Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/54

And did ye tell him, then?" she concluded in a husky whisper laden with mystery.

"Rooms," said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, "are furnished for to rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool."

"'Tis right ye are, ma'am; 'tis by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have the rale sense for business, ma'am. There be many people will rayjict the rentin' of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin' in the bed of it."

"As you say, we has our living to be making," remarked Mrs. Purdy.

"Yis, ma'am, 'tis true. 'Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be killin' herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy, ma'am."

"She'd a-been called handsome, as you say," said Mrs. Purdy, assenting but critical, "but for that mole she had a-growin' by her left eyebrow. Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool."

I awoke with a subconscious feeling that something was wrong, out of focus. It was pitch dark. Far off in the City Hall tower the great clock began to toll: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Instinctively my mind followed that distant, methodical gong. It was midnight.

Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the blackness, and I could distinguish the various objects of furniture in the room. But it was the door—the door!—that my eyes became fastened upon. The gooseflesh started out on my body. I seemed to feel the hair rising like prickly needles on my scalp. The door was moving slowly; slowly it was being opened by some unseen hand in the room beyond. Inch by inch it opened wider—wider!

Was it a human hand that moved it or some spirit from another world? How foolish! I would jump right up, and—slowly the door began to close again. Had the slight movement I made in bed been heard? A faint, creepy, rustling sound came from the room beyond, unlike that made by any human being. Slowly, slowly the door was closing.

I slipped from the bed and drew a revolver from under my pillow. Just inside that door, where I could reach it by putting in my hand, was the electric switch. I gripped my weapon, my hand shaking in spite of myself, and crept slowly, slowly, toward the other room. I was not afraid, for there were no ghosts—I repeated this to myself—but still that prickly sensation in my scalp continued.

I reached the door. It seemed almost still, yet opened a few inches. Hardly breathing, with my heart standing still, I put my hand through the opening, found the switch on the wall and flooded the room with light.

"Now," I screamed, "I have you!"

And I leapt into the room, brandishing the revolver.

The room was empty.

A soft breeze from the south blew across my face from an open window and rustled drowsily through the curtains. Little by little the door commenced to move again, as the breeze softly played against it—the breeze that was the unseen hand!