Trevor was walking around by torchlight, though the street lights of Piccadilly also spilled some light into the front rooms, making Trevor’s torch almost unnecessary. He approached from the adjacent corridor, passing through the small, elegant Cambridge Room and then through the wide open double doors into the larger Egremont Room.
Following his usual habit he paused just inside the doorway, allowing his eyes to adjust to the twilight of the room. As he followed the beam of his torch around the room he thought his peripheral vision caught a brief movement in the shadows away to his right. He turned towards this, shining his torch but he saw nothing. Trevor grasped his torch a little more firmly because he thought he might be about to encounter an intruder, and moved the torch beam slowly around the room, enabling him to marvel at the cream walls decorated with gilded plasterwork. The torch beam sparkled for a moment as it passed through the grand crystal chandeliers that also reflected themselves in the huge wall mirrors. He marveled at the opulence arrayed before him as he stepped onto the deep pile pink-patterned carpet. He entered the room; then he stopped.
Trevor shivered but he didn’t know why. Then he realized that he was not alone. A tall man was moving silently across the carpet, away from the door. “Excuse me” called Trevor, but there was no reply although the figure did seem to pause momentarily. Afterwards, Trevor was very clear on what he had seen. The man — it was a man – was very tall, over six feet, and dressed in a brown military style ankle-length greatcoat. He had a shock of thick shining silver hair drawn severely straight back across the top of his head and ending scruffily over his coat collar. The figure stopped in the middle of the room, stood still and silent for perhaps, Trevor said, thirty seconds then moved on with his back towards Trevor who had by then backed away so that he was standing near the big window partially silhouetted by the light from the Piccadilly street lamps. Trevor started to call out once more but for some reason he stopped and just looked. The figure again began to move away from Trevor towards the far wall which was adorned with a large heavy mirror in a gilt frame. The figure reached the wall beside the mirror, turned slightly, paused, then turned away and simply vanished.