot sighting, though, has me a bit twitchy. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I for one will be watching to see if this pattern recurs.