Christopher Logue, Christopher
Logue’s True Stories from Private Eye (London: A. P. Rushton, 1973), p. 55.
No clipping supports this story, but I have found its
source reliable on other occasions.
A world-famous mountaineer was asked to pass the
weekend in a grand provincial home. Arriving late and last his hostess enquired
if he minded sleeping in the haunted room. He did not mind.
The room was small, remote from the others, beamed,
and the bed, into which he climbed after a good supper, a curtained
four-poster.
At about three in the morning he was awakened by a
slurry, shuffling sound which seemed to come from just beyond the bed curtains.
Hoping it would go away he stayed put. It got worse.
That is to say it became a strangulated series of gasps.
Surrendering to his fright the mountaineer put his
fingers in his ears and his head under the bolster.
Some time later the noises stopped and he went back to
sleep.
Next morning he drew the curtains and found that one
of the maids had hanged herself from the room’s main beam.