Anderson had
left a letter with the butler, I found, pleading excuses for his absence,
and leaving the whole house at my disposal for my investigations. The
butler evidently knew the object of my visit, and I questioned him pretty
thoroughly during dinner, which I had in rather lonely state. He is an
old and privileged servant, and had the history of the Grey Room exact in
detail. From him I learned more particulars regarding two things that
Anderson had mentioned in but a casual manner. The first was that the
door of the Grey Room would be heard in the dead of night to open, and
slam heavily, and this even though the butler knew it was locked, and the
key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would
always be found torn off the bed, and hurled in a heap into a corner.
"But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many
and many a time, he told me, had he lain awake and just got shivering
with fright, listening; for sometimes the door would be slammed time
after time--thud! thud! thud!--so that sleep was impossible.
"From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back
over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it--an
ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken
very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a
feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after
dinner to have a look at the Grey Room.
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