A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ELIXIR OF HATE 45 expected. Back with a dull clank it slid. And a moment later the door was swing- ing open toward him, on noiseless hinges. For a moment Dennison stood there listening, sniffing with wide nostrils the odor of the place beyond. Then he ad- vanced, forgetting in his eagerness even to address himself again. But he did not go far. Because just beyond the door his hand touched another obstacle. Quickly feeling this over, he perceived that it was the back of a cabinet, or of a piece of furni- ture of some kind. Down to his knees he droppec. Yes, now he could feel the turned legs of this thing. “What?” exclaimed he. “What the dickens does this mean—a cabinet block- ing a rock passage ? Ah! I can crawl in under it!” Snakelike he writhed and wriggled flat along the floor of rock. To his surprise this rock suddenly gave place to some smooth substance—tiling ! Then, a moment later, he was standing in a room which now by the sense of smell he clearly recognized. And in a hushed, awed voice he exclaimed to himself: “The old man’s laboratory, so help me heaven !”’ CHAPTER 12 A Letter and a Clue HE shock of this surprise robbed him, temporarily, of all power to move or speak or even think co- herently; but soon he pulled himself to- gether. “So then,” said he, ‘‘one branch of this mfernal maze connects here, does it? Masked, too, with a bolted door behind a cabinet, eh? Looks nice and honest, doesn’t it? Maybe—”’ He stopped short, struck by a horrid thought. To banish it he stretched out his hands and began feeling about him in the dark. Though he well knew where he was, yet for the first few minutes he could not get his bearings. Everybody knows the sensation of getting “turned around” in the night. The faint trickle of water from the sink should, it seemed to him, be coming from absolutely the other direction. Hence he had to move with great care, lest in his confusion he tip something over and thus raise the alarm. “If what I suspect is true,” thought he, thrilling with a kind of repugnance at thought of I! Vecchio, “it mightn’t be the healthiest thing in the world, just now, to be discovered here. The old man might not enjoy my having blundered first into that mortuary, down below, and then into the laboratory. Evidently he’s a bit set on keeping that a secret, the entrance from the lab into the caverns. Though—why ? Can’t tell, yet. Anyhow, the way that door is placed, looks so, and—” Crash! Dennison stopped short, catching his breath with fear. A bottle against which he had inadvertently struck his hand lay shattered on the tiling. With restrained breath he stood there listening intently a second. But from the study beyond came no sound. Even though he waited full two min- utes, he heard no alarming noise, nothing to indicate that this mishap had been de- tected. “Maybe the old man’s out with his rose- trees,” thought Dennison. “If so, the quicker I make a light and get out of here the better. It would be pleasant under the circumstances, now wouldn’t it, to have him just happen in on me, in this par- ticularly guestlike situation?” ' A light! That was what he needed most. What he must at all hazards find, and quickly. But how? “Ah! That switch—if I can find it!” he thought. A moment he stood taking his bearings. Then, creeping in. what seemed exactly the wrong direction, guided by the trickle of the sink, he cautiously proceeded to- ward the spot where he knew the door into the study must be. In three minutes he had reached it. His hand sought and found the regulator of the vacuum-apparatus. Click ! Instantly the room glowed with a soft and penetrant light, which, despite its moderation, seemed blinding to the Amer- ican after his long immersion in total ‘blackness. At first he could not stand it, but had COMICLOC|KS (C(O)