"It's all right, sir," came, all but inaudibly. "The—things are all around the edge of the light patch; they make a sort of rustling noise. It is a tremendous, conscious effort to keep them at bay. While I was speaking, I somehow lost my grip of the situation. One—crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."
"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"
"Yes—yes—" faintly.
"Pray, my boy—pray for strength, and it will come to you! You must hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes—do you understand?"
"Yes! yes!—Merciful God!—if you can help me, do it, sir, or—"
"Hold out, boy! In ten minutes you'll have won."
Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the waiting car, shouting an address to the man.
Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened and a dusky face appeared in the opening.
The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his arms to detain him.
"Not at home, effendim—"