Carnacki, The Ghost Finder | Page 5

the door
of the Grey Room. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large
corridor, and go echoing hollowly through the house. I tell you, I felt
horrible--as if my bones were water. Simply beastly. Jove! how I did
stare, and how I listened. And then it came again--thud, thud, thud, and
then a silence that was almost worse than the noise of the door; for I
kept fancying that some awful thing was stealing upon me along the
corridor. And then, suddenly, my lamp was put out, and I could not see
a yard before me. I realized all at once that I was doing a very silly
thing, sitting there, and I jumped up. Even as I did so, I thought I heard
a sound in the passage, and quite near me. I made one backward spring
into my room, and slammed and locked the door. I sat on my bed, and
stared at the door. I had my revolver in my hand; but it seemed an
abominably useless thing. I felt that there was something the other side
of that door. For some unknown reason I knew it was pressed up
against the door, and it was soft. That was just what I thought. Most
extraordinary thing to think.

"Presently I got hold of myself a bit, and marked out a pentacle
hurriedly with chalk on the polished floor; and there I sat in it almost
until dawn. And all the time, away up the corridor, the door of the Grey
Room thudded at solemn and horrid intervals. It was a miserable, brutal
night.
"When the day began to break, the thudding of the door came gradually
to an end, and, at last, I got hold of my courage, and went along the
corridor in the half light to cap the lens of my camera. I can tell you, it
took some doing; but if I had not done so my photograph would have
been spoilt, and I was tremendously keen to save it. I got back to my
room, and then set-to and rubbed out the five-pointed star in which I
had been sitting.
"Half an hour later there was a tap at my door. It was Peter with my
coffee. When I had drunk it, we both went along to the Grey Room. As
we went, I had a look at the seals on the other doors; but they were
untouched. The seal on the door of the Grey Room was broken, as also
was the string from the trigger of the flashlight; but the card over the
keyhole was still there. I ripped it off, and opened the door. Nothing
unusual was to be seen until we came to the bed; then I saw that, as on
the previous day, the bedclothes had been torn off, and hurled into the
left-hand corner, exactly where I had seen them before. I felt very queer;
but I did not forget to look at all the seals, only to find that not one had
been broken.
"Then I turned and looked at old Peter, and he looked at me, nodding
his head.
"'Let's get out of here!' I said. 'It's no place for any living human to
enter, without proper protection.'
"We went out then, and I locked and sealed the door, again.
"After breakfast, I developed the negative; but it showed only the door
of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get
certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps
to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night in the Grey

Room.
"I go back in a cab, about half-past five, with my apparatus, and this,
Peter and I carried up to the Grey Room, where I piled it carefully in
the center of the floor. When everything was in the room, including a
cat which I had brought, I locked and sealed the door, and went toward
the bedroom, telling Peter I should not be down for dinner. He said,
'Yes, sir,' and went downstairs, thinking that I was going to turn in,
which was what I wanted him to believe, as I knew he would have
worried both me and himself, if he had known what I intended.
"But I merely got my camera and flashlight from my bedroom, and
hurried back to the Grey Room. I locked and sealed myself in, and set
to work, for I had a lot to do before it got dark.
"First, I cleared away all the ribbons across the floor; then I carried the
cat--still fastened in its basket--over toward the far wall, and left it. I
returned then to the center of the room, and measured out a space
twenty-one feet in