This choking smell which now rose to my nostrils had in it something vaguely familiar, yet something which at that place and that time I found myself unable to identify; but:
"We shall have to open the windows!" rapped Gatton.
Suiting the action to the word, he took out his handkerchief, and holding it to his nostrils went running along the corridor, his feet oddly enveloped in that mysterious mist. A moment later I heard the bang of a swiftly raised window, then another, and:
"Stand clear of the door!" called a muffled voice.
A moment later Gatton came racing back again, coughing and choking because of the fumes which arose from that supernatural fog carpeting the passages.
The chauffeur now appeared upon the path leading from the gate to the porch, but:
"Stay by the car!" ordered Gatton. "Don't move without instructions."
I scarcely noted his words. For I was watching the gray fog. In the dusk I could see it streaming out, that deathly mist, and creeping away across grass and flower-beds, right and left of the door.
"Give it a chance to clear," said Gatton; "I fancy one good whiff would finish any man!"
Even as he spoke the words the nature of this vapor suddenly occurred to me, and: