THE DAY THEY HAD ARRIVED to take possession of the house, a month ago at the end of March, Sabrina on her early explorations had run up the last flight of stairs because there was that closed door at the top and she naturally wondered what was behind it. To her surprise, when she laid her hand on the knob the door would not open. But they had taken the house—3 reception rooms, 9 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, electric light, company’s gas and water, garage—furnished, by the year.

A locked room. How mysterious. Sabrina at once tried to see through the keyhole, but Aunt Effie called to her from below and told her to come away. There was something in the lease about their not having the use of that room, she said.

Sabrina was asking excited questions over the banisters such as Why not, and What was in it, and Whose room was it, when she became aware of the housekeeper—a dour middle-aged woman who went with the house, like the furniture, when you let it—standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her. Somehow at sight of the woman’s still, watchful face the questions died on Sabrina’s lips and she came back down the stairs, one foot slowly at a time, towards where Mrs. Pilton stood. And as she reached the bottom—

“That room is kept locked when he’s not at home,” said Mrs. Pilton in her quiet country voice, and she turned without smiling and went away down the back stairs toward the kitchen. She held herself erect and walked well, a self-respecting woman. More like a governess than a housekeeper, thought Sabrina, making you feel in the wrong when you had done whatever it was quite innocently. With a long backward look up the stairs, she returned to her own room midway of the passage, to unpack.

After that, Sabrina had gone round calling it the Bluebeard Chamber until Father heard and said Nonsense, and explained irritably that the locked room merely belonged to one of the sons who was not available to clear out his possessions from the cupboards and drawers and empty the place for the use of a tenant. Father pointed out that they didn’t need the room, just the three of them. Aunt Effie said Mercy, no, the house was too big anyhow. And they both regarded the subject as closed.