The Room Under the Stairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 849, 18 December 1929, Page 5

The Room Under the Stairs

The Baffling Story of a Man Who Read of His Own Murder.

By

Herman Landon

Copyright by G. Howard Watt. Serialised by Ledger Syndicate.

CHAPTER X.—Continued. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR Eleven o'clock had just struck when Dean, after a profitless day, reached Top O’ The Hill. Light clouds were scattered over the sky, at intervals obscuring the moon, and slowly moving shadows, vague and jagged of outline, covered the landscape. All the way from New York he had been pursued by an impression that had come to him several times in the past 45 hours. As he walked away from police headquarters after another interview with Lieutenant Shane, he had looked back a number of times to see if any one were following. While waiting outside the ferry gates, surrounded by a crowd of sub- ■ urbanites returning from the theatre, ! he had been dimly aware of some one's i covert scrutiny. The same tantalising feeling had been with him throughout the short journey, but not no time had he been able to trace the disturbing ] impression to its source. Now, as he stood on the porch and peered sharply into the shadows on all sides, he realised that he had been in a srate at high mental tension for two days and that perhaps he was giving undue 1 attention to trifles. After a final glance he entered the j house and went immediately to his bedroom, determined to give his mind ! a rest front arduous speculations. He turned on the light, undressed and picked up one of the books he usually read until he grew drowsy enough for sleep. The volume was of a kind that would ordinarily have exerted a soothing influence on his nerves, but tonight it had the opposite effect. Finally he laid it down, turned out the light, opened the window wide and j tried to compose himself for sleep. But sleep would not come. While he lay listening to the whispers of the wind and watching the slow movements of lights and shadows across the floor, his mind went back to the i happenings of the last two days, fl he | image of Larnont. hanging grimly to ; the fragile thread of life, flitted in and i out of his consciousness. He could ' see little Viola Gray, a vision of disturbing loveliness and sinister contradictions. The distracting and inscrutable figure of Littleby paraded across his mental vision, fingering the ribbon attached to his pince-nez while his long coat-tails fluttered in a breeze that seemed to have no definite origin. And there was Dr. Ballinger, unimaginative and addicted to facts, as a mail of science should be, whose very candour and straightforwardness seemed to place an additional obstacle in front of Dean's search. Even the little notary, plump and red-cheeked, joined the procession of shadowy figures. but he quickly vanished from view.

Gradually his mental pictures grew blurred, and there were intervals when his mind seemed a blank. Sheer weariness was relaxing his tension of body and mind. His head settled deeper into the pillow, and finally he slept Outside the trees nodded drowsily in the breeze, dappling the ground with undulating shadows. The clouds

| thickened, the night grew darker, the j landscape became as shapeless and i unreal as Dean’s dreams. The shadows lengthened till only a few scati tered patches showed among the trees. | Dean stirred on his bed; for a few ! moments the rhythm of his breathing ' was broken, then he turned over on his side and slepj again. 1 Among the trees outside a shadow came suddenly to life. Hither and ; thither, with furtive motions, it skipped lightly from trunk to trunk, now ; and then vanishing from sight in the darkness, then reappearing again a few yards nearer the house. By a ; zigzagging route it reached the open ; space in front, and then it dropped to the ground and crawled forward until lost among the shrubbery. Once more Dean moved uneasily on his bed. In the midst of chaotic dreams, a fugitive sound came to him, leaving a trail of uncanny silence behind it. For a while its echoes lingered, stirring a vague disturbance in his drowsy brain, then he became aware of another and different sound, so intangible that he could not tell whether it was real or whether it belonged in his jumbled dreams. Suddenly his eyelids fluttered open. He was, quite certain now that a board in the stairs had creaked under some one’s foot. In an instant fully awake, he lay on his back listening. There was a gray blur at the windows; the curtains fluttered lazily in the night breeze: the dusk was vibrant with a multitude of slight sounds. Now he gazed fixedly in the direction of the door. A feeling for which he could not account told him that some one was standing outside. He reached out a hand and took a pistol from the drawer of the table beside the bed. Then he lay flat on his back again, simulating the deep breathing of sound slumber. His right hand, clutching the weapon, hung over the side of the bed, partly shielded by the coverlet. A faint sound scarcely distinguishable from the creaks of ancient timbers, told him that a hand was turning the doorknob. Breathing steadily, but quiveringly alert, Dean continued to look in the direction of the door. Moments passed, and then a draught, accompanied by a slight squeaking of hinges, indicated that the door was being slowly opened. The curtains fluttered sportively as the two currents of air met. and then the abrupt ces-

sation of the draught signified that the door had been closed again. Dean waited, his fingers tightening round the pistol. The interruption of his night’s repose and the stealthy approach of the intruder seemed but a fitting interlude in the solemn mockery of the last two days. At first he could see nothing, but gradually a blurred shape disentangled itself from the darkness. For a while it remained at the door, then moved forward with the stealth of a jungle creature approaching its prey. Dean breathed as calmly and regularly as if immersed in sound sleep. Now the shadowy shape was at his bed; a pair of baneful eyes seemed to pierce the gloom. A hand prowled across the coverlet, reaching upward until it touched his face. The touch was repellent, but his only response was the slight stirring of a sleeper who is disturbed, hut not awakened, by the sudden interruption of his

dreams. A pause came, and now it required all his self-control to remain still. A white gleam from the intruder’s flashlight cut a narrow path through the darkness, causing a throbbing in the region of his eyes as it fell on his face. For a moment it was a torment to keep up the semblance of sleeping. The white beam moved downward, along the side of his face and down to his throat, then paused directly over the scar. A chuckle sounded hoarsely in the stillness. The man at the bed seemed to have recognised the scar. Dean had no time to ponder what it meant, for his astonishment was swallowed up in a sense of imminent danger. The white beam retreated, and he dared to open his eyes a narrow crack. A faint gleam, like a blade of steel, vibrated in the dusk. He felt the intruder’s breath on his face, and in an instant his clenched fist shot out. A startled yaup came, followed by

the sound of a body staggering backward. Dean flung aside the coverlet and sat upright, one hand aiming the pistol at a blurred shape, the other reaching toward the lamp on the table. “Steady, my friend,” he calmly advised. “I have you covered.” THE HIRED ASSASSIN. The intruder stood a few feet away, crouching as if in readiness for a spring. His hand clutched a long, slim knife, with blade pointing backward. There was an evil look in his face, with teeth bared in a snarl, but the steadily pointing pistol in Dean’s hand appeared to exert a sobering effect. “Drop it,” said Dean, indicating the knife. His voice trembled with scorn, for he had the average cleanminded man’s contempt for such a treacherous attempt on his life. A look of sullen submission came

- into the other's face. He made as if t about to obey, but in the next instant 3 he darted forward, swung the knife } r over Dean’s head and would have 3 landed a murderous thrust if his intended victim had not been on his l- guard. Dean dodged, clutched the fellow’s arm at the wrist, wrenched it until a snarl of pain broke from his lips, dislodged the knife and flung it , into a corner of the room. Then he i grabbed the man by the coat collar j and pitched him into a chair. - | “You will be sorry for that move.” j 5 i he said grimly, regarding the cower- ! t j ing figure in the chair with great diss j gust. He was a lean, undersized man, ; j equipped with the low cunning that j : makes up for a scrimped body, rather 3 foppishly dressed in a vivid brown i | suit. - | Ilis hat had fallen to the floor, i | showing his black thinning hair, pla s- : tered- smoothly against the skull. 3 I Dean studied his sleek, repulsive fat c

and concluded that the man was probably one of the professional thugs of the underworld who may be hired to do the bidding of those who lack either the nerve or the craftiness to carry out their own designs. (To be Continued Tomorrow.)