Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/235

 Teck and his confederate knew he was in this room—having placed him there—therefore he must be gone when they returned.

He felt his way to the door and out into the little entrance room, which he ascertained was also empty. It seemed plain to him that Teck and his man had left the place—temporarily, at any rate. But there was something upstairs that must be looked at; something lying on the floor, bleeding, perhaps dead—almost certainly dead. Val could not go away and leave that lying there; a fellow human, perhaps needing assistance. He believed he knew how to find his way to the room—he had noted the room when he had been up there, directly above the living room, where he had been bound.

A room with thin floors, with great cracks between the boards, so that in the day time one could probably look down into the living room. Val could imagine a burning, intense eye staring eternally through the crack into the room below.

He made his way silently upstairs, not making use of his flash for fear of divulging his whereabouts. Quietly he moved, and so carefully, feeling each step before he put his weight down upon it, that it took him quite five minutes before he reached the top of the stairway. He paused at the door of the room above the living room—paused, and touched his hand lightly to the automatic in his pocket—which they had neglected, strangely, to take away from him. For bandits, it occurred to Val, Teck and his playmates were as careless as they could well be. Now, if he were banditting.

He touched the knob of the half falling door, and entered the dark room. At first he could see nothing. Cautiously, he allowed the beam from his flashlight to