“Just now—I saw something go into that room from the corridor!”
“Someone—is sleep-walking.” I grasped at the first rationality that presented itself.
After the light in the diet kitchen the long corridor seemed peculiarly dark and shadowy and the green light over the chart desk was miles away. It never occurred to me to call for help, and we sped along toward that dark end of the wing that we had good cause to fear.
But we stopped stock still as we came close enough to see the door of Room 18, and a cold shiver crept up from my back.
The door of Room 18 was standing wide open!
It had not been opened, so far as I knew, since the police had left that room. It had been shunned by all the nurses. Who had opened it? Who would dare open it?
Who was inside that dark place?
A long, shuddering sigh came from Maida beside me and I felt her cold hand grip my wrist. The contact nerved me and I did what, I afterward realized, was a very foolish thing.
I took a few steps forward, advanced to the very door of that grisly room, reached a shaking arm through the open doorway, groped for the electric-light button, found and pressed it.
The cold white dome on the ceiling flooded the room with light.