Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 3 (1929-03).djvu/45

As the wondrous voice ceased, a shout from Wilmer caused me to swing round. He had crossed to the piles of manuscripts and was turning them over with feverish eagerness.

"See here, you fellows! Here's something that's worth fifty times its weight in gold. Manuscript plays—originals—in Shakespeare's own handwriting—dozens of 'em! Look at the titles—Troilus and Cressida—The Winter's Tale—Love's Labour Lost—And what's this? Love's Labour Won? Evidently an unknown play. Here's Hamlet. As I've always suspected, it's been adapted from an older play—look at those interlinear additions. Timon of Athens—why, when you consider that, apart from his signatures, there is not a single line of his handwriting in existence, the contents of this room must be absolutely priceless!"

The door at the farther end of the room slowly opened. Framed in the aperture, like a portrait limned by a master hand, was a figure which, though now seen for the first time, seemed like that of a familiar friend. Impossible to mistake that pale, oval face, crowned by the finely arched forehead and lofty brow; those firm, humorous lips half concealed by the short auburn beard; those deep, all-seeing eyes. It was the shade of the man whose name will live as long as the English tongue is spoken.

With slow, easy steps the spirit came toward us, and we, as though impelled by some supreme, dominating will, retreated backward pace for pace. Reaching the table, he stretched forth his hand over the pile of writings with a tender, caressing movement. Then, with a graceful half-sweep of his arm—a gesture that could not have been acquired otherwise than on the stage—he pointed to the door by which we had entered.

I stood like a man dazed. My mind was a welter of conflicting desires. I longed to stay, to question the apparition, to examine those precious papers on the table, to handle the "silver-gilt bowl" and "sword" which might be the very articles mentioned in the poet's will. For a moment I fought the mysterious force that seemed to be compelling me to obey that unspoken command. Then, as I turned and groped blindly for the door, I heard in the distance a faint cock-crow heralding the coming dawn.

After that, my mind was blank. I have no recollection of passing through the dividing wall, and certainly none of the display of nervous hysteria to which my companions assert I gave way. My next clear memory is finding myself back in our bedroom, with the secret door shut fast and the cold light of the April dawn stealing through the leaded casement.

"Hullo, old man. Feeling better?" Wilmer bent over me as I lay and slapped me heartily on the shoulder. "You've had a nasty dose of ghost-shock!"

He had his coat off and his shirt sleeves rolled up. In his hand he held a long screw-driver, obtained from heaven alone knows where.

"I'm about to open that secret door," he went on in answer to my look of astonishment.

"You have only to press the eye—"

He shook his head. "I've tried that, but there's nothing doing. The door is screwed up."

"Screwed up? Impossible! It opened easily enough last night."

"Look for yourself. There—and there—and there."

As he spoke he indicated a row of screw-heads, counter-sunk flush with the woodwork. Encrusted with rust as they were, it seemed as though they had been there for years.

I watched him in silence as he set to work and, not without difficulty, extracted the screws. As the last one came away the door swung open of its own accord. A simultaneous gasp