“You’re kind of making sure, Mr. Wills,” said Gird, lighting a patent carbide lamp.
“That’s because I take this business seriously,” I replied, and Zoberg clapped his hands in approval.
“Now,” I went on, “off with your coats and vests, gentlemen.”
Gird and Zoberg complied, and stood up in their shirtsleeves. I searched and felt them both all over. Gird was a trifle bleak in manner, Zoberg gay and bright-faced. Neither had any concealed apparatus, I made sure. My next move was to set a chair against the parlor door, seal its legs to the floor, and instruct Gird to sit in it. He did so, and I produced a pair of handcuffs from my bag and shackled his left wrist to the arm of the chair.
“Capital!” cried Zoberg. “Do not be so sour, Mr. Gird. I would not trust handcuffs on Mr. Wills—he was once a magician and knows all the escape tricks.”
“Your turn’s coming, Doctor,” I assured him.
Against the opposite wall and facing Gird’s chair I set three more chairs, melting wax around their legs and stamping it. Then I dragged all other furniture far away, arranging it against the kitchen door. Finally I asked Susan to take the central chair of the three, seated Zoberg at her left hand and myself at her right. Beside me, on the floor, I set the carbide lamp.
“With your permission,” I said, and produced more manacles. First I fastened Susan’s left ankle to Zoberg’s right, then her left wrist to his right. Zoberg’s left wrist I chained to his chair, leaving him entirely helpless.
“What thick wrists you have!” I commented. “I never knew they were so sinewy.”
“You never chained them before,” he grinned.
With two more pairs of handcuffs I shackled my own left wrist and ankle to Susan on the right.
“Now we are ready,” I pronounced.
“You’ve treated us like bank robbers,” muttered Gird.
“No, no, do not blame Mr. Wills,” Zoberg defended me again. He looked anxiously at Susan. “Are you quite prepared, my dear?”
Her eyes met his for a long moment; then she closed them and nodded. I, bound to her, felt a relaxation of her entire body. After a moment she bowed her chin upon her breast.
“Let nobody talk,” warned Zoberg softly. “I think that this will be a successful venture. Wills, the light.”
With my free hand I turned it out.
All was intensely dark for a moment. Then, as my eyes adjusted themselves, the room seemed to lighten. I could see the deep gray rectangles of the windows, the snow at their bottoms, the blurred outline of the man in his chair across the floor from me, the form of Susan at my left hand. My ears, likewise sharpening, detected the girl’s gentle breathing, as if she slept. Once or twice her right hand twitched, shaking my own arm in its manacle. It was as though she sought to attract my attention.
Before and a little beyond her, something pale and cloudy was making itself visible. Even as I fixed my gaze upon it, I heard something that sounded like a gusty panting. It might have been a tired dog or other beast. The pallid mist was changing shape and substance, too, and growing darker. It shifted against the dim light from the windows, and I had a momentary impression of something erect but misshapen—misshapen in an animal way. Was that a head? And were those pointed ears, or part of a headdress? I told myself determinedly that this was a clever illusion, successful despite my precautions.
It moved, and I heard a rattle upon the planks. Claws, or perhaps hobnails. Did not Gird wear heavy boots? Yet he was surely sitting in his chair; I saw something shift position at that point. The grotesque form had come before me, crouching or creeping.
Despite my self-assurance that this was a trick, I could not govern the chill that swept over me. The thing had come to a halt close to me, was lifting itself as a hound that paws its master’s knees. I was aware of an odor, strange and disagreeable, like the wind from a great beast’s cage. Then the paws were upon my lap—indeed, they were not paws. I felt them grip my legs, with fingers and opposable thumbs. A sniffing muzzle thrust almost into my face, and upon its black snout a dim, wet gleam was manifest.
Then Gird, from his seat across the room, screamed hoarsely.
“That thing isn’t my daughter—”
In the time it took him to rip out those five words, the huddled monster at my knees whirled back and away from me, reared for a trice like a deformed giant, and leaped across the intervening space upon him. I saw that Gird had tried to rise, his chained wrist hampering him. Then his voice broke in the midst of what he was trying to say; he made a choking sound and the thing emitted a barking growl.
Tearing loose from its wax fastenings, the chair fell upon its side. There was a struggle and a clatter, and Gird squealed like a rabbit in a trap. The attacker fell away from him toward us.
It was all over before one might ask what it was about.
IV
“I Don’t Know What Killed Him.”
Just when I got up I do not remember, but I was on my feet as the grapplers separated. Without thinking of danger—and surely danger was there in the room—I might have rushed forward; but Susan Gird, lying limp in her chair, hampered me in our mutual shackles. Standing where I was, then, I pawed in my pocket for something I had not mentioned to her or to Zoberg; an electric torch.
It fitted itself into my hand, a compact little cylinder, and I whipped it out with my finger on the switch. A cone of white light spurted across the room, making a pool about and upon the motionless form of Gird. He lay crumpled on one side, his back toward us, and a smudge of black wetness was
