“Lord, yes, it was them folkses bedroom. In them days, people most always slep’ downstairs. I come awake suddenly, and the room was full of an icy chill. Not just coldness, but a damp chill—like undertakers’ iceboxes.”
Vernie shuddered and Tracy held her hand more firmly. Landon slipped his arm round Milly, and Eve and Norma glanced at each other.
Gifford Bruce replaced his sneering smile, which had somehow disappeared.
“It was winter, and plumb dark at four o’clock in the morning, but the room was full of an unearthly light,—a sort of frosty, white glow, like you see in a graveyard sometimes.
“And comin’ toward me was a tall, gaunt figure, with a shawl over its head, a white, misty shape, that had a sort of a halting step but was comin’ straight and sure toward that bed I was lyin’ on. I tried to scream, I tried to move, but I couldn’t,—I was paralyzed. On and on came the thing—halting at every step, but gettin’ nearer and nearer. As she—oh, I knew it was that woman——”
“I thought it was a man who was murdered,” put in Mr. Bruce, in his most sardonic tones.
“So it was, sir,” Stebbins spoke mildly, “but it was the murderess doin’ the ha’ntin’. I s’pose she can’t rest quiet in her grave for remorse and that. She came nearer and—and I saw her face—and——”
“Well?”
“And it was a skull! A grinning skull. And her long bony hand held a glass—a glass of poison—for me.”
“Er—did you take it?” This from Bruce.