The Devil Doctor
or Smith had selected the study as a suitable base of operations. We reached it without mishap, and presently I found mys
ew hours since, his body had been removed. This was such a vigil as I had endured once before, wh
e dreadfully than the rest. It was the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece; and I thought how this sound must have been familiar to Abel Slattin, how it must ha
enter the room and occupy it. There was a little China Buddha upon a bureau in one corner, with a gilded cap upon its head, and
ve no sign, and I knew that my imagination was magnifying these ordinary night sounds out of all proportion to their actual significance. L
them. Smith, like a man of stone, showed no sign. He was capable of so subduing his constitutionally high-strung temperament, at times, that temporarily he became immune from human dreads. On such oc
ily in my breast, I began to count the tickings; one, two, three, fou
nger I noted the tick-tick of the clock, nor the vague creakings, rustlings and whispers. I saw Smith, shadowly,
r squeaking, oddly familiar, yet elusive. Upon it followed a very soft and muffled thud; then a metallic sound as
ap, evidently set in the floor of a loft-like place extending over the entire building. Somewh
any proper decision, another sound,
he stairhead-slowly, cautiously, and all but silently. Yet to my ears,
de of the opened door-behind it, in fact, where I should
rossed the floor
told myself) spoke to my newly awakened, acute perceptions, of the visitor preparing to lower himself to the landing. Followe
the roof of the house by some means, had broken through the skyligh
his hour mentally reconstruct, I waited for the creaking
, subdued breathing; but my eyes were all for the darkened hall-way, for the smudgy outline of
d as those which I had acquired the power of detecting-that I saw
of sight, invisible to Smith on the other side
dark patch vanished-and rea
n to my companion-and I knew that it was impossible fo
y-vanished and reappeared on a level with my eyes. Then a vague shape became visible; no more than a
antelpiece boomed
te (I blush to relate it
rustrated our hopes; that it did not do so was in no measure due to me
t. With a panther-like leap he
ied, "the lights! The switc
nerves, and, bounding past Smith, and past the foot of the stair, I reac
from behind me-an inhuman cry, less a cry
an almost naked man-a man whose brown body glistened unctuously, whose shaven head was apish low, whose bloodshot eyes were the eyes of a mad dog! His teeth, upper and lower, we
e of a feather, he stood like some figure of archaic statuary, nor for an
f the dacoit-for in this glistening brown man I recognized one of th
land Smith, glassy-eyed, and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood there, a realization of L
head trickling down into his eyes, he pointed to the stick which I ha
e gasped hoarsely ... "the r
iety for my friend,
ch Slattin's favourite cane at that moment r
we had disturbed nothing in that stricken house; the
hand. Surely there could n
ed on the flo
he whispered, almost inaudibly, "but
ble began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the ra
if it had been a leprous thing
l God!"
ld-which I had taken from the dacoit-which he had come to substitute for
it was an accurate co
is awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise, no power on earth could have save