Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 5 (1925-11).djvu/40

he did so the clock in the tower, far away, began to toll the hour of midnight.

With a muttered ejaculation Jim dropped the glass he was filling and it fell to the floor, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces that glittered in the firelight. "Look!" he whispered. "The light!"

Yes, a light was gathering out of the inky blackness of the next room, just where the portrait hung, but it was not as if created by phosphorus, but rather a weird, unnatural glow, unlike anything that could be created through human skill.

"Great!" Jim whispered. "Isn't he a genius? I'll bet that's something of his own invention. See! the portrait seems to be moving. Say, isn't that effect astonishingly real? That boy's fortune is made. He'll be recognized before long as the most famous in the business!"

Yes, the portrait was moving. Slowly the canvas seemed to open and fade away into nothing, and from the great frame there stepped the figure of a beautiful young woman. Her face was as clear and white as ivory, and a great mass of silken hair of yellowest gold flowed down her back, reaching almost to her waist.

I heard Jim's breath coming quick and short. "By Jove!" he muttered. "If I didn't know it was Dan, I wouldn't believe—isn't that a makeup, though? Talk about a star act! How the devil does he get that portrait opening effect? It ought to be worth a fortune, a trick like that!"

I muttered something to indicate that I agreed, and that the working out of the act was as great a mystery to me as to my friend. Then we both gasped. From the bosom of her flowing white robes the woman drew a bright, shining dagger, and her lips parted. "I come," she said softly, "I come, beloved to join you!" With a quick movement she sank the dagger to the hilt in her breast, and with a half-choking moan slipped gradually to the floor.

Jim and I leaped to our feet. "Bravo!" shouted my friend, and I echoed the word. "Some act, old boy; your fortune's made when you can do stuff like that!" I shouted. "For God's sake turn on the lights, Jim; there's goose-flesh enough on me to feed a whole poultry yard!"

"Me, too!" Jim answered, fumbling for the switch. "Let's catch him and make him show us how he did it with the light on. Here it is! " And the next instant both the room in which we stood and the portrait room were flooded with the electric glow.

"Come on," Jim shouted; "he's probably in the room beyond the portrait one—there are rooms enough in this place for half a dozen families. How in heaven's name did he get that dagger effect? I'll swear I saw something red staining that white gown just as she fell! Dagger blade must slide up into the handle, but it surely was realistic!"

We started for the room beyond where the portrait looked down on us, calm and restful, as we had seen it earlier in the evening. Suddenly the telephone rang out sharp and clear.

Jim turned to a table and picked up the receiver. "Hello—yes—this is Carson's place — Carson talking — what—who did you say? My God—"

The receiver fell from Jim's hand, struck the table and rolled off, falling to the length of the cord, then dragged the telephone after it. The instrument clattered to the floor. Jim turned his face to me. It was soaked with great drops of perspiration and as white as death.

"That was Dan," he muttered thickly, speaking each word as if it were choking him. "It was such a storm—he decided to wait and come in the morning—he didn't leave Kingsby at all!"