stretched out his arm to touch it. But at the instant of contact he
withdrew his hand with a suppressed scream. It was sluggish--and it was
warm! and he saw that his fingers were stained with living crimson.

A second more, and Shorthouse was out in the passage with his hand on
the door of the next room. It was locked. He plunged forward with all
his weight against it, and, the lock giving way, he fell headlong into a
room that was pitch dark and very cold. In a moment he was on his feet
again and trying to penetrate the blackness. Not a sound, not a
movement. Not even the sense of a presence. It was empty, miserably
empty!

Across the room he could trace the outline of a window with rain
streaming down the outside, and the blurred lights of the city beyond.
But the room was empty, appallingly empty; and so still. He stood there,
cold as ice, staring, shivering listening. Suddenly there was a step
behind him and a light flashed into the room, and when he turned quickly
with his arm up as if to ward off a terrific blow he found himself face
to face with the landlady. Instantly the reaction began to set in.

It was nearly three o'clock in the morning, and he was standing there
with bare feet and striped pyjamas in a small room, which in the
merciful light he perceived to be absolutely empty, carpetless, and
without a stick of furniture, or even a window-blind. There he stood
staring at the disagreeable landlady. And there she stood too, staring
and silent, in a black wrapper, her head almost bald, her face white as
chalk, shading a sputtering candle with one bony hand and peering over
it at him with her blinking green eyes. She looked positively hideous.

"Waal?" she drawled at length, "I heard yer right enough. Guess you