How Does Wells Build Up A Sense Of Fear In The Red Room?

In the room with the narrator is a man with a withered arm. We are not told of his name, he is only known as 'the man with the withered arm.' A second old man entered the room, he was 'more bent and more wrinkled than the first.' He wore a shade, and the only part of his face you could see was his lips. The narrator described them as 'half averted , hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.' There was also a woman in the room whose eyes were permanently fixed to the fire which was lit in the room. Wells wants us to see the people as old and strange. They appear to be primeval and inhuman. Wells included a description of how the narrator saw himself in the mirror, he did this to show that the castle wasn't all that it seemed to be, and neither was the reflection of himself he saw in it.

The old custodians of the house kept repeating the phrase 'This night of all night.' This gives the impression that something has happened in the castle on this night in years before, but we are not told what. This gives us a sense of suspence.