I knew that I was in very great danger in that house; that the people about me had no scruples about murder. For this night at least it would be dog eat dog, then, and I too would kill if necessary.
My door was not locked. I opened it very, very slowly without a sound and stepped silently out into the big hall. The lights here had been lowered, only a globe here and there creating a sort of dim twilight in the place. It was quite deserted.
Down the length of the hall I crept, keeping close to the wall and treading as softly as I could. It was so quiet that I could hear the quickened thumping of my own heart.
My one hope was to reach the gardens, because they meant the outside world and escape, perhaps. I knew that there was practically no hope of getting out by the way I had entered, for I had no revolver with which to hold up the operators of the elevators and would almost certainly be discovered anyway. But in the back of my mind there was also the hope of being able to see Natalie or Margaret or both, if only for a moment, and hearten them with the news that release was on the way, or at least that we had found them.
The big doors into the banquet hall were closed and I did not dare attempt to open them, for fear of the noise they might make. On the other hand, it was to be supposed that most of the small doors opening off the hall were bedrooms like my own, and there was nothing to be gained by entering them, occupied as they probably were by the patrons of the place in drugged slumber.
The only other door I knew about was the door into the passage which led to the blue and gold anteroom and the elevator, two doors from my own bedroom, and that was no use to me.
Finally, I decided to circle the hall once at least, in search of a larger door, before I tried the smaller ones. For there must be some other way out of the hall, I thought.
It was a weird sensation, creeping along in the half light, avoiding the furniture and scanning the walls, while twenty or thirty life-sized and very life-like unclad nymphs and dryads gazed down upon me from the walls. In the dimness they seemed to sway a little and to follow me with their eyes, and I did not want to be seen by any one just then.
I found two doors, wider than the others, at last. One of them was locked. But to my delight the other gave under my hand. I opened it very softly and looked through—into total darkness.
At first I could hear no sound. And the place gave the impression of some size. I mean, I was not conscious of that sense of resistance that one meets in opening the door of a cupboard or clothes closet in the dark. But it might be steps either up or down. I would have given a good deal for Larry’s electric torch at that moment.