But it took eternities, and toward the last I found it
hard to count; my head was confused.
And then--I heard sounds from below me, in the house. There was
a peculiar throbbing, vibrating noise that I felt rather than
heard, much like the pulsing beat of fire engines in the city.
For one awful moment I thought the house was on fire, and every
drop of blood in my body gathered around my heart; then I
knew. It was the engine of the automobile, and Halsey had come
back. Hope sprang up afresh. Halsey's clear head and Gertrude's
intuition might do what Liddy's hysteria and three detectives had
failed in.
After a time I thought I had been right. There was certainly
something going on down below; doors were slamming, people were
hurrying through the halls, and certain high notes of excited
voices penetrated to me shrilly. I hoped they were coming
closer, but after a time the sounds died away below, and I was
left to the silence and heat, to the weight of the darkness, to
the oppression of walls that seemed to close in on me and stifle
me.
The first warning I had was a stealthy fumbling at the lock of
the mantel-door. With my mouth open to scream, I stopped.
Perhaps the situation had rendered me acute, perhaps it was
instinctive. Whatever it was, I sat without moving, and some one
outside, in absolute stillness, ran his fingers over the carving
of the mantel and--found the panel.
Now the sounds below redoubled: from the clatter and jarring I
knew that several people were running up the stairs, and as
the sounds approached, I could even hear what they said.
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