Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

A HOUSE ON THE GRAND CANAL. This door is the only entrance because this is a Sort of little suite. There is a drawing- room that opens out of the boudoir and both rooms are cut off from the main hall. They have no exit except through here, so you see, none of us can leave or play any jokes without your seeing us. If you need us, for Heaven’s sake call at once and as loudly as you can. We will be listening, and only if you give me your solemn prom- ise, cross your heart, that you will cry out the minute you see, feel or hear anything the least bit threatening, will I consent to your staying here at all.” “ Oh, you must promise to call us the sec- ond you see anything, even if it isn’t threat- ening,” added the duchesse. “If the ghost appears, even if he is a perfectly friendly old boy and you only drink a glass of wine with him—I am sure a ghost would enjoy a drink; probably been a long time since he had one, you know—why, I want to meet him. Imagine how piquant a flirta- tion one could have with a very wicked and very gorgeous Venetian, dead these two hundred years.” “You have everything now, [ think,” said Janet. “See, the windows on this side open on the garden, the front ones on to the canal, so if you leave them open you will hear the singing from the barges and the band playing in St. Mark’s Square, and it will be—” Suddenly her words slurred into one horrified click in her throat. “Oh, my God, listen!” Milly, her face haggard with terror, clutched Jim Talley’s arm. Coming up the corridor that led by the haunted room they could hear steps approaching them slowly, light and stealthy, steps that hit the wood floor with a slight tap as though the feet which advanced nearer to them were shod as a goat’s hoofs are shod. Then, as suddenly as the slight, terrible noise had startled, it stopped and Jim Tal- ley jumped to the door and threw it open. There was no one in the hall. ‘Tt has gone into one of those rooms,” said Jim, meaning to be reassuring, but for- getting, in the horror of finding the hall quite empty, that he was not using the pro- noun “he,” but the terrible. the unthink- able word “ it.” 717 ‘No, it has not gone into one of those rooms,” whispered Janet, her face so white that it seemed that all the blood in her body had drained into her red hair. “ Both of the rooms on this wing are in disrepair and never used. They are locked.” They stood huddled at the door, their faces drawn with the intense concentration of listening. No eery sound came to them now, only the reassuring lap of the water from the canal and the drearily hideous whistle of a steam launch on its way to the railroad station. The shriek of the whistle broke the spell, and with a simultaneous im- pulse they moved away from the door and the sight of that empty hall and withdrew as far from one another as the narrow con- fines of the room allowed. Each eyed his neighbor with distaste. They disliked each other. They had all been afraid and they had all showed it. The duchesse broke the uneasy silence, though her voice had a quaver in it and her face, usually a little weary, was as pathetic as the face of a frightened child. “T think you are in luck, Augustin,” she said. ‘“ Your ghost is out to-night,” and opening the little painted door she stepped through into the brightly lit boudoir adjoin- ing. The others followed her, still enveloped in oppressive quiet. Janet was the last, and as she turned to follow them, she gave her hand to De Loret, standing stock still in the center of the floor. “* Don’t stay in this room, I beg you,” she murmured, “ We have been fooling with a terrible power. I know, I know. I can feel it. There is something wrong with this room, something strong and wild and evil. And we have come in the wrong spirit. Please come away. I am afraid that some- thing terrible will happen if you stay.” He shook his head and kissed her hands in silent dissent; she lingered longer than was strictly essential, then passed softly into the little room where the others waited and closed the door behind her. iii. AUGUSTIN DE LoreT, alone in the larger room, smiled faintly, thinking that his silent CoOMmiclboooks (C@)