Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/124

 , and there was something in its homeliness that made me feel as the diary had.

"It was crushed beneath McAdoo's great shoulders as he sank into it—and he did sink, Doctor, as if he had been hamstrung. In the middle of the room there was a little bamboo table, on which the servant was about to set the lamp, but Lynch motioned to place it on a shelf behind him. He himself sat at the table, facing McAdoo, his back straight, as the back of a thoroughbred should be, and the revolver lying in his hand near the middle of the table.

"I walked up to him, staggering a little, and threw down the diary.

What is this?' asked Lynch.

" 'After you, friend—the diary of the Rev. E. M. Cullen! What do you think it is—a skull?' I snapped. He raised his eyebrows.

There is a divan at the end of the room, Doctor,' he said, without taking his eyes from McAdoo. 'Lie there, if you please, during our proceedings.' There was a cold, official [ 108 ]