EYES OF THE SHADOW
Maxwell Grant
CHAPTER I. A VISITOR AT NIGHT
THE room seemed strangely silent when Bruce Duncan awoke. It was uncanny in this front room of the old house; he had noticed that before during the month he had lived there since his uncle's death. But the silence had never seemed so ominous as now.
One comfort to his disturbed mind was the beam of light that came through the transom of the door to the right of the bed. It fell upon the hearth of the old stone fireplace at the right wall of the room. Duncan turned his eyes momentarily in that direction; an instant later, he was staring at the window again.
For he had heard a strangely sibilant whistle - close and ominous - as though it came from among the bushes on the ground a full story below the window.
There was a rustle outside as if a slight breath of wind had stirred the thick ivy vines that covered the stone masonry of the house. Then a head and shoulders were silhouetted in the dimness of the open window. A grotesque form slipped over the sill.
The figure stole softly toward the bed. Duncan did not move. Somehow he seemed powerless to move.
He turned his eyes to follow the actions of the strange visitor from the night, and his gaze was transfixed as the being came into the light from the transom.
The figure was that of an apelike man - a weird, stoop-shouldered creature whose arms were long and whose fingers were bony claws. The face was wizened, and the eyes gleamed wickedly in the light.
The creature's head turned toward the bed. Instinctively, Bruce Duncan closed his eyes and lay as if asleep. He had no will to move a muscle; he could only wait and wonder in the midst of this real nightmare.
The side of the bed sagged slightly as though a form was pressing against it. The creature was stooping over him now. Duncan could feel a warm breath against his forehead. His heart thumped furiously in this moment of weird suspense, and he lay motionless as a waxwork figure, waiting for the clawlike fingers to close about his neck.
But the thing from the night made no closer approach. It was like a game of strategy. Duncan felt that if he made the slightest motion, death would follow. Only by feigning sleep could he escape.
WHAT was to be the next move? Duncan could only wait. Wait and watch.
The creature had moved onto the hearth of the fireplace. A bony hand appeared in the light. The claws crawled up the right side of the fireplace until they reached the top. The hand pressed upward on the metal border.
There was a sharp click. The creature turned quickly toward the bed, but Duncan's eyes closed instantly.
Again he lay motionless for fully fifteen seconds. Then he reopened his eyes and stared in fascination.
The gruesome creature was stooping now - stooping beside an opening in the hearth against the side of the fireplace. Its bony hands dipped into the cavity in the floor. They emerged carrying a small package and two envelopes.
The apish visitor again pressed the side of the fireplace, and Duncan saw the stone in the hearth close, completely concealing the hole. As his eyes remained on the spot, he suddenly realized that the creature was gone.
He glanced toward the window. A blotch appeared and immediately vanished downward. From outside came that same hissing whistle. The ivy vines rustled. Then all was silent; the quiet of the night returned.
Only half awake, Duncan climbed out of bed, and switched on the light.
A dream, likely, thought Duncan. Well, there was only one way to test it.
He walked to the fireplace.
He placed his hand against the metal rim and tried to move it. It seemed solid enough. He yanked at it and attempted to push it up and down. Suddenly it yielded as his hand was going upward. There was a sharp click from the floor - a click that he recalled.
He looked at the hearth. One of the stones had swung upward on a hinge, impelled by a concealed spring. There in the masonry was a neatly formed opening, beneath it a small cavity that gaped with emptiness.
CHAPTER II. WORD FROM THE DEAD
THERE was a knock at the door the next morning. Duncan opened the door and admitted Abdul, his Hindu servant. The man was carrying a breakfast tray.
'It was time for you to awake, sahib. I have brought breakfast.'
'Abdul,' asked Duncan, as he began his meal, 'did you hear any one outside last night?'
'No, sahib. At what time of the night?'
'I don't know. Didn't you hear a whistle?'
'No, sahib. What did sahib eat last night?'
'Nothing that would have kept me awake,' answered Duncan. 'I had an early dinner in the city, and I read for a while in the evening, after I came home. I did eat one of those peppermints in the dish over there on the table not long before I went to bed.'
The Hindu went to the table. He took a peppermint from the dish and tasted it.
'At what time did sahib go to bed?' he asked. 'You will recall, sahib, that I was not here.'
'That's right,' replied Duncan. 'You went out for the evening, after I came in, didn't you? I guess it was about midnight when I retired.'
'Sahib had dreams last night?'
Duncan hesitated a moment before replying.
'Unusual dreams,' he said. 'They were very vivid, as though they were real. They seemed like something was going to happen - as if I were waiting.'
'And time went very slowly?' questioned Abdul.
'Yes,' admitted Duncan. 'Why do you ask that, Abdul?'
'The peppermint,' said the Hindu, 'tastes to me different. It is like something that we have in India -
something from a bush that grows in the wild.'
'What is it?' questioned Duncan.
'It makes men sleep. It makes them dream. To them the minutes seem like the hours. To them the hours seem like the days. The things they see are strange.'
A SUDDEN thought came to Duncan. 'You mean hashish,' he said.
'That is it, sahib,' replied the Hindu.
'You think the peppermints contain hashish?'
'It seems to me like that, sahib.'
'Then I was drugged last night. Who did it? Why? Where did you get these peppermints, Abdul? Who brought them?'
'I shall answer you, sahib,' replied the Hindu. 'I shall tell you all. I was in the house all day. I came in this room often, as you have told me to do. At the door of the house I found the package that you had told the man to send. In it was the peppermints. So I brought them here.'
'Yes,' said Duncan, 'I've been having them send mints up every day or two. I've been chewing them at nights - makes the cigarettes taste better with a few mints in between. But how did these mints come to be in the package?'
Abdul shrugged his shoulders.
Duncan was thoughtful when the Hindu left the room. He trusted his Hindu servant - Abdul had been with him for five years - yet it was strange that the man should have so promptly diagnosed the cause of Duncan's peculiar sleep the night before. But why had Abdul mentioned the fact if he had had anything to do with it?
