“You’re in a dead man’s bed! You don’t know what killed him! You——”
“Oh, shut up!” he growled aloud, bouncing over on the other side. “What’s that to me? I’m going to sleep!”
For a few minutes he stubbornly held his position. But he was lying now with his back to the open door into the main room, and the creepy feeling at his shoulder-blades became intolerable. He turned again. But this time he made the movement deliberately, and at the repeated crackle of the mattress he grinned. After blinking at the dark a minute he relaxed, warm once more at the back, his eyes closing naturally.
Rapidly his fatigue asserted itself. With the muffled lullaby of the crickets swinging rhythmically on, he lost himself.
Hours passed. He slept peacefully on, changing his position a little at intervals, unconscious of his movements or of anything else. Then, all at once, he found himself up on an elbow, staring wide-eyed into the dark.
Something had moved. It seemed that the bed itself was quivering slightly. Yet there was no sound near him—no new sound anywhere——
What was that? There was a sound now—but not in the room. It was up overhead—up in the empty attic; a sound of muffled footfalls, deliberately crossing the floor; a sound like that of bare heels going quietly across the boards. It traveled to and fro, as if an undressed man were wandering aimlessly. Then it began to come down-stairs.
A bump, and it stopped. Another bump; another pause. Then two soft bumps telling of a couple more stairs descended. It was the sound of a man stealing quietly down, halting to listen for any noise below; a man not deft enough to put his weight on his toes and avoid the bump of heels. Yet the stairs did not creak as they would under the weight of a man.
Very quietly, Douglas moved over and found a match. With the same stealth he opened the gas-valve of his lamp. While he waited for the acetylene flow he heard the heels reach the lowest step. He listened for the stealthy turning of the knob and the creak of door-hinges. They did not come.
Cracking the match on his thumb-nail, he lit the gas and shot its ray outward. Nothing met his gaze—nothing but the table against the outer door. Softly he lowered his feet, gripped his gun, and arose. Reason told him no man could be in that attic; but his ears positively asserted that a man had come down those stairs.