The Red Room Riddle by Scott Corbett, 1972.

The story takes place during the 1920s. (It doesn’t actually give a date, but it references the early days of radio and silent movies, which helps place it.) Bruce Crowell meets the new kid in the neighborhood, Bill Slocum, shortly before Halloween. Bruce is afraid of Bill at first because he’s big and has a mean look. Bill does turn out to be a bully, picking on him and shoving him into mud puddles as they walk home from school. Then, one day, Bruce fights back and gives Bill a black eye. Bruce expects that Bill will be mad, but when he points out that Bill didn’t have to shove him into a puddle, Bill says that he guesses that they’re even now, and the two of them end up becoming friends.

Bruce and Bill spend a lot of their time playing outside with other neighborhood kids, and they start making plans for Halloween. During the 1920s, kids mainly celebrated Halloween with pranks. Even though Bill isn’t very good in school, he likes to read nonfiction books, and he starts reading folklore about ghosts. Bruce is more into fiction, and he starts reading books of ghost stories. Bill is really into hard facts and doesn’t believe in ghosts. His reading about ghosts is because he wants to figure out why people would believe in something so silly. He reads about how people have faked ghosts before, and he comments that he wishes that there was a haunted house nearby so he could do some research.

Bruce tells Bill about a house in a richer neighborhood that’s supposedly haunted. Bruce has seen the house before with another boy named Virgil. Virgil’s father says that there was a story about a dead baby being chopped up and buried in the garden of the house or something. Bruce isn’t completely clear about the details, but he says that the house has been boarded up for years because there’s some kind of long-standing dispute about who owns the property. Bill asks Bruce what he saw when he and Virgil went to the house, but Bruce says that they didn’t see much because the house is surrounded by a high wall, and they couldn’t get past the gates. It’s impossible to climb over the wall because there’s broken glass on top that’s cemented in place to stop people from getting in.

When it looks like it’s going to rain on Halloween, Bill suggests that they go check out the haunted house instead of running around the neighborhood, playing pranks. Bruce is reluctant, but Bill talks him into it. They have trouble finding the house at first, and they stop to ask a mailman where it is. The mailman gives them directions, amused that the boys are looking for a scare on Halloween. Bruce doubts that they’ll be able to get near the house because of the wall around it, but Bill discovers that there’s a door in the wall that’s unlocked.

Inside the wall, they find a messy, overgrown garden. The house itself is three stories tall and badly damaged on one side from a fire. In the garden, the boys meet another boy, Jamie Bly, who says that he also snuck onto the property. Jamie has his dog with him, and he says that he’s not scared of the ghosts in the house, daring the other boys to come inside with him.

Inside, the boys have a frightening encounter with the half-blind caretaker of the house, who menaces them with a broken axe handle. The boys run outside again, and Jamie says that the old caretaker wouldn’t really hurt them. Jamie says that he comes there from time to time to spook him because he thinks it’s funny. The caretaker knows it’s him because he calls him by name when he chases him. Jamie says that the caretaker won’t be there much longer, though, because the house is going to be torn down soon, and if the other boys want to see some real ghosts, they should come to his house later that night.

Jamie claims that he lives in a real haunted house. The other boys don’t believe him, and at first, they don’t want to show up to meet Jamie that night because they think he’s really annoying. However, their curiosity gets the better of them, and they decide to show up and see whatever Jamie has to show them. They think at first that they’re just calling Jamie’s bluff and that they’ll prove that he’s a liar, but they’re about to be in for the scariest Halloween they’ve ever had!

When they meet Jamie that night, he leads them through an unfamiliar neighborhood to a house that seems as big as the other old house. It’s difficult for them to see the outside because it’s raining heavily, but the inside is lit with gaslight and oil lamps instead of electricity, something that immediately strikes the boys as odd. They don’t see anyone else at first, and Jamie says that his parents are out for the evening. Bill expects that there are probably servants somewhere in the house because it’s such a big place, and he actually seems to be enjoying himself, looking forward to the challenge of debunking any “ghosts” that Jamie might show them.

The scares start slowly. Something scratches Bill on the cheek before they enter the house. They don’t know what it is, but they assume that it’s some trick that Jamie set up. There’s a creepy maid who doesn’t seem to see them or acknowledge them. Lights go on and off mysteriously. Jamie makes a peanut butter sandwich. (That wouldn’t be scary except that the boys are seriously starting to be creeped out by Jamie, so everything he does is creepy.) Then, Jamie takes them upstairs to see the Red Room.

The Red Room is a bedroom where everything is red. It has a picture of the Slaughter of the Innocents and a tapestry with the same theme outside. It has a red marble fireplace. Even the ceiling of the room is red … and it looks red and sticky. Then, Jamie locks them inside. The room has no windows, and Jamie says that there’s a secret staircase out … if they can find it.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

Getting locked in what looks like a creepy murder room is scary enough, but there are other scares, and the boys do see what looks like real ghosts. After their experience, Bill thinks that he’s reasoned out a good explanation, but there is one more punchline to the story when the boys go back the next day to confront Jamie about all the creepy things that happened.

This is one of those stories where you never get a full explanation. In the end, we still don’t know what the deal was with the theme of the of Slaughter of the Innocents and the dead baby that was once supposedly found on the property. However, when the boys talk to an impartial person at the end, they do learn that the house is the same one that they visited before and that Jamie probably did live there at some point in the past, back when people used gaslights. The Bly family who once owned the house seems to have had a dark and sinister history, and while it’s still possible that there was some kind of trick being played by a person who knows about it, the boys come to believe that they really did have a supernatural experience.

Because of the scary subject matter, I would say that this book would be best for older elementary school children who really like a good scare.

Personally, the parts I liked the best were the references to things that kids don’t often encounter in modern times. I liked how Bruce gives an estimated time period for the story by talking about silent movies that are accompanied by piano playing and how he and Bill learned the term “yellow” for cowardly from western films. When they first meet Jamie and don’t want to tell him their names, they give the retort of “Pudding Tane. Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.” I’ve seen/heard that retort used in old books (like Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point) and tv shows, but it’s one that went out of style before I was a kid myself. I had to get my parents to explain it to me the first time I heard it on a tv show as a kid.