Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/41

 thick! Over everything! Look at the little waves in the dust where the winter winds blew through the cracks. Like the sand waves of the Sahara. I spent some weeks there as a young man. This parlor is a little Sahara. Suppose we go upstairs first and save the dining-room till the last. It should be back of the parlor. Excuse me, but I am going to tie a handkerchief over my nose. I would advise you to do the same. No telling what germs are in that dust. Of course it may be almost sterile, as most of the family you represent has been. Walk carefully up these steps. No matter how hard we try the dust will rise."

The two men wandered through the second floor of the old house, through long-deserted bedrooms, once gayly decorated.

"'Life and love have gone away, leaving doors and windows wide; careless tenants they,' quoted the old man. "How appropriate! I never married, but I have always been a sentimentalist. What tales of love this house could tell, these furnishings relate, could they but talk!"

"I wish," said the young man sharply, "that I could ask you to stop quoting poetical nonsense. To me this is simply an old dirty house."

"But to me it is mystery, romance," countered the old man. "Well, at least there is nothing on the second floor, and above is the attic, which I can leave unexamined. And now for the dining-room."

"Yes. And twelve hours without your rambling poetry. Sorry," apologized the heir, "but I am really nervous, jittery, and all that sort of thing. Are you sure you cannot spend the night with me?"

"I could and I would like to, but if I did, the will would be broken and you would not receive a cent."

"But who would know?"

"We would, and honor to our law firm is the most priceless of our possessions."

HEY went down the broad stairway and through the parlor. There was only one door at the back of the room and that was closed. The lawyer opened the door and announced.

"This must be the dining-room." They turned their flashlights on the open doorway. And then the young man almost gasped.

"No dust!"

"Correct!" agreed the lawyer. "No dust. Spotlessly clean. I would suggest that we take off our rubbers. It would be a shame to spoil the spotless waxed floor. And now the mystery hangs over us as the dust hangs over the rest of the house. Do you see what I see? A mahogany table in the center of the room. Two empty candlesticks on the table. Two plates and two glasses. And three chairs. In one chair there is something that may have once been a woman. At least the remnants of a woman's clothes cover the dried skin and bones of one long dead. She must have been tied to the chair before—or after—she died. Don't move. Let us think about this first. Across the table are two chairs. One is empty. The other chair holds something long dead, and from the general appearance that was once a man. There is a cane on the floor, a gold-headed cane. See how the gold shines? As though it had been recently polished. Look at the oil paintings on the wall, and, the sideboard with its shining glass. The candlesticks are of silver and they glisten as I throw my light on them. Excuse me. This calls for another tablet of nitroglycerin. I would not have missed this for anything. I am glad I lived to see it. And now suppose we walk through the room and open the door on the other side.—The mystery deepens. There is