“Rattlesnakes,” reflected the Colonel, eyeing the poster. “It’s wonderful what they do in the way of films nowadays. Of course, they’ve taken out the poison glands.”
He stood for a short time studying the poster, which was extremely realistic, and then decided to enter. He went up to the ticket-office, which stood on the pavement, and paid the entrance fee. It was obvious that the establishment was not of the first order. A couple of rickety wine-shops flanked it one on either side, and the ticket-office was apparently an old sentry-box with a hole cut in the back.
Wedge took his ticket and glanced up the street. It was a day of brilliant sunshine. At the far end of the narrow road there was a glimpse of the white domes of the Sacré Cœur, standing on its rising ground and looking like an Oriental palace. Only a few people were about, and the wine-shops were empty.
A shaft of sunlight fell on the poster of the man fighting with rattlesnakes, and the Colonel looked at it again. It attracted him in some mysterious way, probably because physical problems interested him.
“Seems to be in a kind of pit,” he thought. “Otherwise he could run for it. It is certainly life-like.”
He turned away, ticket in hand. A man standing before a faded plush curtain beckoned to him, and Wedge passed from the bright light of day into the darkness behind the curtain.
He could see nothing. Someone took his arm and led him forward. The Colonel blinked, but the darkness was complete. Somewhere on his left he could hear the familiar clicking of a cinematograph.
The hand on his arm piloted him gently along, and he had the impression of walking in a curve. But it seemed an intolerably long curve. Since he could not speak French, he was unable to ask how much farther he had to go. He felt vaguely that people were round him, close to him, and naturally concluded he was passing down the room where the performance was being held.
But where was the screen?
He could not see a ray of light. Heavy, impenetrable darkness was before him, and seemed to press on his eyelids like a cloth. Suddenly the hand on his arm was lifted. Wedge stopped, blinking.