Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/234

 “Who is there?” he asked suddenly, loudly; over the beat of the elements.

There was no answer, but the next instant his every sense was on the alert, the gooseflesh prickling on his skin. As he turned back to the front of the room, he could have sworn that a shadow had slipped from one side of the room to the other—across the lightened gloom of the window. It was no more than a shadow, and made no more noise than one in its passage—but it was something that he had seen, he was sure of that. There something in the room with him.

“Who’s that?” he asked again, staccato.

As before, the beat of the rain was his only answer.

Suddenly, he felt that this Presence was standing behind his chair; he twisted in his seat to try to make it out. There was a twicking at his bonds, light as the sunlight on the tops of trees, and he felt the cords loosen. There was another lithe motion, and he felt a sharp bladed knife glide through the cords that held his hands fast.

Stiff, he tried to rise, and found that he could. The cords fell off him, and he was a free man. He whirled from one side of the room to the other in the endeavor to make out who or what it was that had freed him, but could see nothing. A cold gust of wind, coming from an unexpected angle, blew on him, and he saw, dimly, that the door was open. It had been closed before.

“That’s how he—or It—got out,” he told himself, grimly. “Well, whoever you are, thanks awfully.”

His first act was to feel in his pocket for his tiny, powerful electric flashlight. He sighed with relief when he found it, because one needed light here rather badly at times. He must get out of this room, he decided.