At last he stepped down on the floor of the hall. An infinitesimal glimmer of the light from the stairway window still reached there — enough to take him to the library door without the use of his torch. Very gently he turned the handle; and as he did so he heard the scratching again.
In a flash he had whipped round and shot the pencil beam of his torch towards it. Even as he did so, he realized that his nerves had got the better of him, but the impulse was too strong for reason. And as he turned, his right hand leapt to the automatic at his hip with a grim feeling that if by any chance the scratching had a human origin it would relieve him considerably to discover it.
The dimmed beam gave too feeble a light to show him any details. He saw nothing but a black shadow which filled one far corner, and a pair of eyes that caught the light and held it in two steady yellowish reflections as large as walnuts; and one of the happiest moments of his life began when he had got through the library door and shut it behind him.
Breathing a trifle deeply, he fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lighted it, keeping his flashlight switched on. If complete disaster had been the price, he couldn't have denied his nerves that time-honoured consolation. Whatever the black shadow with the yellow eyes might be, he felt that his system could stand a snifter of tobacco and an interval of thoughtful repose before looking at it again. Meanwhile he was on the sanctuary side of the library door, and he was stubbornly resolved to make the most of it. His torch showed him that the curtains were drawn, and with a reckless movement of his hand he switched on the lights and turned to a survey of the room.
Only the immutable law of averages can account for what followed. If a man looks for things often enough, it is reasonable to assume that at some time or other he must stumble on the right hiding place at the first attempt; and the Saint had searched for things often enough in his life, even if on that occasion he didn't know what he was looking for.
The toe of one bare foot was kicking meditatively at the edge of the carpet. The corner rolled over. His thoughts ran, more or less: "Nothing important would be left out for any inquisitive servant to get hold of. There isn't a safe. It might be a dummy bookcase, like I've got. But excavations are also possible…"
Somehow he found himself looking down at a trapdoor cut in the oak planking of the floor.
It lifted easily. Underneath was a hinged stone slab with an iron ringbolt, smooth and unrusted. Without hesitation he took hold of it and lifted. It required all his strength to raise the slab, but he managed it.
He looked down into black darkness; but from the bottom of the darkness came a faint sound of shuffling movement. With a creepy tingle working across his scalp, he picked up his torch again and sent the beam down the shaft.
Ten feet below him, a face looked up with dull staring eyes that blinked painfully even in the faint ray of his flashlight. There was something hideously familiar about it, as if it were the blanched wreck of a face which he ought to know. And in another second his blood ran cold as he realized that it was the face of Ivar Nordsten.
VII
The face was not quite the same. The nose was less dominant, the complexion had a yellow tinge which the financier's did not have, the eyes lacked the faded brightness which Nordsten's possessed; but it was recognizable. It had given the Saint such a shock that he found it difficult to speak naturally.
"Hullo, sunshine," he said at length. "And who are you?"
The man's mouth worked hungrily, like an animal's.
"All right," he said, in a curiously stiff hoarse whisper, as if he had half forgotten how to use his voice. "I'm used to it now. You can't make me suffer any more."
"Who are you?" Simon repeated.
"I'm you," said the man huskily. "I know now. I've thought it all out. I'm you — Nordsten!"
The Saint's nerves were steady enough now. Somehow, that last shock had been a homoeopathic dose, wiping out everything else; he was left with the dizzy certainty that the trail had turned into a stranger course than anything he had dreamed of, and with a grim curiosity to find out where it led.
"I'm here to help you, you fathead," he said. "Tell uncle what it's all about."
The man below him laughed, a horrible quivering dry cackle which sent an uncanny chill down the Saint's spine, as if a spider had crawled there, in spite of the recovered steadiness of his nerves.
"Help me! Ha-ha! That's funny. Help me like you've been helping me for two years. Help me to keep alive so that I can die at the right time! I know. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Then the wild voice fell to a whisper. "Help," it breathed, with a fearful intensity. "How long? How long?"
"Listen," said the Saint urgently. "I—"
An then, as if his command had turned back on himself, he broke off and listened. He could hear the scratching again. It was outside the library door — on the door itself… There was a faint thud; and then an instant's electric silence, while he strained his ears for he knew not what… And then, shattering the stillness of the house, came a frightful coughing scream that rang up and down the scale in an eldritch howl of vocal savagery that stopped the breath in his throat.
Looking down stupidly through the trapdoor, Simon saw the parchment face of the man who looked like Nordsten turn whiter. The dull eyes dilated, and the stiff unnatural voice rose in a sobbing cry.
"No, no, no, no," it shrieked. "Not now! Not now! I didn't mean it. I'm not ready yet! I'm not—"
The hairs prickled on the nape of Simon's neck; and then, with an effort that hardened his eyes to mere slits of arctic blue, he got up from his knees and lifted the heavy stone trapdoor again.
"I'll see you later," he said shortly and lowered the trap much quicker than he had raised it.
In another second he had fitted the square of dummy parquet over it, and he was rolling out the carpet again to cover up the traces of his inspection. Whatever else his curiosity might demand to know, there was the screeching shadow with the yellow eyes to be accounted for first — everyone in the house must have been awakened by that unearthly yell, and he would achieve nothing by being discovered where he was. Whatever it might be, the Thing in the hall had to be dealt with first, and he preferred to take it on the run rather than let his nerves get the better of him again. With his automatic in his hand, he went back to the door and switched out the lights. No one would ever know what it cost him to turn the handle of the door with that screaming horror waiting for him on the other side, but he did it; and his nerves were like ice as he drew the door sharply back and waited for whatever his fate might be.
Something soft and yet heavy hissed past him and landed on the parquet beside the central rug with the same scratching noise as he had heard before, and once again his nostrils twitched to the queer musty odour which they had detected on the stairs. In the pitch darkness he heard the claws of the beast scrabbling for a turning hold on the polished oak, and kicked out instinctively with his bare foot. His toes bedded into something furry and muscular, and for the second time that fiendish worrying yell wailed through the blackness.
Simon whipped up his gun; but something like a hot iron ripped down his forearm before he could fire, and the automatic was brushed effortlessly out of his hand. He felt hot fetid breath on his face and smashed his fist into something soft and damp; and then he went down under the clawing spitting weight of the brute with its shrill snarl of fury ringing in his ears.