Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 105, No. 5, October 10, 1936
- Автор: Вулрич Корнелл, Tinsley Theodore
- Год: 1936
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 105, No. 5, October 10, 1936». Краткое содержание книги:
Ellen flashed into the hall, running on soundless feet across the lighted space of the stair well, past the doors where the two had vanished. Once there, panic seized her. There was no place to hide. They might come out any moment. She caught the low, cautious murmur of their voices. Trembling; she stared around. There were closed doors on both sides of the hall. On impulse she tried the one directly opposite. It opened easily. She darted in, closing it all but the tiniest crack. There was the odor of leather, whisky and stale tobacco. A man’s room. Kessler’s or Paget’s.
Downstairs the living room door opened. Voices sounded clearly. It closed again. A man started upstairs. Ellen’s heart slowed, whipped to a furious pounding. She heard an aimless whistling as the quick, nervous steps mounted. Paget! And it would be just her luck to be in his room. Her fingers ached around the door’s edge. She couldn’t escape now. She would be directly in his line of vision. She struggled frantically for an explanation. Could she say she had become confused and entered the wrong room? Ridiculous!
Then the door opposite opened. A man stepped into the hall. Louis Tavelli. He swung round the banister, came face to face with Paget. He said, “Oh, I nearly ran you down, didn’t I?” and paused, a smile tugging his lips. “Figure I was lost?” he asked.
Paget’s smile was white in the shadows. “Kessler thought you might have run into difficulties. Rambling old place, you know.”
“Seems to be,” Tavelli agreed. He loomed large and black against the light from below. Muscles bulged beneath his well-tailored coat. There was a strong, aggressive set to his head, his out-thrust jaw.
“Come down and we’ll get the business over,” he suggested.
Paget said nothing. Ellen’s heart was a fluttering thing in her throat for what seemed an eternity of time, then Paget said, “Okay,” and ran down the stairs, Tavelli following. The living room door closed behind them.
Ellen gave a little sob and let her head fall forward on her clenched hands. Oh, what a fool she was! What an unutterable fool! It occurred to her that if, following Dilke’s advice, she ever did win free of this horrible house—
The door opposite opened. Dilke’s long, brown face appeared. Then, like a shadow, she emerged, padded down the hall, vanished.
Ellen gasped with relief, tugging at the door knob.
Behind her in the darkness something stirred! A dull, lifeless rustling sound, like a huge snake turning! There was an anguished moan! And straight or the heels of it Kato’s baying lifted threateningly over the wind.
Ellen stood so still she might have been part of the door. So still when her heart was literally tearing her slim body to pieces. She thought, “Someone — some thing — is here in the room with me! Something—”
The moaning sounded again. Died. Her hand fumbled the pocket of her tweed skirt, came out holding a pencil flash. She deliberately closed the door, extended her hand as far as she could to the right, and snapped the button.
The narrow beam of light sliced the darkness. For a moment Ellen could distinguish nothing, then she saw the corner of a dresser, a chair that had the look of being hastily pushed aside, the bed, smooth and unrumpled, pictures — a gun in the corner. Slowly, thoughtfully, the little light went over the room, picking out objects, classifying them. Everything all right. Just the ordinary furniture of an ordinary bedroom. Only it wasn’t an ordinary room. In it something had stirred like a great snake. Something that might have been human had moaned.
Silence beat against her ear drums. She could feel her body jerk with the furious pounding of her heart, as slowly, carefully the light circled, lifted, dropped, hesitated, stopped on a dark gleaming pool that had gathered on the smooth shining floor boards just outside a closed door.
“Oh!” Ellen inhaled softly. “Oh!” and flashed across the room, bending down to examine it. Her eyes lifted, studying the door. Her hand went out, touched the knob, fell, gathered up the folds of her skirt and lifted again. With the knob grasped firmly through the wool, she stopped again. Every instinct fought against the opening of that door. She longed desperately to run from the room, from the house, into the cold, wet night, along the soggy, wretched road, run, run, far beyond the sound of Irene’s laughter, the fumble of Kessler’s voice, the baying of that beastly dog.
She turned the knob. The door opened. She shot the light inside. A small storeroom, utilized as a closet. Suits hung in orderly rows. There was a handsome wardrobe trunk, an expensive Gladstone. High, mud-stained boots.
She leaned inside, shooting the light into the dusky cavern behind the clothes. Her eyes widened. A man sprawled there on hastily folded blankets. He wore a fine, white shift open at the throat, the button torn and dangling. His dark gray trousers and expensive oxfords were soggy with mud. His eyes were closed. His thin, lined face gray and ghastly. He had heavy black hair, matted and clogged with blood. There was blood on his hand where it had torn at the front of his shirt. Blood ran in a lazy trickle across the floor, to form that ugly stain outside. Yet the man was not dead.
As Ellen stared, speechless, he whispered and twitched.
“Tavelli!” he mumbled. “Louis Tavelli—”
The words died into incoherent muttering. He relaxed and lay still. For what seemed a long time, Ellen Conway studied him, then very quietly she stepped back, closed the door, crossed the room and went into the hall. It was deserted.
She took a quick look around and raced to her own room. Terror clutched at her heels, made a long tenuous shadow behind her. She had suddenly a frantic desire to gain the shelter and sanctuary of that pleasant fire-lighted room where she could at least pretend to be safe. The necessity of a few moments’ coherent thought urged her on. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly before her. Closed doors, like shut, yet seeing eyes, watched her frantic progress.
She reached it at last, grasped the knob, leaned weakly against the panels. Then, with a little gasp of complete dismay, she straightened. The door was locked! The key, of course, was missing. Her own skeleton key she had left inside the room. She was locked out. Left, alone and helpless, before whatever strange forces moved in the old dark house this night.
For a little time she stood there, mind whirling with conflicting thoughts, darting frantically toward some solution as to who had locked her door. As to why—
She nodded at last, her mind made up. She would simply walk downstairs, explain her predicament. Her narrowed eyes swept the hall. She had gone to the bathroom, left the door ajar, it had blown shut, the lock was set—
She shook her head impatiently. The bath connected with her own room. There was no Yale lock on the door. It wouldn’t do. There wasn’t any explanation except to say, “I was out poking around into what didn’t concern me. I was eavesdropping on conversations not intended for my ears. I was hiding in someone’s room. I found a wounded man in the closet—”
She shut her teeth hard to keep them from chattering. Where should she go? What should she do? If only there was some reasonably intelligent explanation she could give them as to how she happened to be out of her room. Doubtless they all knew that Dilke had locked her in. The very fact that she was out would have to be explained. She closed her eyes a moment, then Kato howled dolorously. She shuddered backward, hands instinctively pressed against her ears. There was something stark and primitive in the sound, a force of terror to guard the walled grounds of the old dark house. She tried to vision what sort of a brute he would be. Saw him with swinging head, dripping jowls, small, red-rimmed eyes, mighty shoulders. Why did he howl tonight? What was it moving through the rainy dark that kept Kato eternally sending up his ominous warning?