And the tapping came again, insanely gleeful, diabolically reflective. The man in the chair was beyond reach. No more harm could come to him. And he could toy with the living man as a cat toys with a mouse.
Numb with unreasoning terror of the thing that was dead, and yet moved, that was not two yards away and yet was removed by all the gulf between the living and the dead, the murderer pressed the flashlight button again. He clenched his teeth as he seemed to sense the stoppage of a stealthy movement by the thing in the chair. His cigarette-case was gone, missing from the table.
The flashlight beam swept about the room in a last flare of common sense. It was empty. No one, nothing.... Nothing in the house except the dead man, to seize that one small article which would damn the murderer.
He remembered suddenly and switched off the light. There were neighbors. Not near neighbors, but people who would notice the glow of a flashlight if it met their eyes. They knew the old man for what he was, and probably whispered among themselves of buried treasure or hidden money. They would suspect a robber of like mind if they saw the flashlight going.
They might have noticed it then! He had to get the cigarette-case and go away quickly....
Forcing his brain to function while he was stiff with a terror that he could not down, he masked the bulb with his fingers and let a little ray trickle over the table. The old, claw-like hand. It seemed to be nearer the telephone than it had been. The cloth table-top. No monogrammed case. It had been there. He had seen it not two minutes since. But it had vanished utterly.
The living man could have screamed with rage. He seemed to feel the thing in the chair shaking with silent laughter. The chair was shaking! God! It was shaking!
The murderer fled to the doorway upon caving knees, his whole soul writhing in panic. And then he heard the reassuring purring of his motor-car, waiting to carry him away. Outside was sanity. Only within was nightmarish horror. He could not go away and leave that case to hang him....
He was grinding his teeth as he came back. He was doggedly desperate in his resolution. He got down on his hands and knees and let a little trickle of light slip between his fingers. Instinctively he kept out of reach of the dead fingers. Not yet had he come to think of danger there. The thing in the chair enraged him while it terrified him, because it mocked him. But he would get this one thing and go....