The Grey Room | Page 8

any
malignant, spiritual personality would ever be permitted by the Creator
to exercise physical powers over the living, or destroy human beings
without reason or justice. The horror of such a possibility to the normal
mind is sufficient argument against it. Causes beyond our apparent
knowledge were responsible for the death of Nurse Forrester; but who
shall presume to say that was really so? Why imagine anything so
irregular? I prefer to think that had the post-mortem been conducted by
somebody else, subtle reasons for her death might have appeared.
Science is fallible, and even specialists make outrageous mistakes."
"You believe she died from natural causes beyond the skill of those
particular surgeons to discover?" asked Colonel Vane.
"That is my opinion. Needless to say, I should not tell Mannering so.
But to what other conclusion can a reasonable man come? I do not, of
course, deny the supernatural, but it is weak-minded to fall back upon it
as the line of least resistance."

Then Fayre-Michell repeated his question. He had listened with intense
interest to the story.
"Would you deny that ghosts, so to call them, can be associated with
one particular spot, to the discomfort and even loss of reason, or life, of
those that may be in that spot at the psychological moment, Sir
Walter?"
"Emphatically I would deny it," declared the elder. "However tragic the
circumstances that might have befallen an unfortunate being in life at
any particular place, it is, in my opinion, monstrous to suppose his
disembodied spirit will hereafter be associated with the place. We must
be reasonable, Felix. Shall the God Who gave us reason be Himself
unreasonable?"
"And yet there are authentic - However, I admit the weight of your
argument."
"At the same time," ventured Mr. Travers, "none can deny that many
strange and terrible things happen, from hidden causes quite beyond
human power to explain."
"They do, Ernest; and so I lock up my Grey Room and rule it out of our
scheme of existence. At present it is full of lumber - old furniture and a
pack of rubbishy family portraits that only deserve to be burned, but
will some day be restored, I suppose."
"Not on my account, Uncle Walter," said Henry Lennox. "I have no
more respect for them than yourself. They are hopeless as art."
"No, no one must restore them. The art is I believe very bad, as you say,
but they were most worthy people, and this is the sole memorial
remaining of them."
"Do let us see the room, governor," urged Tom May. "Mary showed it
to me the first time I came here, and I thought it about the jolliest spot
in the house."

"So it is, Tom," said Henry. "Mary says it should be called the Rose
Room, not the grey one."
"All who care to do so can see it," answered Sir Walter, rising. "We
will look in on our way to bed. Get the key from my key-cabinet in the
study. Henry, It's labelled 'Grey Room.'"
CHAPTER II
AN EXPERIMENT
Ernest Travers, Felix Fayre-Michell, Tom May, and Colonel Vane
followed Sir Walter upstairs to a great corridor, which ran the length of
the main front, and upon which opened a dozen bedrooms and
dressing-rooms. They proceeded to the eastern extremity. It was lighted
throughout, and now their leader took off an electric bulb from a sconce
on the wall outside the room they had come to visit.
"There is none in there," he explained, "though the light was installed
in the Grey Room as elsewhere when I started my own plant twenty
years ago. My father never would have it. He disliked it exceedingly,
and believed it aged the eyes."
Henry arrived with the key. The door was unlocked, and the light
established. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with ceiling of
elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper on which was
somewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as large as cabbages
ran riot over it. A great oriel window looked east, while a smaller one
opened upon the south. Round the curve of the oriel ran a cushioned
seat eighteen inches above the ground, while on the western side of the
room, set in the internal wall, was a modern fireplace with a white
Adams mantel above it. Some old, carved chairs stood round the walls,
and in one corner, stacked together, lay half a dozen old oil portraits,
grimy and faded. They called for the restorer, but were doubtfully
worth his labors. Two large chests of drawers, with rounded bellies,
and a very beautiful washing-stand also occupied places round the
room, and against the inner wall rose a single, fourposter bed of
Spanish chestnut, also carved. A grey, self-colored carpet covered the

floor, and