Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/381

 movements of an automaton, held by the strange sight of the diminutive figures moving about on the glazed white dial.

This, apparently, was something new to him. And the mystery deepened as he took a step or two forward and beheld the figures of his own colleagues from the periscopic mirrors of the apparatus. It took on a touch of the uncanny, of black arts that defied explanation. For one vital moment it arrested and held his attention.

There before him he could see the moving, breathing, gesticulating images of his own fellow conspirators. There were the four of them, Heinold, Andelman, Breitman and Canby. And even as he stared down at them the drama on that diminutive stage of mystery shifted and changed. He could see the four figures erupt into sudden activity. Heinold caught at a chair-back and swung it above his head. Andelman dropped low behind the table. Canby, wheeling sharply about, whipped a revolver from his pocket and thrust it in front of him with a slight stabbing motion. At the same instant, from below stairs, came the sound of a shot, thick and muffled, synchronizing with the movement of the diminutive figure as neatly as the off-stage "business"