When Last I Died

The windows were large and rectangular, and opened up and down by means of sashcords, some of which were in need of replacement. The staircases were narrow and Victorian, even the front one. On the servants' staircase there was not room for two people to pass.

It was a cheerless house; sinisterly cheerless, for the bright sunshine streamed in through the windows, particularly of the drawing-room, which faced south, and of the bedroom immediately above it, and yet a kind of spiritual dankness seemed to permeate every part of the building.

Mrs. Bradley was particularly free from morbid fears and nervous fancies, but she would not have been in the least surprised, she felt, as she went from room to room, tapping, pacing and measuring, to turn round and find the ghost of Cousin Tom, of Bella Foxley, or even of Aunt Flora, standing in the doorway watching her. As for the front stairs, she stood quite two minutes in the bare and chilly hall looking at them before she could bring herself to mount.

Once on the first floor, however, she shook off this irrational sensation, and explored as fully and measured as carefully as she had done down below.

In connection with the alleged activities of the poltergeist she did establish one thing. That was that the contents of the bedroom from which (or in which) Cousin Tom had met his death could be shot over the banisters into the hall without trouble, and that anybody decanting furniture, ornaments or anything else portable into the well provided by the turn of the stairs, would have ample time to escape before the investigators could catch him. As for the sound of his footsteps, that, to a convinced ghost-hunter, would not necessarily convey any doubts. Poltergeists can be heard to move about, she had read, and, in fact, their footsteps were often audible without anything being visible.

The route taken by a person playing practical jokes or hide-and-seek with a victim would most likely be along the passage to the bathroom, she deduced. This passage, unlighted for about half a dozen yards beyond the bedroom door, proceeded, under a square-topped archway and down one step, to a fairly large bathroom and to the back stairs. These stairs led down to the kitchen and up to the attics, and were lighted at the top by a large window which overlooked the almost enclosed courtyard. This window, oddly enough, could be closed by shutters on the inside of the glass.

The bathroom door opened on the right of the passage, at the end of which was another bedroom which overlooked the garden. There was a rather similar passage at the opposite end of the landing, but on this side there was no bathroom, and the bedrooms were considerably smaller.

There was one item of particular interest which she had overlooked on her previous visits. This was that a small room, apparently a dressing-room, opened off the side of what, to herself, she called Cousin Tom's room, but the communicating-door had been papered over, so that, at a casual glance, it was unlikely that the fact that it was not quite flush with the rest of the wall would be apparent.

She went over and examined it again when she had explored the bathroom passage to its end. The job of disguising the doorway had been so well done that it almost seemed as though deliberate thought had been given to the possibility of hiding it. She ran her finger round the opening, being very careful not to press hard enough to break the wall-paper, and then went into the adjoining room to study the doorway from that side. The same neat, careful job had been made, and she now noted more particularly a fact which had struck her before—that the opening from the passage leading into this smaller room was not, and never had been, a doorway in which to hang a door— it was merely an arch which had been formed by removing bricks from the passage wall.

Whether these alterations had any sinister implication still had to be discovered. She noted them, and passed on. The attics, which she thought might repay inspection, proved disappointing in that they were entirely empty. Whatever lumber the house might once have harboured was not now on this top floor. She inspected the boards closely. They were dusty, but not unduly so, and she supposed that these rooms, in common with the other parts of the house to which the public were not usually admitted, received attention at intervals from the caretaker and his daughter. There was an absence of cobwebs which suggested that the last cleaning of the attics had been of fairly recent date.

She walked over to the window in each room and looked out, but beyond an extended view of the country around the house, the windows had nothing to offer. She tested the catches. They were rusty, and it did not seem as though the windows could have been opened for some considerable time, certainly not when the rooms had last been cleaned.