“It may have been,” Morgan said dubiously, “but there’s no getting away from the fact that it was a queer noise for the wind to make. I made sure I looked everywhere.”
“I’ll go upstairs and get my revolver,” Sir George observed. “It may come in handy. Will you remain here?”
They looked at one another furtively, and each thought they saw fear in the other’s eyes.
Both, however, had reputations to sustain.
“I’ll wait down here, Sir George,” Morgan said, “and keep an eye on the cupboard. You’ll call if you want me.”
“I will,” Sir George replied. “I shan’t be gone more than a minute. Be on your guard. It’s just about this time the alleged disturbances begin.”
He hurried off, and Morgan watched his long legs cross the hall and hastily ascend the main staircase. The hall occupied a large space in the centre of the house, and overlooking it was a gallery connecting the east and west wings.
Sir George’s room—that is to say, the room he was reserving for himself on this occasion—was in the east wing, the first to be reached from the gallery, and Morgan could almost see it from where he stood in the hall. His gaze was still fixed on Sir George’s retreating figure when a noise from behind him made him turn hurriedly round, and he distinctly saw the cupboard door open a few inches. Moving towards the cupboard, he then saw, as the door opened wider, a huge indefinable something emerge from it. Morgan admits that the most sublime terror seized him, and that he shrank back convulsively against the wall, totally unable to do anything but stare. The shape came towards him with a slow, shambling gait, and Morgan was at length able to compare it with an enormous fungus. It had arms and legs truly, but they were disproportionately long and crooked, and hardly seemed to belong to the body.
There was no apparent head. The whole thing was vague and misty, but suggestive of the greatest foulness and antagonism. Morgan’s horror was so great as it passed him that he believes his heart practically stopped beating, and so tightly had he clenched his hands that the print of his finger nails remained on his palms for days afterwards. It left him in time, however, and he watched it shuffle its unwholesome way across the hall and surreptitiously begin to ascend the staircase.