Thump! thump! Perfectly clear and audible the sounds came from the centre of the room, bringing him back to the present, and he felt the back of his scalp begin to tingle. Of course, it was a trick; and yet he didn't somehow associate the Professor with a vulgar fraud. He had struck him as a well-meaning, conscientious man, who was badly in need of exercise and an outdoor life. Probably dyspeptic.
And if so—if it wasn't a trick—what was it that was now dragging itself about?
"Like a sack of potatoes." Iris Sala's words came back to him as he sat there motionless.
Suddenly he heard the Professor's voice, trembling a little with excitement:
"Who are you! Speak!"
The noise ceased at once; only a long-drawn shuddering sigh came out of the darkness. Then after a minute or two the uncanny dragging noise commenced again: bump—slither—bump. He tried to locate it, but it seemed everywhere. At one moment it was close by, at another it sounded as if it was at the other side of the room.
It was devilish, it was horrible. He put a hand to his forehead; it was wet with sweat. He felt an insane desire to get up from his chair and rush from the room: the only trouble was that he had forgotten the exact location of the door. Besides, he might bump into the Thing on the way.
A frightened cry rang out, and Billy Merton half-rose in his chair. It was a woman's cry: probably the Thing had touched her. The bumping had ceased, he noticed: another noise had taken its place—a slight gurgling sound, accompanied by a quick beating on the floor, as if someone was drumming with their feet on the carpet. And after a while that ceased also. Silence, absolute and complete, reigned in the room for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. The Thing had gone.
At length the Professor spoke.
"Are you still there?" There was no sound in answer. "Manifest yourself now if you are; otherwise the light will be turned up."