igate and see whether I could not clear up a
long-standing and well--too well--authenticated case of what he termed
'haunting.' He gave me very full particulars, and, finally, as the case
seemed to present something unique, I decided to take it up.

"Two days later, I drove to the house late in the afternoon. I found it a
very old place, standing quite alone in its own grounds. 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.

"Peter, the old butler, was in rather a state about my going, and assured
me with much solemnity that in all the twenty years of his service, no
one had ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged me, in quite a
fatherly way, to wait till the morning, when there would be no danger,
and then he could accompany me himself.

"Of course, I smiled a little at him, and told him not to bother. I
explained that I should do no more than look 'round a bit, and, perhaps,
affix a few seals. He need not fear; I was used to that sort of thing.
But he shook his head when I said that.

"'There isn'