The gate swung back and he passed inside.

The old house looked gray and forbidding in the dull light of the late afternoon.

He frowned up at it, and it frowned down on him, standing there as cold and grim as itself.

That was his only welcome.
The doors and windows were all shut, so that he caught only a faint sound of the bump, thump of the scrubbing-brush as it accompanied Henri's high-pitched tune down the back stairs.
Without giving any warning of his arrival, he motioned the man beside the coachman to follow with his trunk, and silently led the way up-stairs.

When the trunk had been unstrapped and the man had departed, monsieur gave one slow glance all around the room.