"Watch the end staircases!" Jamieson was shouting. "Damnation--
there's no light here!" And then a second later. "All together
now. One--two--three--"
The door into the trunk-room had been locked from the inside. At
the second that it gave, opening against the wall with a crash
and evidently tumbling somebody into the room, the stealthy
fingers beyond the mantel-door gave the knob the proper impetus,
and--the door swung open, and closed again. Only--and Liddy
always screams and puts her fingers in her ears at this point--
only now I was not alone in the chimney room. There was some one
else in the darkness, some one who breathed hard, and who was so
close I could have touched him with my hand.
I was in a paralysis of terror. Outside there were excited
voices and incredulous oaths. The trunks were being jerked
around in a frantic search, the windows were thrown open, only to
show a sheer drop of forty feet. And the man in the room with me
leaned against the mantel-door and listened. His pursuers were
plainly baffled: I heard him draw a long breath, and turn to
grope his way through the blackness. Then--he touched my hand,
cold, clammy, death-like.
A hand in an empty room! He drew in his breath, the sharp
intaking of horror that fills lungs suddenly collapsed. Beyond
jerking his hand away instantly, he made no movement. I think
absolute terror had him by the throat. Then he stepped back,
without turning, retreating foot by foot from The Dread in the
corner, and I do not think he breathed.
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