The Thing in the Upper Room by Arthur Morrison
A shadow hung ever over the door, which stood
black in the depth of its arched recess, like
an unfathomable eye under a frowning brow.
The landing was wide and panelled, and a heavy
rail, supported by a carved balustrade, stretched
away in alternate slopes and levels down the
dark staircase, past other doors, and so to
the courtyard and the street. The other doors
were dark also; but it was with a difference.
That top landing was lightest of all, because
of the skylight; and perhaps it was largely
by reason of contrast that its one doorway
gloomed so black and forbidding The doors
below opened and shut, slammed, stood ajar.
Men and women passed in and out, with talk
and human sounds--sometimes even with laughter
or a snatch of song; but the door on the top
landing remained shut and silent through weeks
and months. For, in truth, the logement had
an ill name, and had been untenanted for years.
Long even before the last tenant had occupied
it, the room had been regarded with fear and
aversion, and the end of that last tenant
had in no way lightened the gloom that hung
about the place.
The house was so old that its weather-washed
face may well have looked down on the bloodshed
of St. Bartholomew's, and the haunted room
may even have earned its ill name on that
same day of death. But Paris is a city of
cruel history, and since the old mansion rose
proud and new, the hôtel of some powerful
noble, almost any year of the centuries might
have seen the blot fall on that upper room
that had left it a place of loathing and shadows.
The occasion was long forgotten, but the fact
remained; whether or not some horror of the
ancien régime or some enormity of the Terror
was enacted in that room was no longer to
be discovered; but nobody would live there,
nor stay beyond that gloomy door one second
longer than he could help. It might be supposed
that the fate of the solitary tenant within
living memory had something to do with the
matter--and, indeed, his end was sinister
enough; but long before his time the room
had stood shunned and empty. He, greatly daring,
had taken no more heed of the common terror
of the room than to use it to his advantage
in abating the rent; and he had shot himself
a little later, while the police were beating
at his door to arrest him on a charge of murder.
As I have said, his fate may have added to
the general aversion from the place, though
it had no in no way originated it; and now
ten years had passed, and more, since his
few articles of furniture had been carried
away and sold; and nothing had been carried
in to replace them.
When one is twenty-five, healthy, hungry and
poor, one is less likely to be frightened
from a cheap lodging by mere headshakings
than might be expected in other circumstances.
Attwater was twenty-five, commonly healthy,
often hungry, and always poor. He came to
live in Paris because, from his remembrance
of his student days, he believed he could
live cheaper there than in London; while it
was quite certain that he would not sell fewer
pictures, since he had never yet sold one.
It was the concierge of a neighbouring house
who showed Attwater the room. The house of
the room itself maintained no such functionary,
though its main door stood open day and night.
The man said little, but his surprise at Attwater's
application was plain to see. Monsieur was
English? Yes. The logement was convenient,
though high, and probably now a little dirty,
since it had not been occupied recently. Plainly,
the man felt it to be no business of his to
enlighten an unsuspecting foreigner as to
the reputation of the place; and if he could
let it there would be some small gratification
from the landlord, though, at such a rent,
of course a very small one indeed.
But Attwater was better informed than the
concierge supposed. He had heard the tale
of the haunted room, vaguely and incoherently,
it is true, from the little old engraver of
watches on the floor below, by whom he had
been directed to the concierge. The old man
had been voluble and friendly, and reported
that the room had a good light, facing north-east--indeed,
a much better light than he, engraver of watches,
enjoyed on the floor below. So much so that,
considering this advantage and the much lower
rent, he himself would have taken the room
long ago, except--well, except for other things.
Monsieur was a stranger, and perhaps had no
fear to inhabit a haunted chamber; but that
was its reputation, as everybody in the quarter
knew; it would be a misfortune, however, to
a stranger to take the room without suspicion,
and to undergo unexpected experiences. Here,
however, the old man checked himself, possibly
reflecting that too much information to inquirers
after the upper room might offend his landlord.
He hinted as much, in fact, hoping that his
friendly warning would not be allowed to travel
farther. As to the precise nature of the disagreeable
manifestations in the room, who could say?
Perhaps there were really none at all. People
said this and that. Certainly, the place had
been untenanted for many years, and he would
not like to stay in it himself. But it might
be the good fortune of monsieur to break the
spell, and if monsieur was resolved to defy
the revenant, he wished monsieur the highest
success and happiness.
So much for the engraver of watches; and now
the concierge of the neighbouring house led
the way up the stately old panelled staircase,
swinging his keys in his hand, and halted
at last before the dark door in the frowning
recess. He turned the key with some difficulty,
pushed open the door, and stood back with
an action of something not wholly deference,
to allow Attwater to enter first.
A sort of small lobby had been partitioned
off at some time, though except for this the
logement was of one large room only. There
was something unpleasant in the air of the
place--not a smell, when one came to analyse
one's sensations, though at first it might
seem so. Attwater walked across to the wide
window and threw it open. The chimneys and
roofs of many houses of all ages straggled
before him, and out of the welter rose the
twin towers of St. Sulpice, scarred and grim.
Air the room as one might, it was unpleasant;
a sickly, even a cowed, feeling, invaded one
through all the senses--or perhaps through
none of them. The feeling was there, though
it was not easy to say by what channel it
penetrated. Attwater was resolved to admit
none but a common-sense explanation, and blamed
the long closing of door and window; and the
concierge, standing uneasily near the door,
agreed that that must be it. For a moment
Attwater wavered, despite himself. But the
rent was very low, and, low as it was, he
could not afford a sou more. The light was
good, though it was not a top-light, and the
place was big enough for his simple requirements.
Attwater reflected that he should despise
himself ever after if he shrank from the opportunity;
it would be one of those secret humiliations
that will rise again and again in a man's
memory, and make him blush in solitude. He
told the concierge to leave door and window
wide open for the rest of the day, and he
clinched the bargain.
It was with something of amused bravado that
he reported to his few friends in Paris his
acquisition of a haunted room; for, once out
of the place, he readily convinced himself
that his disgust and dislike while in the
room were the result of imagination and nothing
more. Certainly, there was no rational reason
to account for the unpleasantness; consequently,
what could it be but a matter of fancy? He
resolved to face the matter from the beginning,
and clear his mind from any foolish prejudices
that the hints of the old engraver might have
inspired, by forcing himself through whatever
adventures he might encounter. In fact, as
he walked the streets about his business,
and arranged for the purchase and delivery
of the few simple articles of furniture that
would be necessary, his enterprise assumed
the guise of a pleasing adventure. He remembered
that he had made an attempt, only a year or
two ago, to spend a night in a house reputed
haunted in England, but had failed to find
the landlord. Here was the adventure to hand,
with promise of a tale to tell in future times;
and a welcome idea struck him that he might
look out the ancient history of the room,
and work the whole thing into a magazine article,
which would bring a little money.
So simple were his needs that by the afternoon
of the day following his first examination
of the room it was ready for use.
He took his bag from the cheap hotel in a
little street of Montparnasse, where he had
been lodging, and carried it to his new home.
The key was now in his pocket, and for the
first time he entered the place alone. The
window remained wide open; but it was still
there--that depressing, choking something
that entered the consciousness he knew not
by what gate. Again he accused his fancy.
He stamped and whistled, and set about unpacking
a few canvases and a case of old oriental
weapons that were part of his professional
properties. But he could give no proper attention
to the work, and detected himself more than
once yielding to a childish impulse to look
over his shoulder. He laughed at himself--with
some effort--and sat determinedly to smoke
a pipe, and grow used to his surroundings.
But presently he found himself pushing his
chair farther and farther back, till it touched
the wall. He would take the whole room into
view, he said to himself in excuse, and stare
it out of countenance. So he sat and smoked,
and as he sat his eye fell on a Malay dagger
that lay on the table between him and the
window. It was a murderous, twisted thing,
and its pommel was fashioned into the semblance
of a bird's head, with curved beak and an
eye of some dull red stone. He found himself
gazing on this red eye with an odd, mindless
fascination. The dagger in its wicked curves
seemed now a creature of some outlandish fantasy--a
snake with a beaked head, a thing of nightmare,
in some new way dominant, overruling the centre
of his perceptions. The rest of the room grew
dim, but the red stone glowed with a fuller
light; nothing more was present to his consciousness.
Then, with a sudden clang, the heavy bell
of St. Sulpice aroused him, and he started
up in some surprise.
There lay the dagger on the table, strange
and murderous enough, but merely as he had
always known it. He observed with more surprise,
however, that his chair, which had been back
against the wall, was now some six feet forward,
close by the table; clearly, he must have
drawn it forward in his abstraction, towards
the dagger on which his eyes had been fixed...The
great bell of St. Sulpice went clanging on,
repeating its monotonous call to the Angelus.
He was cold, almost shivering. He flung the
dagger into a drawer, and turned to go out.
He saw by his watch that it was later than
he had supposed; his fit of abstraction must
have lasted some time. Perhaps he had even
been dozing.
He went slowly downstairs and out into the
streets. As he went he grew more and more
ashamed of himself, for he had to confess
that in some inexplicable way he feared that
room. He had seen nothing, heard nothing of
the kind that one might have expected, or
had heard of in any room reputed haunted;
he could not help thinking that it would have
been some sort of relief if he had. But there
was an all-pervading, overpowering sense of
another Presence--something abhorrent, not
human, something almost physically nauseous.
Withal it was something more than presence;
it was power, domination--so he seemed to
remember it. And yet the remembrance grew
weaker as he walked in the gathering dusk;
he thought of a story he had once read of
a haunted house wherein it was shown that
the house actually was haunted--by the spirit
of fear, and nothing else. That, he persuaded
himself, was the case with his room; he felt
angry at the growing conviction that he had
allowed himself to be overborne by fancy--by
the spirit of fear.
He returned that night with the resolve to
allow himself no foolish indulgence. He had
heard nothing and had seen nothing; when something
palpable to the senses occurred, it would
be time enough to deal with it. He took off
his clothes and got into bed deliberately,
leaving candle and matches at hand in case
of need. He had expected to find some difficulty
in sleeping, or at least some delay, but he
was scarce well in bed ere he fell into a
heavy sleep.
Dazzling sunlight through the window woke
him in the morning, and he sat up, staring
sleepily about him. He must have slept like
a log. But he had been dreaming; the dreams
were horrible. His head ached beyond anything
he had experienced before, and he was far
more tired than when he went to bed. He sank
back on the pillow, but the mere contact made
his head ring with pain. He got out of bed,
and found himself staggering; it was all as
though he had been drunk--unspeakably drunk
with bad liquor. His dreams--they had been
horrid dreams; he could remember that they
had been bad, but what they actually were
was now gone from him entirely. He rubbed
his eyes and stared amazedly down at the table:
where the crooked dagger lay, with its bird's
head and red stone eye. It lay just as it
had lain when he sat gazing at it yesterday,
and yet he would have sworn that he had flung
that same dagger into a drawer. Perhaps he
had dreamed it; at any rate, he put the thing
carefully into the drawer now, and, still
with his ringing headache, dressed himself
and went out.
As he reached the next landing the old engraver
greeted him from his door with an inquiring
good-day. "Monsieur has not slept well, I
fear?"
In some doubt, Attwater protested that he
had slept quite soundly. "And as yet I have
neither seen nor heard anything of the ghost,"
he added.
"Nothing?" replied the old man, with a lift
of the eyebrows, "nothing at all? It is fortunate.
It seemed to me, here below, that monsieur
was moving about very restlessly in the night;
but no doubt I was mistaken. No doubt, also,
I may felicitate monsieur on breaking the
evil tradition. We shall hear no more of it;
monsieur has the good fortune of a brave heart."
He smiled and bowed pleasantly, but it was
with something of a puzzled look that his
eyes followed Attwater descending the staircase.
Attwater took his coffee and roll after an
hour's walk, and fell asleep in his seat.
Not for long, however, and presently he rose
and left the cafÇ. He felt better, though
still unaccountably fatigued. He caught sight
of his face in a mirror beside a shop window,
and saw an improvement since he had looked
in his own glass. That indeed had brought
him a shock. Worn and drawn beyond what might
have been expected of so bad a night, there
was even something more. What was it? How
should it remind him of that old legend--was
it Japanese?--which he had tried to recollect
when he had wondered confusedly at the haggard
apparition that confronted him? Some tale
of a demon-possessed person who in any mirror,
saw never his own face, but the face of the
demon.
Work he felt to be impossible, and he spent
the day on garden seats, at café tables,
and for a while in the Luxembourg. And in
the evening he met an English friend, who
took him by the shoulders and looked into
his eyes, shook him, and declared that he
had been overworking, and needed, above all
things, a good dinner, which he should have
instantly. "You'll dine with me," he said,
"at La Perouse, and we'll get a cab to take
us there. I'm hungry."
As they stood and looked for a passing cab
a man ran shouting with newspapers. "We'll
have a cab," Attwater's friend repeated, "and
we'll take the new murder with us for conversation's
sake. Hi! Journal!"
He bought a paper, and followed Attwater into
the cab. "I've a strong idea I knew the poor
old boy by sight," he said. "I believe he'd
seen better days."
"Who?"
"The old man who was murdered in the Rue Broca
last night. The description fits exactly.
He used to hang about the cafés and run messages.
It isn't easy to read in this cab; but there's
probably nothing fresh in this edition. They
haven't caught the murderer, anyhow."
Attwater took the paper, and struggled to
read it in the changing light. A poor old
man had been found dead on the footpath of
the Rue Broca, torn with a score of stabs.
He had been identified--an old man not known
to have a friend in the world; also, because
he was so old and so poor, probably not an
enemy. There was no robbery; the few sous
the old man possessed remained in his pocket.
He must have been attacked on his way home
in the early hours of the morning, possibly
by a homicidal maniac, and stabbed again and
again with inconceivable fury. No arrest had
been made.
Attwater pushed the paper way: "Pah!" he said;
"I don't like it. I'm a bit off colour, and
I was dreaming horribly all last night; though
why this should remind me of it I can't guess.
But it's no cure for the blues, this!"
"No," replied his friend heartily; "we'll
get that upstairs, for here we are, on the
quay. A bottle of the best Burgundy on the
list and the best dinner they can do--that's
your physic. Come!"
It was a good prescription, indeed. Attwater's
friend was cheerful and assiduous, and nothing
could have bettered the dinner. Attwater found
himself reflecting that indulgence in the
blues was a poor pastime, with no better excuse
than a bad night's rest. And last night's
dinner in comparison with this! Well, it was
enough to have spoiled his sleep, that one-franc-fifty
dinner.
Attwater left La Perouse as gay as his friend.
They had sat late, and now there was nothing
to do but cross the water and walk a little
in the boulevards. This they did, and finished
the evening at a café table with half a dozen
acquaintances.
Attwater walked home with a light step, feeling
less drowsy than at any time during the day.
He was well enough. He felt he should soon
get used to the room. He had been a little
too much alone lately, and that had got on
his nerves. It was simply stupid.
Again he slept quickly and heavily and dreamed.
But he had an awakening of another sort. No
bright sun blazed in at the open window to
lift his heavy lids, and no morning bell from
St. Sulpice opened his ears to the cheerful
noise of the city. He awoke gasping and staring
in the dark, rolling face-downward on the
floor, catching his breath in agonized sobs;
while through the window from the streets
came a clamour of hoarse cries: cries of pursuit
and the noise of running men: a shouting and
clatter wherein here and there a voice was
clear among the rest--"A l'assassin! Arrêtez!"
He dragged himself to his feet in the dark,
gasping still. What was this--all this? Again
a dream? His legs trembled under him, and
he sweated with fear. He made for the window,
panting and feeble; and then, as he supported
himself by the sill, he realized wonderingly
that he was fully dressed--that he wore even
his hat. The running crowd straggled through
the outer street and away, the shouts growing
fainter. What had wakened him? Why had he
dressed? He remembered his matches, and turned
to grope for them; but something was already
in his hand--something wet, sticky. He dropped
it on the table, and even as he struck the
light, before he saw it, he knew. The match
sputtered and flared, and there on the table
lay the crooked dagger, smeared and dripping
and horrible.
Blood was on his hands--the match stuck in
his fingers. Caught at the heart by the first
grip of an awful surmise, he looked up and
saw in the mirror before him, in the last
flare of the match, the face of the Thing
in 
the Room.
