“’No matter:  we have no right to any rooms but these we are in.  Come away, and let well enough alone.’

“’It is not “well enough,” as you call it.  I am going to see into it, and why they hide it.  I declare,’ and she examined the door critically, ’it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard’s chamber.  Look at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been a struggle.  It is our duty to investigate;’ and her voice grew impressive.  ’Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose, and, Jane, if there is a dead body in there, I shall inform the police.’  Annie was very brave in daylight.

“‘Fiddle-de-dee!’ I replied to this fine speech.  ’What you call duty, I call curiosity.  I am ravenously hungry, and I wish you would finish dressing and let us get to breakfast.’

“‘I will just tell you this,’ she answered indignantly, and yet with a quiver in her voice, ’I never in my life felt as I did last night when I saw that door.  It was quite like what people write of a mysterious influence, or the presence of some one unseen; and that whistle or voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, came from here; and you must help me to find out what it really was, for I can’t go away without knowing.’

“I saw it was useless to try longer to dissuade her.  The bed moved easily:  she took my hand and led me behind it; then warily tried the latch.  It rose, but she was obliged to lean all her weight against the door before it would give way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly that she almost fell forward.

“What did I see?  At the first glimpse a faint light from a cobwebbed window, a narrow room and a floor—­red.  Was it blood?  A sickening mouldy smell came forth, but as I forced myself to look again I saw that it was only red tiles that had startled me.  There was an upright brick range in a corner, an old water-tank, some shelves and a cupboard.  A missing pane of glass left a space through which the air had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above the range.  This was the ominous ‘signal’ we had heard in answer to the footsteps.  The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs of life were the rat-tracks on the floor.  We stood still for a few moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult ‘influence’ that had so subtly acted on Annie’s nerves, and filled me with no less terror.

“The house had been built for a hotel garni; that is, a house with furnished rooms or apartments, something like a tenement-house in your country.  This was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged to the two rooms we had taken.  Being unused for its proper object, and too small for a bed-chamber, it had been closed, and appeared as if it had been unentered for years.  I turned to Annie to see how she would bear this prosaic explanation of our alarm, but with the air of one who had expected nothing but this from the beginning, she remarked, ’Now