I am not naturally nervous, but I confess I did not like the prospect of entering that great gloomy mansion alone. This main entrance being at the rear, only one or two staircase-windows looked out upon the street in which I stood, and all were closely barred. About the exterior, with its grimy conservatory, mud-bespattered door, and littered steps, there seemed an indescribable mysteriousness. I found myself hesitating.
What profit could an intimate knowledge of this place be to me? I asked myself. But I answered the question by reflecting that the place was empty, therefore there was at least nothing to fear as long as I got in unobserved. If the police detected me I should, in all probability, be compelled to go to the nearest station and submit to a cross-examination by an inspector.
All was quiet, and, having no time to lose, I therefore slipped out the key, inserted it in the heavy door, and a few seconds later stood in the spacious hall with the door closed behind me. For a moment the total darkness unnerved me, and my heart thumped so quickly that I could hear its beating. I remembered how, while on a similar night search, I had discovered the body of Gilbert Sternroyd.
Quickly I lit my lantern, and by its welcome light stole along, making no sound. The darkness seemed to envelope me, causing me to fear making any noise. There was a close, musty smell about the place, a combined odour of dirt and mildew; but as I flashed my lamp hither and thither into the most distant corners, I was surprised to discover the size of the hall, the magnificence of the great crystal chandelier, and the beauty of the crystal balustrades and banisters of the wide handsome staircase. The paintings in the hall were old family portraits, but over them many spiders had spun their webs, which also waved in festoons from the chandelier and from the ceiling. Years must have elapsed since the place had been cleaned, yet it was strange, for on my visit on the night of Sybil’s death I had not noticed these signs of neglect.
The place had then been brilliantly lit; now all was dark, squalid, and funereal.
Room after room on the ground-floor I entered. The doors of most of them were open, but all the apartments were encrusted by the dust and cobwebs of years. The furniture, some of it green with mildew, was slowly decaying, the hangings had in many places rotted and fallen, while the lace curtains that still remained at the closely-shuttered windows, were perfectly black with age.
It was a house full of grim shadows of the past. The furniture, of a style in vogue a century ago, was handsome and costly, but irretrievably ruined by neglect. Fully half an hour I occupied in exploring the basement and ground-floor, then slowly I ascended the wide staircase in search of the well-remembered room wherein I had unwittingly been one of the contracting parties to as strange a marriage ceremony as had ever been performed.