Francesca was not what you would call the worrying kind.

A foreigner married to a Maltese, she brooded over her three children like a mother hen, practical and too busy to allow her imagination to get the better of her.

She was, therefore, awake but not fretting when it had turned 2am on a Sunday morning. There was still no sign of her eldest daughter, who had been out to a wedding and then to savour the nightlife in Paceville. She stood shivering behind the cold glass panes of the bedroom window, listening to the wild wind, which always seemed to whistle down the road.

Litter and other papers swirled around in the wind eddies but then Francesca noticed another movement. Out of the corner of her eye, against the walls of an 18th-century palazzo, a man was standing alone. She could swear that he had not walked down the street but there he suddenly was, dressed in a dark cape and a top hat. He started pacing in front of the building’s main door.

Francesca felt even colder. There was something unnatural about the man, dressed so strangely, pacing up and down at that time of night. And he was so tall. Far taller than anyone else she knew. As she watched, he lifted off the ground and floated gently up as high as the first floor before gradually thinning out and disappearing completely. Poor Francesca watched in horror.

Just then a car pulled up in the road and stopped to deliver her daughter. The whispers and the giggles and the slam of the car door echoed down the deserted road.

Francesca had to tell someone although she was worried about being met with scepticism. To her surprise, her sister-in-law Pauline who lived nearby, lowered her voice, and holding onto her arm, said: “I’ve never seen anything myself but I know plenty of others who have.”

Months passed and Pauline’s son had his foreign fiancée over in Malta on holiday. Coming home at around 2.30am, he dropped Sharon off outside the house and drove around the block to try and find a parking place. As she waited for him on the doorstep, she noticed a tall, dark figure standing outside the palazzo. She gave him a second glance because of his size and his strange clothes but then turned away. However, when she next looked around, he rose into the air and disappeared.

Sharon eventually told Pauline. But still, Francesca was not one to fret. She was too pragmatic to worry about the man. She was just reassured that she had not been imagining things.

He lifted off the ground and floated gently up

They were definitely not the only ones who had seen the caped man…

About 30 years ago, Fred was considered to be a fancy dresser. He worked in one of the bars in Strait Street, when it was a busy, rollicking area, and would come home very late at night, dressed in really smart suits, draped in gold chains and rings, and carrying most of the day’s takings.

His sister, Carmelina, was always telling him off, worried that he would one day be mugged. But he would smile secretly and reassure her: “My friend accompanies me home,” he said enigmatically. “No one would dare touch me when he is there.”

He described his friend as being extremely tall and said he usually wore a dark cape. He would walk to the corner and when they reached the palazzo, they nodded at each other in silence and the man would vanish. This happened every night, year in, year out. Fred was never mugged. He never let on who the caped crusader was…

The caped man seems to favour late-night sightings by anxious relatives. Last summer, Antoinette, who lives a few hundred metres from the palazzo, along another street, was also waiting for her daughter to return. It was hot and sticky, and she went out on the balcony. She spotted the man lingering outside. She lingered for a while, then went back inside, pulling the shutters behind her.

As she fastened the latch, leaving the shutters ajar, she suddenly heard a large fluttering noise. It was as though dozens of giant butterflies were beating their wings against the walls. She quickly opened the shutters again, only to see the man literally fading away.

The palazzo is now used as a school and, until recently, a woman was hired to look after the premises after hours. One day a few years ago, just as she was locking up after school, a couple of students went up to Rita. They had forgotten some books in the classroom. Could they just go and fetch them?

She let them in and they disappeared into the courtyard, only to return a few moments later.

“Don’t lock up yet, there is still someone here,” they told her.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Why would anyone want to stay here after school?”

But she went up with them and there was indeed a man, up at the first floor window. He stared at them and turned away into the darkness. They didn’t stop to check who he was. The three of them just turned tail and ran.

These are just a few of the many stories I heard which could not be verified because they happened long ago, or to people who have since moved from this street.

Who can be sure how many others have seen the caped man but just thought he was a strange sight?

This is the 17th in a series of short stories The Sunday Times of Malta is running every Sunday. It is taken from The Unexplained Plus (Allied Publications) by Vanessa Macdonald. The first edition was published in 2001 and reprinted twice. It was republished, with added stories, as The Unexplained Plus. The Maltese version of the book, Ta’ Barra Minn Hawn (Klabb Kotba Maltin), is available from all leading bookstores and stationers and from www.bdlbooks.com.