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CASE X
"---- HOUSE," NEAR BLYTHSWOOD SQUARE, GLASGOW.
THE HAUNTED BATH
When Captain W. de S. Smythe went to look over "---- House," in the
neighbourhood of Blythswood Square, Glasgow, the only thing about the
house he did not like was the bathroom--it struck him as excessively
grim. The secret of the grimness did not lie, he thought, in any one
particular feature--in the tall, gaunt geyser, for example (though
there was always something in the look of a geyser when it was old and
dilapidated, as was the case with this one, that repelled him), or in
the dark drying-cupboard, or in the narrow, slit-like window; but in
the room as a whole, in its atmosphere and general appearance. He
could not diagnose it; he could not associate it with anything else he
had ever experienced; it was a grimness that he could only specify as
grim--grim with a grimness that made him feel he should not like to
be alone there in the dead of night. It was a nuisance, because the
rest of the house pleased him; moreover, the locality was convenient,
and the rent moderate, very moderate for such a neighbourhood. He
thought the matter well over as he leaned in the doorway of the
bathroom. He could, of course, have the room completely renovated--new
paper, new paint, and a fresh bath. Hot-water pipes! The geyser should
be done away with. Geysers were hideous, dangerous, and--pshaw, what
nonsense!--Ghostly! Ghostly! What absurd rot! How his wife would
laugh! That decided the question.
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