Fantastic as the happenings recorded in this book may at times seem, they are, nevertheless, a fairly exact recording of the feats of magic already accomplished by the electrical wizards of our time.
Roy J. Snell.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE [I Three Black Boxes] 11 [II Something Rather Terrible] 28 [III The Battle] 39 [IV Back in the Old Shack] 48 [V Past and Present] 57 [VI A Store in Chicago] 62 [VII The Unholy Five] 73 [VIII Down a Beam of Light] 78 [IX Cut Adrift] 85 [X A Runaway Captured] 92 [XI A Room of Strange Magic] 103 [XII The Whisperer Returns] 109 [XIII So Long as God Gives Us Breath] 124 [XIV A Human Spider] 134 [XV A Living Picture] 145 [XVI A Strange Treasure] 155 [XVII “The Eye”] 164 [XVIII The Trap Is Sprung] 171 [XIX A Whisper from Afar] 183 [XX The Sky Slider] 193 [XXI Christmas Eve] 204 [XXII The Warning] 214 [XXIII A Promise That Is a Threat] 221 [XXIV A Strange Victory] 231 [XXV The Whisperer Talks] 240
WHISPERS AT DAWN
or The Eye
CHAPTER I
THREE BLACK BOXES
As Johnny Thompson put out a hand to ring the door bell of that brownstone house facing the deserted grounds of the Chicago Century of Progress and the lake, the door opened without a sound. He looked up, expecting to see a face, hear a voice, perhaps. The voice came: “Step inside, please.” But there was no face. The space before him was empty.
A little puzzled, he stepped into the narrow passageway. Instantly in a slow, silent manner that seemed ominous, the door closed behind him.
The place was all but dark. Certainly there was no lamp; only a curious blue illumination everywhere. A little frightened, he put out a hand to grip the door knob. It did not give to his touch. Indeed it was immovable as the branch of an oak.
“Locked!” he muttered. Then for a space of seconds his heart went wild. From the wall to the right of him had flashed a pencil of white light. Like an accusing finger it fell upon something on the opposite wall. And that something was an eye, an eye in the wall,—or so it seemed to the boy. And even as he stared, with lips parted, breath coming short and quick, the thing appeared to wink.