Page:Weird Tales v01n04 (1923-06).djvu/54

Rh pencil, a jar of mucilage and an oblong carton of sterilized gauze.

Later still, upon reaching the "haunted house," he saw no cause to revise his plan, and no reason to doubt that the solution he already had formed, although amazing, was essentially correct.

With the new cook installed in the kitchen, Mrs. Peyton conducted him to the second-floor front bedroom—a commodious south chamber—where she had seen the "ghost" last night. Barry looked at the small mahogany desk, surveyed the white-enameled twin beds, measured their distance from the corridor door and carefully examined the lock thereon.

Then, swiftly though systematically, he searched the rest of the house and afterward strolled outdoors. Sauntering across the velvety lawns, beneath the aged trees, he casually approached the garage some two hundred feet from the house. He had found nothing in the house, and now saw nothing in the surrounding grounds, to suggest the weird things he had heard. Here, to all appearance, was only an old-fashioned suburban home dozing peacefully in the mellow sunshine of a midsummer afternoon.

At the garage, which aforetime had been a stable, he engaged in back-stairs gossip with Frank Dominick, the chauffeur—in the presence of the gardener, John Hart, an uncommunicative person—and learned that both were preparing to "give notice."

"We ain't actually seen old Clayberg's ghost—at least not yet," said Dominick, "but we've heard enough about 'im and I guess he'll be callin' on us next. I guess the only reason we ain't seen 'im before is because we sleep up there," pointing to the upper floor of the garage. "Take my advice, friend, and don't stay here over night. Am I right, John?"

John Hart, a senile man, shifted: his cud of tobacco and expectorated lavishly, thus contributing a fresh stain to his tagged white beard.

"You're right," said he, and spoke no more.

Returning to the house, Barry was given a white jacket and a pair of blue trousers by Mrs. Peyton; and at six o'clock, wearing these garments and a servile mien, he was laying the dinner table when the master of the house arrived. Barry, with a plate and napkin in his hands, observed him through the doorway—a trim-looking man of thirty-five—and remarked the harrowing fear that sat upon his countenance.

His haggard eyes, like those of his wife, denoted loss of sleep; and he evinced no interest in her "luck in finding two perfect servants." In the same troubled preoccupation, he acknowledged the introduction of Barry, who was presented as Thomas Field. Clearly, he was too frightened and worried to be conscious of his environment, Dinner over, Barry went to his room. It was a tiny chamber tucked under the eaves at the rear of the top floor, and it was here that his predecessor had beheld the "apparition" night before last.

Upon the small table, where the word, "LEAVE" had been spelled with matches, Barry spread the articles which he had bought this afternoon.

Then he drew the table to the window, and lighted the lamp, and sat down and began writing letters to mythical persons in Iowa. His door stood open, and so did the window, and anybody passing in the hall, or standing north of the house, could have watched him at his employment.

For upward of two hours he sat steadily writing, his back to the door, his face silhouetted against the window; and when he had written five letters, and had stamped and directed them to his imaginary correspondents, he uncorked the mucilage pot and sealed the flaps of the envelops.

And then, somehow, he awkwardly upset the bottle of mucilage, and the stuff oozed stickily over his pencil and paper.

It was at this moment, or perhaps a little earlier, that he heard a slight rustle in the hall behind him, as of somebody moving away from his door, but, apparently intent only upon cleaning the mucilage from the table, he never looked round or gave any sign that he heard.

Presently he extinguished the light and, disrobing in the darkness, looked from his window. The old Clayberg stable, now Peyton's garage, loomed like a great dusky shadow in the starlit night; and at a small upper window, almost on a direct line with his, a yellow light glowed.

Feeling through the dark, Barry removed the sterilized gauze from the carton, snipped off a ten-inch length, and returned the gauze and box to his pocket. Then he stretched his length on the narrow iron bed, his face to the window, his door ajar.

Wide awake, he lay staring into the darkness, his mind alert, sharpened by expectancy.

HE MOON rose in the southeast, bathing the outdoors in a silvery sheen and mitigating, somewhat, the darkness of his room. The minutes lengthened into hours; and as the hours dragged slowly by Barry fought off the desire to sleep.

The fight became increasingly difficult; and finally—he judged it was long past midnight—it seemed as though he could no longer force himself to stay awake. His eyelids drooped. He dozed

And then, all at once, he was wide awake again, his pulse tingling. Somebody had entered his room and was standing now at the table, between the bed and window, so near that Barry could have touched him by reaching forth his hand.

Barry, however, remained motionless, simulating sleep; and beneath lowered lids he watched the intruder—a blurred gray figure—take up the pencil and start writing on the pad of paper. The moon had climbed to the zenith, and by its pale reflection Barry distinguished the salient marks of his visitor; the long gray robe, the flowing white hair and beard, the white skullcap.

Then the figure put down the pencil and vanished—gliding to the hall as swiftly and noiselessly, it seemed, as a shadow leaving the room.

Still Barry did not move. Silence ensued. Then, from some point down the hall, came a woman's piercing scream.

Barry rose, wrapped the lead pencil in the strip of gauze, and enclosed it in the cardboard box and replaced the box in his pocket.

Then, wearing coat and trousers, he stepped into the hall and lit a gas jet there—just as the new cook, screaming with terror, emerged from her room. Hysterical with fright, she frantically flourished a scrap of wrapping paper. And when she could speak coherently:

"I just seen a spook in my room—an old man wid white whiskers. I won't stay in this house! He writ somethin' here—"

She broke off to examine the bit of paper by the fluttering gas flame; and when she saw the words written on her paper she uttered another terrified shriek and, heedless of her scant attire, fled toward the front staircase. She was met at the head of the stairs by Mr. and Mrs. Peyton—he in pajamas and bathrobe, she in a peignoir, and both visibly alarmed—and to them she told, or tried to tell, the reason for her mad flight.

"Now lemme get outa here!" she ended, attempting to brush past them. "He told me to leave tonight—and I'm goin

Barry, following sleepily in her wake, rubbing his eyes as one newly awakened from slumber, heard Peyton saying: "This is dreadful, dreadful!" and Mrs.