Much to my surprise she led the way along the corridor to the extremity of the wing. Here a narrow ladder-like staircase rose to the floor above, and she mounted it, I following. We found ourselves in a dusty boarded passage. Anne opened a door and led me into a large dim attic which was evidently used as a lumber room. There were trunks there, old broken furniture, a few stacked pictures, and the many countless odds and ends which a lumber room collects.
My surprise was so evident that she smiled faintly.
“First of all, I must explain. I am sleeping very lightly just now. Last night—or rather this morning about three o’clock, I was convinced that I heard someone moving about the house. I listened for some time, and at last got up and came out to see. Out on the landing I realized that the sounds came, not from down below, but from up above. I came along to the foot of these stairs. Again I thought I heard a sound. I called up, ‘Is anybody there?’ But there was no answer, and I heard nothing more, so assumed that my nerves had been playing tricks on me, and went back to bed.
“However, early this morning, I came up here—simply out of curiosity. And I found this !”
She stooped down and turned round a picture that was leaning against the wall with the back of the canvas towards us.
I gave a gasp of surprise. The picture was evidently a portrait in oils, but the face had been hacked and cut in such a savage way as to render it unrecognizable. Moreover, the cuts were clearly quite fresh.
“What an extraordinary thing,” I said.
“Isn’t it? Tell me, can you think of any explanation?”
I shook my head.