HOTEL rooms are not very scary, or at least that's what I thought. That was before watching the new John Cusak film, 1408, where his character Mike Enslin decides to check into the notorious Hotel Dolphin to investigate its supernatural reputation.

A crooked door that goes straight again, an operator that doesn't sound human and, finally, a room engulfed in flames are enough to convince him maybe ghosts do stay in hotels.

I decided to check this out for myself at one of Scotland's reputedly most haunted hotel rooms.

At the Cross Keys Hotel in Peebles Room 5 looks just like any other hotel room I have ever stayed in.

It has a bed, a couple of mock-Victorian chairs and a teak cupboard nestled beside a standing lamp.

There's a wall mirror, some white 1980s-era bedside tables and a kettle next to a box of complimentary teabags and shortbread.

The carpets and wallpaper are neutral (cream and magnolia), there's a bowl filled with pot pourri beside the TV, and the tweed curtains have flower prints. On the walls are three prints: Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette, Gustav Klimt's The Kiss and a watercolour of someone tending to their garden.

The plain and simple decoration of the toilet and shower-room is just as inoffensive. However, while this may sound like a description of your average hotel room, this certainly isn't your average hotel room.

Room 5 is haunted . . . very haunted.

Built more than 350 years ago and located within the picturesque town of Peebles in the Scottish Borders, the charming, listed Cross Keys Hotel is the town's oldest building.

Marion Ritchie, daughter of the hotel's second owner, was the Inn's first landlady and she had a formidable reputation for dealing with awkward or inebriated customers.

In fact, so popular was she, Sir Walter Scott - who frequented the Inn often - characterised Marion as Meg Dodds in his Waverley novels.

When Marion passed away it was believed she became a ghost who now haunts the Inn. And a mischievous ghost at that.

Those who have stayed or worked at the Inn have reported many strange happenings since Marion's death: items being moved, unexplained bangs and crashes, glasses thrown and, in modern times, electrical equipment switched on and off.

During the Seventies it was believed Marion's ghost might have been mistaken for a typical public house poltergeist, though it was well known Marion liked to talk to the guests at the establishment.

Once, she was alleged to have pushed a photographer down the stairs, breaking his leg.

These days, however, Marion's ghost is most likely to be found in Room 5 - the room where she died.

So how do we know Marion Ritchie's ghost really exists? Well there's only one way to find out, and that's to spend a night in the room.

A few days prior to entering the room, I went to the cinema to watch 1408. Just like Cusack's character when he first enters Room 1408, I, too, could find nothing particularly threatening or intimidating about Room 5. In fact, the feeling was one of warmth and comfort. A false sense of security?

Perhaps. I dumped my bag and began to investigate.

Unlike happenings in 1408, the thermostat in Room 5 didn't break, the toilet paper in the bathroom hadn't been folded in a strange pattern, and the window didn't open and close of its own accord. Best yet, there was no radio alarm clock playing The Carpenters' We've Only Just Begun whenever it felt like it.

The only thing on the blink was the teletext as I tried to find something suitable to watch on television.

By 10pm nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The only creaking I could hear was of the other guests' footsteps outside in the hallway.

THE lights hadn't flickered as they were sometimes known to do, and the only voices I could hear were from the pub downstairs.

The creepiest thing was a shadow lurking behind the shower-curtain when I went to take a shower - and that was a not-very-scary towel. Then things started to change.

Stepping out of the shower room, I spotted four ingrained fingerprints above the bathroom door handle. They were crimson, and they wouldn't wash off.

Then, sitting down on the bed to put on my pyjamas, I spied another set of fingerprints on the ceiling.

This time I got up to get a closer look and noticed they ran half way across the room, as though they'd been scraped or dragged along.

This was getting eerie now. More spooky, I looked around for the sheet of paper the hotel owner gave me with information about the hotel.

I'd placed it on the chair when I entered the room. It was no longer there. After a five-minute search, I found it . . . behind the cupboard.

Now this was getting freaky. I almost expected Yvette Fielding from TV's Most Haunted to knock on the door. A similar thing happened with the sandwich bought from a shop earlier. I'd placed it inside a bag beside the kettle when I came in, but it was now sitting on the chair under the mirror.

Gazing at my reflection, for a split second I could have sworn the people dancing in Renoir's painting beside me were snarling instead of smiling at me - and I'd only had the one pint of cider at dinner time.

Had Marion been moving things around while I was in the shower? Was she just testing me? Whatever the case, it was almost midnight. Time for bed.

Having reluctantly switched off the light, I got my head down and drifted off to sleep. Two hours later - the first bump in the night. But it wasn't Marion - it was me walking straight into a chair, trying to find my way to the toilet. Ouch!

An hour later I woke up thirsty and went to fetch a drink of water. The tap was already running when I got to the bathroom. Had I left it on after my last visit to the bathroom? Hmm . . .

Back in bed, I found myself wide awake. I was beginning to see shapes evolve from the shadows, wispy figures waltzing around the lamps and chairs. My imagination was doing overtime. Then, all of a sudden, the TV came on.

I nearly jumped out of my pyjamas. It was showing an advert for a car driving past, would you believe it, a haunted house.

It was clear: either Marion was having fun with me, or I was getting worked up about nothing.

Either way, I forced myself back to sleep and didn't wake up again until morning.

At 7.30am I packed up my belongings to leave. Pondering what I had just experienced, I was 99.9 per cent certain the only "activity" in Room 5 was a mixture of my own clumsiness and overactive imagination (though I couldn't honestly explain the TV coming on by itself).

Venturing outside the hotel, I walked past Room 5's window. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the faint image of a woman's face behind the pane.

I did a double take. Nothing. Whoever had been there was gone.

'I spotted four ingrained fingerprints above the handle. They were crimson and wouldn't wash off'