He searched for the wide staircase to the second floor. His orientation had changed, he turned left instead of right, or right instead of left. In lieu of the grand flight he came upon a mean descent, twisting every few steps. The boards creaked and quivered under his weight.
His room was that of the first door he opened. His handbag rested on the foot of the bed, the wax figures of the bride and groom stood stiffly in the cloudy glass bell. Lampley tarried before the mirror, adjusting his sleeves, assuring himself there was neither lint nor soil on his jacket. He picked up his bag and gave a conventional last glance around, though he knew he had brought nothing more into the room.
He shut the door and tried the handle; it did not turn. Yet surely it had been closed before he went in to retrieve his bag? All the doors on the hall were shut, shut and locked and untenanted, their invitation withdrawn. He reached the narrow stairs. From these there was no landing halfway down, nor did they lead to the lobby. They ended at a solid door with a handle instead of a knob. He pressed the latch down doubtfully, anxious to be out of this blind end, unwilling to go back up and start down again.
The refrigerator room which had been so cold was now warm and stuffy. There was no igloo. The game and fish were gone, the brine barrels were tipped over, gaping unconcernedly. They gave out no smell save that of old wood. The sawdust had weathered. Most of the meat hooks were empty; from a few hung the bare skeletons of beeves and sheep and swine, the surface of their bones dry, cracked with long, thin crevices, crossed with fine hairlines. He recognized the buffalo because of the peculiar shape of the skull and horns lying on the floor below the carcass.
He pushed open the massive door to the kitchen. The old man was carving a set of chessmen out of bone; several finished pieces, rooks, knights and a queen stood in a row before him. In his thick fingers the other queen was taking recognizable shape. All had the same distortion as the plaster figures in the wall. He looked up at Lampley without interrupting his work. "A hard time, hay?"
The Governor nodded. The old man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Lampley followed its direction into the eating room. The idiot was trying to spoon soup into his mouth, spilling most of it, sputtering the rest into slimy bubbles. The clerk, his eyes closed, had one leg hooked over the corner of the table. The woman smiled at him, showing the gold tooth. There was no sign of the girl. Lampley sat down in the old man's place.
The clerk's eyes opened; the mask was gone. He pushed a hard crust of bread across the table. Lampley picked it up and turned it over in his fingers. "I'm going," he announced to them.
The clerk yawned. "I'd be afraid myself," he confessed.
"Afraid of what?" asked the Governor.