Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/11

154 someone demanding entrance in the name of the law, or the King, or whoever the appropriate person is on such occasions. A sergeant accompanied by a squad of police entered and took the situation in hand.

Most 'strawnary, he fancied, was such rioting at that hour of the night. Disturbing the peace, and all that, this discharging of firearms. And when I showed them the drawing-room, they registered amazement and proceeded to search the house thoroughly. However, finding nothing but some splintered furniture and the remains of a cat, the sergeant contented himself with taking notes on my pedigree for the past four generations, as well as the history of "the bloody tible" I'd blamed for the disturbance; and then, after accepting a shot of brandy and a one-pound note, he marched his squad from the scene of the melee.

But I knew the end was not in sight. The police had granted my right to open fire on an intruder at that hour of the night, even though that was a beastly hazardous habit; yet they knew that something, somewhere, was decidedly off-color; and I had reason to expect that for the next few weeks I'd be followed by mysterious strangers wherever I went, and the house kept under strict surveillance.

dawn before I restored order. Yvonne, having recovered sufficiently, assisted me; for, with the remains of Miggles disposed of, there was nothing to upset her nerves again, though she did eye that table apprehensively, and refused to turn her back to it. And I didn’t blame her.

"Val," she finally remarked, "you must get rid of that table at once"

"Absolutely!" I agreed.

"It;s haunted. Burn it, or drop it in the Thames, or—poor little Miggles."

And Yvonne was in tears.

The long and short of it was that after sending Yvonne and Annie to spend a day or two in the country with their mother, I invited my friend Dr. Paul Whitby and his brother Mark to sit up all night in the flat with me. They came at about 10 that evening, and at 11 the three of us went into the drawing-room, seated ourselves on the sofa, switched off the lights, and waited for what I sensed would inevitably happen.

For some time we talked and laughed. Neither of my friends believed in supernatural manifestations; so that the idea of standing guard over a haunted table struck them as the height of absurdity. They candidly admitted that they were seeing the farce through to a finish only to please me. Perhaps if they'd seen the drawing-room before I cleaned it up, they'd not have been so skeptical.

Every now and then Mark would make some facetious remark at which Paul would laugh, and, responding with some bon mot of his own, would in return draw a snort from Mark. After about half an hour of it, however, Mark began to yawn; and I think they both were more than half asleep when the hall clock struck midnight.

Then there came a most intense silence, a clinging, paralyzing silence that oppressed me, forced the very life and vitality out of me, much as walking his post between 2 and 4 in the morning drives the vital force out of a soldier on guard, no matter how much rest he may previously have had. I felt an intense concentration centering about the sofa on which we sat: a driving, relentless vortex of thought-waves. Then came a distinct and protracted sigh as of one awakening from a deep, refreshing sleep.