Page:Weird Tales v02n04 (1923-11).djvu/23

22 "No, I am not a coward, but I dare not go into that room; I tried once, and-"

He buried his face in his hands. Jim turned and looked at me queerly.

"I know why he can't go in," he said, "the thing that's in there won't let him."

By this time we had reached the front porch.

"Where is your wife, Avery?" I asked, laying my hand on his shoulder.

He looked up haggardly. "Thank God she is safe! She is visiting in town and knows nothing of this."

Jim had shut off the power and darted to the front door. I followed closely, with Avery behind me. In this order we ran, leaped rather, up the broad stair case and down the upper hall. Breathless, we paused at the room with the red door panels. The door was tightly closed, but the key was in the lock.

Jim grasped the knob and turned the key. We all heard the bolt shoot sharply back. With all his strength, he threw the full weight of his body against the door, but it resisted all his efforts. Forgetting Mr. Ormond's instructions, forgetting my word of honor, I, too, added my strength to Jim's and slowly, slowly, the door yielded.

Distinctly I felt the pressure of a resisting force on the other side. Then, suddenly, the door half open, I heard a horrid, half strangled shriek from Jim, and at the same moment I felt a cold, clammy hand at my throat. An enormous hand! The fingers reached round and met at the back of my neck.

I tried to cry out. I struggled feebly, helplessly. The light flickered before my eyes, died out, and as consciousness left me I saw, clasping and clutching, the hand of John Ormond as I had seen it in real life months before.

When I came to, I found Jim and Avery bending anxiously over me. I sat up, and instinctively my hand went to my throat. A dull ache persisted there.

"What's the matter?" I asked thickly.

"Devils," said Jim, and beckoned over his shoulder.

I sat up, and then recollection came to me.

"Were you attacked, too, Jim?" I asked.

"Yes, but I was expecting it and escaped with only a slight squeeze."

"And you?" I asked, turning to Avery.

He shuddered and shook his head.

"Not this time, but when I was alone."

"Did you see anything when Jim and I forced the door?"

He looked puzzled.

"No, I can't say positively. I thought, just before you both screamed, that I saw a pair of enormous hands shoot out from the doorway and clasp each of you by the throat, but it may have been imagination. I saw nothing distinctly."

We retired from before the red paneled door, which was again tightly closed, and held a consultation.

My mind was fully made up. The matter had gone too far, and was of altogether too serious a nature to allow a promise, exacted under commonplace circumstances, to obtrude and interfere under unusual and startling conditions. Besides, a plain duty lay before me. The dead body of a man was on the other side of that door and must be gotten out.

"How do you know he is dead?" The thought suggested question.

Avery was still under strong nervous excitement.

"I was part way in the room before my throat was clutched. I saw his body on the bed, his head hanging over the side, his mouth open, and eyes staring. He was dead!"

A convulsive shudder shook him as he recalled the gruesome picture.

"Gentlemen," I said, "we have got to get the body out." And to Jim: "and you and I will solve the mystery."

"I'm with you." And Jim's lower jaw clenched.

"If this is the work of human beings, which I strongly suspect, the matter will be comparatively simple, although more dangerous. If it is of supernatural agency, it may not be so easy. Let me say to start with, gentlemen, that I believe in the supernatural. I believe there are unseen forces about us with power, at times, to inflict harm upon human beings. This may be one of the times. The only way to counteract or overcome the power of one of the beings of the outer circle is by an absolute freedom from fear. A brave front alone will not do. There must positively be no shadow of fear in your heart. Do you understand, Jim?"

"Yes," he said, and I saw by the look on his face that he meant it.

"And you, Avery?"

He was sitting with his face in his hands, his whole attitude one of utter misery.

"I'm not up to it, boys," he muttered, without looking up.

"Then you go down to the lower floor, or, better still, go out into the grounds. The air will do you good. We'll join you presently."

"Jim," I said in a low tone, when Avery had shuffled down the stairs, "we will put this in the form of a test. If there is a man in that room, we will meet with the same powerful resistance when we attempt to enter. If it is not a man, if the force in there is of supernatural origin, there will be little, if any, opposition if we show that we are entirely unafraid. Do you understand?"

He nodded impatiently. Jim had been a famous football player in the old college days, and I knew him to be a man of undaunted physical courage. I could not ask for a better companion in any venture requiring cool nerve and daring.

Together, we approached the door, and this time it was my hands that grasped the knob and key.

"Jim, you have no fear!" I asserted it as a fact.

"No!"

"Nor have I. Come."

I turned the key and the knob at the same moment. There was a suggestion of resistance which vanished almost instantly. The door was thrown open and we both crossed the threshold. A cold air, like a gust of wind, struck our faces.

The room was dimly lighted from partly opened slats of a blind at one of the windows. And then a peculiar thing happened. A pair of heavy curtains, hanging before a closet or alcove, were drawn apart and fell together as though separated by unseen hands.

JIM looked at me, and then with one bound, leaped toward the curtains and tore them apart. He disappeared from view, but reappeared almost instantly, brushing the front of his coat.

"Nothing in there, but I felt something like a big rat crawling up my coat. Ugh!"

We gazed about the room. It was furnished in the style of the past century, with heavy walnut chairs and dresser, and a massive canopied bed from which the curtains had been removed. And upon the bed lay the figure of a man in the position which Avery had described. It took but one glance to see that he was dead. Together we lifted the body and carried it, without molestation, to the hall. Instantly the door closed with a crash behind us.

We bore the body of the man to the room which he had occupied in life. Then we took Avery and his effects back to town with us and left him at the house where his wife was visiting. I promised to get a doctor's certificate, and to see an undertaker, and have the body properly prepared for shipment to New York. Fortunately, there were no marks upon it, and as the man was known to have had