Despite Sir Simon’s attempts to appear in the most gruesome guises, the family refuses to be frightened, and Sir Simon feels increasingly helpless and humiliated. When Mrs. Otis notices a mysterious red mark on the floor, she simply replies that she does “not at all care for blood stains in the sitting room.” When Mrs. Umney, the housekeeper, informs Mrs. Otis that the blood stain is indeed evidence of the ghost and cannot be removed, Washington Otis, the oldest son, suggests that the stain will be removed with Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent: A quick fix, like the Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator, and a practical way of dealing with the problem.
Wilde describes Mrs. Otis as “a very handsome middle-aged woman” who has been “a celebrated New York belle.” Her expression of "modern" American culture surfaces when she immediately resorts to using the commercial stain remover to obliterate the bloodstains and when she expresses an interest in joining the Psychical Society to help her understand the ghost. Mrs. Otis is given Wilde's