Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/35

 Mrs. Dunnigan went out. "I did lock that goblet away."

"I don't believe you." She continued. "But why does the goblet bother you so much, Mrs. Whittington? Do you think it's strange that it's always full of liquid? I do."

"Keep still!"

"Perhaps Miss Coralie is putting it there," she said hastily. "Perhaps she wants you to drink—"

"Get out!" I cried, infuriated.

The woman shrugged, and turned to leave. But at the door she faced me again, with a sly smile. "Are you afraid, Mrs. Whittington?"

I was, suddenly. I think for the first time I really realized what I'd done. And it must have showed in my face. For Mrs. Dunnigan burst into satisfied, hysterical laughter.

WAS furious with myself for letting the woman bait me so successfully. It was not only stupid of me, it was dangerous. I couldn't afford to be rousing anyone's suspicions. In the future, I must be more careful.

I dressed, emptied the contents of the goblet down the lavatory drain, and this time locked it away myself in the court cabinet. Then, taking the key, went to drive Michael to the station. He had to go to St. Louis on business for two days.

"Mrs. Dunnigan is leaving," I said casually, as we drove along. I was a little nervous as I didn't know just how attached he might he to the housekeeper, or if he would resent my dismissing her.

Luckily, Michael was preoccupied and asked no questions. "Get somebody else," be suggested shortly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Evidently her going meant nothing to him.

At the station I gave him the key to the court cabinet, and asked him to put it on his key-chain with the others. This roused him. "What?" he laughed. "Are you a secret drinker? Are you locking temptation away?"

"Exactly!" I agreed demurely, lifting my face for his kiss.

So that was that. The cranberry goblet would stay where it was for awhile. There'd be no more Mrs. Dunnigan in the apartment, playing tricks. Just as there was no more Coralie.

I shivered suddenly, and for the first time since her death felt a vague depression.

T WASN'T until the next morning that I really began to know what fear could be like.

I remember lying there with my eyes still closed, feeling, even at the moment of awakening, a slight uneasiness. Sensing something wrong in the empty apartment, in the bedroom empty save for myself.

The uneasiness increased. And slowly the conviction grew upon me that I had only to turn my head open my eyes, to find it there on my bedside table. The cranberry goblet.

It was ages before I could nerve myself to turn my head, inch by cautious inch, on the pillow. Eons, surely, before my reluctant eyelids opened, and—

Yes, it was there ! Its contents lapping softly against the sides of the bowl, as if the glass had just been set down.

A sharp intake of breath, the startled leap of my heart. There was someone in the room! I felt the presence strongly, though I could see no one.

I drew myself up slowly until my back was resting against the headboard