“The Basement Room” is a short story by Graham Greene first published as part of his 1954 collection, Twenty-One Stories. The story is widely considered a thriller and explores the experience and lifelong effects of trauma through the psychological experience of a young child.

The story begins when seven-year-old Philip Lane is left at home while his parents enjoy a two-week holiday. Baines—the family’s butler—and his wife remain home to look after him. Like any child left at home without his parents for a few weeks, Philip is filled with feelings of importance and happiness, excited to embark on an adventure without them. 

Philip begins his period of freedom by spending time with Baines in the basement room, where he listens to Baines tell stories about his time in Africa. He loves Baines’ stories and often imagines how nice life would be if it were just Baines and him living in the house, as he views the strict Mrs. Baines as something from a nightmare.

Over dinner, Philip asks Baines to take him for a walk, but Mrs. Baines will not let them go. She threatens to punish Philip, who responds by saying he hates her, then leaves the basement room where they are having dinner and goes outside.

Along his walk home, Philip happens to see Baines through a shop window, noticing that his beloved butler is accompanied by a woman Philip assumes is his niece. As a joke, Philip calls out to Baines in the voice of his Mrs. Baines, startling him. Upon realizing that it is, in fact, Philip and not his wife, Baines asks Philip not to tell Mrs. Baines about their encounter in the tea shop. Philip promises to keep it between them.

In his nursery that night, Mrs. Baines acts uncharacteristically kind toward Philip, hoping to cajole him into revealing her husband’s secret. She succeeds, learning that Baines met up with another woman that afternoon. Philip is disappointed in himself for not keeping Baines’s secret safe.

The next day, Mrs. Baines leaves under the guise of caring for her dying mother. Free from her scrutinizing gaze, Baines and Philip spend their day having fun around the city. Afterward, they have dinner in the basement room with Emmy, the young woman Baines has been seeing. When Philip is sent to bed, he is comforted by the presence of two happy people.

A short while later, Mrs. Baines wakes Philip in the middle of the night, asking for the whereabouts of her husband and Emmy. As Mrs. Baines turns the doorknob of the room that holds the two lovers, Philip yells out to warn Baines. Baines comes out of the room, and during a small physical fight, Mrs. Baines falls over the banister and falls into the hall below.

Overwhelmed and feeling the need to escape the house and the “grown-up world,” Philip runs out of the house and into the streets. In his panic, he quickly grows lost, and then sits down to cry. It is in this position that a policeman finds him and takes him to the station.

While there, the police station receives a call informing them of Mrs. Baines’s accidental death. When Philip arrives home with the policeman, Baines has moved his wife’s body. Not knowing this—and scared to encounter the body on his way to his bedroom—Philip’s behavior reveals that Baines has relocated Mrs. Baines’ corpse to make the scene look like an accident. Philip says it is all Emmy’s fault, revealing to the policeman that another person was involved.

The story ends unsolved with a sixty-seven-year-old Philip still experiencing the effects of trauma. He echoes the police officer’s words about Emmy, asking: “Who is she?”