I took out my handkerchief and wiped the lock clean.  The whole operation took me about 5 minutes.  Then I waited.

At about 5 my host came and a servant with him.  The locked door was opened in my presence.  The glass of water was dry and there was not a drop of water in it.  The bed had been slept upon.  There was a distinct mark on the pillow where the head should have been—­and the sheet too looked as if somebody had been in bed the whole night.

I left the same day by the after-noon train having passed about 23 hours with the family in the haunted house.

WHAT UNCLE SAW.

This story need not have been written.  It is too sad and too mysterious, but since reference has been made to it in this book, it is only right that readers should know this sad account.

* * * * *

Uncle was a very strong and powerful man and used to boast a good deal of his strength.  He was employed in a Government Office in Calcutta.  He used to come to his village home during the holidays.  He was a widower with one or two children, who stayed with his brother’s family in the village.

Uncle has had no bed-room of his own since his wife’s death.  Whenever he paid us a visit one of us used to place his bed-room at uncle’s disposal.  It is a custom in Bengal to sleep with one’s wife and children in the same bed-room.  So whenever Uncle turned up I used to give my bed-room to him as I was the only person without children.  On such occasions I slept in one of the “Baithaks” (drawing-rooms).  A Baithak is a drawing-room and guest-room combined.

In rich Bengal families of the orthodox style the “Baithak” or “Baithak khana” is a very large room generally devoid of all furniture, having a thick rich carpet on the floor with a clean sheet upon it and big takias (pillows) all around the wall.  The elderly people would sit on the ground and lean against the takias; while we, the younger lot, sat upon the takias and leaned against the wall which in the case of the particular room in our house was covered with some kind of yellow paint which did not come off on the clothes.

Sometimes a takia would burst and the cotton stuffing inside would come out; and then the old servant (his status is that of an English butler, his duty to prepare the hookah for the master) would give us a chase with a lathi (stick) and the offender would run away, and not return until all incriminating evidence had been removed and the old servant’s wrath had subsided.

Well, when Uncle used to come I slept in the “Baithak” and my wife slept somewhere in the zenana, I never inquired where.

On this particular occasion Uncle missed the train by which he usually came.  It was the month of October and he should have arrived at 8 P.M.  My bed had been made in the Baithak.  But the 8 P.M. train came and stopped and passed on and Uncle did not turn up.