I looked into it and shuddered. Even Pickering himself could not restrain an expression of surprise and horror when he realised how cunningly planned was that death-trap. The first six stairs from the top seemed to hang upon hinges from the landing. Therefore with the weight of a person upon them they would fall forward and pitch the unfortunate victim backwards before he could grasp the handrail, causing him to fall into the pit below.
“Well,” remarked Pickering, amazed, as he pushed open the stairs and peered into the dark blackness below, “of all the devilish contrivances I’ve ever seen in my twenty-one years’ experience in London, this is one of the most simple and yet the most ingenious and most fatal?”
“No doubt there’s a secret way to render the stairs secure,” I remarked.
“No doubt, but as we don’t know it, Edwards, one of you had better go down and get something to lay over the stairs—a piece of board, a table—anything that’s long enough. We don’t want to be pitched down there ourselves.”
“No, sir,” remarked Edwards’ companion, whose name was Marvin. “I wouldn’t like to be, for one. But I daresay lots of ’em have gone down there at times.”
“Most probably,” snapped the inspector, dismissing the man at once to get the board.
“Bring up the jemmy as well,” he added, over the banisters. “We may want it.”
A few minutes later the two men brought up a long oak settle from the hall, and bridging the fatal gulf, held it in position, while we passed over, not, however, without difficulty, as the incline was so great. Then when we were over we held it while they also scrambled up.
To the left was a closed door—the room from which had come the sound of Eric’s voice on that fatal night. I recognised it in a moment, for it was pale green, picked out in a darker shade.
I opened it, and Pickering shone his lamp within. The blinds were up, but Edwards rushed and pulled them down. Then, on glancing round, I saw it was a pretty well-furnished room, another sitting-room, quite different from those below, as it was decorated in modern taste, with furniture covered with pale yellow silk and comfortable easy chairs, as though its owner were fond of luxury. The odour of stale cigars still hung in the curtains. Perhaps it was the vampire’s den, a place where he could at all events be safe from intrusion with those fatal stairs between him and the street.