“I had a younger brother who died 2 years ago.  He was of a religious turn of mind and passed his time in reading religious books and writing articles about religion in papers.  He died suddenly one night.  In fact he was found dead in his bed in the morning.  The doctors said it was due to failure of heart.  Since his death he has come and slept in the room, which was his when he was alive and is his still.  All that he takes is a glass of water fetched from the sacred river Ganges.  We put the glass of water in the room and make the bed every evening; the next morning the glass is found empty and the bed appears to have been slept upon.”

“But why did you begin?—­” I asked.

“Oh—­One night he appeared to me in a dream and asked me to keep the water and a clean bed in the room—­this was about a month after his death,” said my host.

“Has anybody ever passed a night in the room to see what really happens?” I asked.

“His young wife—­or rather widow passed a night in that room—­the next morning we found her on the bed—­sleeping—­dead—­from failure of heart—­so the doctors said.”

“Most wonderful and interesting.”  I remarked.

“Nobody has gone to that part of the house since the death of the poor young widow” said my host.  “I have got all the doors of the room securely screwed up except one, and that too is kept carefully locked, and the key is always with me.”

After dinner my host took me to the haunted room.  All arrangements for the night were being made; and the bed was neat and clean.

A glass of the Ganges water was kept in a corner with a cover on it.  I looked at the doors, they were all perfectly secure.  The only door that could open was then closed and locked.

My host smiled at me sadly “we won’t do all this uselessly” he said “this is a very costly trick if you think it a trick at all, because I have to pay to the servants double the amount that others pay in this village—­otherwise they would run away.  You can sleep at the door and see that nobody gets in at night.”

I said “I believe you most implicitly and need not take the precaution suggested.”  I was then shown into my room and everybody withdrew.

My room was 4 or 5 apartments off and of course these apartments were to be unoccupied.

As soon as my host and the servants had withdrawn, I took up my candle and went to the locked door of the ghostly room.  With the lighted candle I covered the back of the lock with a thin coating of soot or lamp-black.  Then I scraped off a little dried-up whitewash from the wall and sprinkled the powder over the lamp-black.

“If any body disturbs the lock at night I shall know it in the morning” I thought.  Well, the reader could guess that I had not a good sleep that night.  I got up at about 4-30 in the morning and went to the locked door. My seal was intact, that is, the lamp-black with the powdered lime was there just as I had left it.