“Where was Lessman? Had he made his escape while I slept, leaving my door open? Had he forced Avis and the other poor creatures who were under his command to accompany him? The thought startled me. Grasping the cudgel more firmly, I took the lamp from its bracket and started on a tour of investigation. All of the doors opening into the hallway, with the exception of my own, were locked. The silence was tomblike, uncanny.
“At the end of the long corridor a pair of stairs wound upward. Mounting them, I found myself in a long passage similar to that which I had just quitted. One or two of the rooms near the end were open. There was nothing in them except old furniture, moth-eaten and dusty with age. The entire floor seemed deserted.
“Continuing onward, I came to a door which, though it seemed to be locked, seemed to give a little under the pressure of my knee. Setting my lamp upon the floor, I put my shoulder against it and gave a long, steady shove. Under this force it opened quite readily.
“My stockinged feet made no noise, while the ease with which I was able to force the door showed that the hinges had been recently oiled. Inside, a lamp was burning.
“I hesitated in the doorway. Then my startled gaze made out a second room, partitioned from the first by curtains, pushed partly back.
“Across my field of vision moved the gaunt figure of The Bodymaster. He was clad in the faded bathrobe in which I had first seen him, and he held a lamp in his hand. The light shone upon his thin, cruel face. He approached the side of the bed and stood gazing down upon its occupant.
“Something seemed to draw me closer. Upon the bed lay a corpse—a blond-haired giant—stripped to the waist. As Lessman, his evil gaze still upon the mammoth figure, held the lamp a trifle aloft, the dead man writhed and twisted as if in mortal agony!
“The Bodymaster stretched forth one thin hand. The man upon the bed stiffened—then sat bolt upright, his bloodshot eyes glaring!
“Involuntarily I took a step backward.
“As God is my judge, the eyes were those of a corpse—glassy, unseeing! And while I still looked, the body slipped backward, the curious writhing movements ceased, and that which lay upon the bed was only insensate clay.