“Wagner?” cried a sharp voice from within.
Wagner opened the door a trifle, thrust in his shaggy red head, and seemed to croak hoarsely.
“All right! All right!” the voice snapped immediately, and Wagner stood back and motioned Doctor Dreeme toward the patch of yellow light that poured through the half-opened door.
III
It was a small room into which Dreeme ventured and one in which the walls seemed to push forward, an aspect intensified, perhaps, by the tall lurching cases of books which surrounded the square table at which Jeffrey Westcott sat. There were books everywhere, in the cases, scattered over the table, and piled in slumping heaps on the floor. The greater portion of them were huge tomes, bound in old buckrams, in worm-eaten moroccos, or in yellow vellum. The dull gold lettering, subdued in the glow of Westcott’s kerosene-lamp, seemed like the sleepy half-shut eyes of somnolent beasts waiting patiently for the word of the master who should bring them to life. But there was no word now. They rested, these mysterious beasts of ancient knowledge, holding their secrets close to their muted hearts. Dreeme paused just inside the door staring about him in amazement.
An impatient exclamation roused him to his professional duties and he turned toward Jeffrey Westcott, observing him closely for the first time.
“Good evening or good morning,” remarked the man seated by the table. “I have lost count of the hours, doctor.”
Westcott was a heavily-built man, smooth-faced, and with a shaven head. This round skull, blue with an incipient growth of dark hair, reminded Dreeme irresistibly of the tonsured cranium of some medieval friar. It was curiously ridged in the center, as though the two sides of the skull had been pressed together while molten and so joined, leaving a cloven line where the bone had bulged upward on either side. The ears were long and rose thin and prominent on either side of this curious head. The broad brow slanted back at an obvious angle and the chin, blue also with incipient hair, thrust forward aggressively, the ensemble giving the impression of semi-malignant imperiousness. Westcott’s nose was broken and this accident accentuated the curious profile which he presented when he turned his head, a profile almost apelike but redeemed by a certain vitality of knowledge. His eyes, large, coal-black and motionless, glittered dully, but it was not the dull glitter of stupidity. Rather was it a repressed but unceasing watchfulness that was somehow mocking in its semblance of indifference. Dreeme was reminded of the eyes of a cat when it permits a bird to flutter within a few feet of its curved claws.
“It is a very fine library, I assure you,” continued the farmer with a casual flutter of one sunburned hand toward the lurching cases. Dreeme sensed a purring irony in the man’s voice. “I should like to show it to you but just now I am somewhat inconvenienced by this cursed bullet wound.”
Dreeme with a muttered apology, hurried forward fumbling at the catch to his black bag.
“It is not often—at least in this part of the world—that one sees so many books,” he said. “You must excuse me.”
His amazement was frank and he made no attempt to conceal it.
“You are freely pardoned,” replied the ironic voice.
The doctor knelt and began to remove the bloodstained bandage that swathed the plump calf of the farmer.
“How did this happen?” he inquired as the wrapping slipped away and he saw the black bullet-hole surrounded by a crusted clot of blood.
“Experiment,” returned Westcott shortly.
“Experiment?” echoed Dreeme questioningly, glancing up into the still black eyes. Westcott reached deliberately for a cigar, drawing one from the large box that stood on the table at his elbow. He said nothing but stared blandly at the doctor as he lighted the long dark weed. Dreeme, flushed and feeling foolish, turned back to his labor. He decided that Westcott was an offensive brute.
“I want a pan of hot water,” he said, after inspecting the wound. “I shall have to probe for the bullet. It may pain you a bit.”
He felt a moment’s elation at the idea of giving Westcott pain.
The farmer turned his head and shouted toward the door.
“Wagner!” he cried. “Wagner!”
In the short pause that ensued, Dreeme, still kneeling before the stocky Westcott, studied the worn backs of the books in the case opposite him. They seemed to emanate an atmosphere that was ominous. There was something dark and forbidding about them, an intangible suggestion of an evil culture. The crowding walls advanced stealthily, bringing an aura of suffocation with them.
The farmer cursed softly and pleasantly to himself.
“My dear doctor,” he began, “I am afraid you will have to. …”
“What is it, Jeff?” inquired a feminine voice, low and husky, behind them.
Both men turned at this unexpected sound. Westcott was plainly put out and for a moment his large eyes glittered angrily. Dreeme gazed upward at the woman who had
