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