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showed him that the curtains were drawn, and with a reckless movement of his
hand he switched on the lights and turned to a survey of the room.
Only the immutable law of averages can account for what followed. If a man
looks for things often enough, it is reasonable to assume that at some time or
other he must stumble on the right hiding place at the first attempt; and the
Saint had searched for things often enough in his life, even if on that
occasion he didn't know what he was looking for.
The toe of one bare foot was kicking meditatively at the edge of the carpet.
The corner rolled over. His thoughts ran, more or less: "Nothing important
would be left out for any inquisitive servant to get hold of. There isn't a
safe. It might be a dummy bookcase, like I've got. But excavations are also
possible. . . ."
Somehow he found himself looking down at a trapdoor cut in the oak planking
of the floor.
It lifted easily. Underneath was a hinged stone slab with an iron ringbolt,
smooth and unrusted. Without hesitation he took hold of it and lifted. It
required all his strength to raise the slab, but he managed it.
He looked down into black darkness; but from the bottom of the darkness came
a faint sound of shuffling movement. With a creepy tingle working across his
scalp, he picked up his torch again and sent the beam down the shaft.
Ten feet below him, a face looked up with dull staring eyes that blinked
painfully even in the faint ray of his flashlight. There was something
hideously familiar about it, as if it were the blanched wreck of a face which
he ought to know. And in another second his blood ran cold as he realized that
it was the face of Ivar Nordsten.
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VII
The face was not quite the same. The nose was less dominant, the complexion
had a yellow tinge which the financier's did not have, the eyes lacked the
faded brightness which Nordsten's possessed; but it was recognizable. It had
given the Saint such a shock that he found it difficult to speak naturally.
"Hullo, sunshine," he said at length. "And who are you?"
The man's mouth worked hungrily, like an animal's.
"All right," he said, in a curiously stiff hoarse whisper, as if he had half
forgotten how to use his voice. "I'm used to it now. You can't make me suffer
any more."
"Who are you?" Simon repeated.
"I'myou," said the man huskily. "I know now. I've thought it all out. I'm
you Nordsten!"
The Saint's nerves were steady enough now. Somehow, that last shock had been
a homoeopathic dose, wiping out everything else; he was left with the dizzy
certainty that the trail had turned into a stranger course than anything he
had dreamed of, and with a grim curiosity to find out where it led.
"I'm here to help you, you fathead," he said. "Tell uncle what it's all
about."
The man below him laughed, a horrible quivering dry cackle which sent an
uncanny chill down the Saint's spine, as if a spider had crawled there, in
spite of the recovered steadiness of his nerves.
"Help me! Ha-ha! That's funny. Help me like you've been helping me for two
years. Help me to keep alive so that I can die at the right time! I know.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Then the wild voice fell to a whisper."Help," it
breathed, with a fearful intensity. "How long? How long?"
"Listen," said the Saint urgently. "I------"
An then, as if his command had turned back on himself, he broke off and
listened. He could hear the scratching again. It was outside the library
door on the door itself. . . . There was a faint thud; and then an instant's
electric silence, while he strained his ears for he knew not what. . . And
then, shattering the stillness of the house, came a frightful coughing scream
that rang up and down the scale in an eldritch howl of vocal savagery that
stopped the breath in his throat.
Looking down stupidly through the trapdoor, Simon saw the parchment face of
the man who looked like Nordsten turn whiter. The dull eyes dilated, and the
stiff unnatural voice rose in a sobbing cry.
"No, no, no, no," it shrieked. "Not now! Not now! I didn't mean it. I'm not
ready yet! I'm not------"
The hairs prickled on the nape of Simon's neck; and then, with an effort that
hardened his eyes to mere slits of arctic blue, he got up from his knees and
lifted the heavy stone trapdoor again.
"I'll see you later," he said shortly and lowered the trap much quicker than
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he had raised it.
In another second he had fitted the square of dummy parquet over it, and he
was rolling out the carpet again to cover up the traces of his inspection.
Whatever else his curiosity might demand to know, there was the screeching
shadow with the yellow eyes to be accounted for first everyone in the house
must have been awakened by that unearthly yell, and he would achieve nothing
by being discovered where he was. Whatever it might be, the Thing in the hall
had to be dealt with first, and he preferred to take it on the run rather than
let his nerves get the better of him again. With his automatic in his hand, he
went back to the door and switched out the lights. No one would ever know what
it cost him to turn the handle of the door with that screaming horror waiting
for him on the other side, but he did it; and his nerves were like ice as he
drew the door sharply back and waited for whatever his fate might be.
Something soft and yet heavy hissed past him and landed on the parquet beside
the central rug with the same scratching noise as he had heard before, and
once again his nostrils twitched to the queer musty odour which they had
detected on the stairs. In the pitch darkness he heard the claws of the beast
scrabbling for a turning hold on the polished oak, and kicked out
instinctively with his bare foot. His toes bedded into something furry and
muscular, and for the second time that fiendish worrying yell wailed through
the blackness.
Simon whipped up his gun; but something like a hot iron ripped down his
forearm before he could fire, and the automatic was brushed effortlessly out
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