“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’t many ghosts like ours, sir,’ he assured me, with mournful pride.  And, by Jove! he was right, as you will see.

“I took a couple of candles, and Peter followed with his bunch of keys.  He unlocked the door; but would not come inside with me.  He was evidently in a fright, and he renewed his request that I would put off my examination until daylight.  Of course, I laughed at him again, and told him he could stand sentry at the door, and catch anything that came out.

“‘It never comes outside, sir,’ he said, in his funny, old, solemn manner.  Somehow, he managed to make me feel as if I were going to have the ‘creeps’ right away.  Anyway, it was one to him, you know.

“I left him there, and examined the room.  It is a big apartment, and well furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster, which stands with its head to the end wall.  There were two candles on the mantelpiece, and two on each of the three tables that were in the room.  I lit the lot, and after that, the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary; though, mind you, it was quite fresh, and well kept in every way.

“After I had taken a good look ’round, I sealed lengths of baby ribbon across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the fireplace and the wall closets.  All the time, as I worked, the butler stood just without the door, and I could not persuade him to enter; though I jested him a little, as I stretched the ribbons, and went here and there about my work.  Every now and again, he would say:—­’You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir.  I’m fair in a quake for you.’

“I told him he need not wait; but he was loyal enough in his way to what he considered his duty.  He said he could not go away and leave me all alone there.  He apologized; but made it very clear that I did not realize the danger of the room; and I could see, generally, that he was in a pretty frightened state.  All the same, I had to make the room so that I should know if anything material entered it; so I asked him not to bother me, unless he really heard or saw something.  He was beginning to get on my nerves, and the ‘feel’ of the room was bad enough, without making it any nastier.