“I knew a house,” said George Dunbar, “in which I would not spend a week alone for one thousand guineas. Not merely is it impregnated, it is dripping with horror and beastliness. It is dark and brooding and has--it seems to me--an evil life of its own. Everyone, I know, who has entered it has taken an immediate and increasing loathing for it. It has a shocking record of suicides--eight in thirty years, but I agree with Willie that I never got the impression that there was any mind or will animating those coughs one heard, the steps behind one, the dim, drawn faces one thought one saw at windows; and all the symposium of dread one experienced there. I mean that one was left convinced that there was no consciousness working in our space and time--these things seemed to be passing in and out of another dimension--that is vague, but just the impression I got. All these phenomena seemed quite purposeless, and therefore should not have been, as they were, frightening--puppets without strings--like the mechanical recording of a gramophone.” “I think that’s a better simile than mine,” said Cranmer. “Once the record is made by the living it goes on long after the recorder is dead, repeating and repeating until it wears out, and there is evidence that the influence does wear out in certain senses. All such comparisons between affairs on one plane and on another are fallacious, but they help to clear the air of debate.” “But someone has to put the record on,” objected Mr. Partridge. “I suggest it is never taken off,” replied Cranmer. “What a typical ghost discussion it has been,” thought Mr. Partridge, “hopelessly inconclusive, tentative, vaguely disturbing, subjective, guess-work.” At a quarter to twelve they decided to go to bed. Mr. Partridge and Willie Cranmer went out for a breath of air. “Did you find you had identified your room all right?” the latter asked. “Yes,” said Mr. Partridge, wondering slightly irritably why the subject seemed to have this mild fascination for his old friend. The night was fine, with a three-quarter moon. Willie Cranmer stared up at the hard shadows round the chimney for a moment or two, and then said, “Well, let’s go to bed. You’re sure you’re quite comfortable?” “Oh, quite!” said Mr. Partridge in a clipped, slightly bothered tone, and they went in. The corner of the corridor in which Number 39 was situated was so dark that Mr. Partridge had to light a match before he could find the keyhole. As he was fumbling with the key he checked himself sharply and listened intently. It seemed to him that a sound, difficult to define, had come from within. He lit another match to make sure this was Number 39. Yes, it was. That little sound must have come from the next room. He went in and turned on the light, which consisted of one blinking and superannuated bulb.