Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/61

spared no expense to reproduce a bit of England in the Adirondacks. Tall posts of stone flanked the high iron gate which pierced the ivy-mantled wall surrounding the park, and a wide graveled driveway, bordered on each side by a wall of cedars, led to the house, which was a two-story Tudor structure with shingles of natural red cedar from which the place derived its name. Inside, the house bore out the promise of its exterior. The hall was wide and stone-paved, wainscoted with panels of walnut and with a beamed ceiling of adz-hewn cedar logs and slabs. A field-stone fireplace, almost as large as the average suburban cottage's garage, pierced the north wall, and the curving stairs were built with wide treads and balustraded with hand-carved walnut. A single oil painting, that of the elder John Aglinberry, relieved the darkness of the wall facing the stairway.

"But, Monsieur, this is remarkable," de Grandin asserted as he gazed upon the portrait. "From the resemblance you bear your late kinsman you might easily be taken for his son—yes, pardieu, were you dressed in the archaic clothes of his period, you might be himself!”

"I've noticed the resemblance, too," young Aglinberry smiled. "Poor old Uncle John, gloomy-looking cove, wasn't he? Anyone would think all his friends were dead and he was making plans to visit the village undertaker himself."

The Frenchman shook his head reprovingly at the younger man's facetiousness. "Poor gentleman," he murmured, "he had cause to look sad. When you, too, have experienced the sacrifice of love, you may look saddened, my friend."

We spent the remainder of the afternoon surveying the house and surrounding grounds. Dinner was cooked on a portable camp outfit over blazing logs in the hall fireplace, and about 9 o'clock all three of us mounted the stairs to bed. "Remember," de Grandin warned, "if you hear or see the slightest intimation of anything which is not as it should be, you are to ring the bell beside your bed, my friend. Dr. Trowbridge and I shall sleep like the cat, with one eye open and claws alert."

"Not a chance," our host scoffed. "I slept here last night and never saw or heard anything more supernatural than a stray rat, and mighty few of those."

I might have slept half an hour or twice that long when a gentle nudge brought me wide awake and sitting bolt upright in bed. "Trowbridge, Friend Trowbridge," de Grandin's voice came through the darkness from across the room, "rise and follow; I think I hear Monsieur Aglinberry's alarm bell!"

I slipped a bathrobe over my pajamas and took the loaded automatic and flashlight from under my pillow. "All right," I whispered, "I'm ready."

We stole down the hall toward our host's room, and de Grandin paused beside the door. Clearly we made out the sound of an untroubled sleeper's heavy breathing. "Guess you've been hearing things, de Grandin," I chuckled in a low voice, but he held up one slender hand in warning.

"P-s-st, be still!" he commanded. "Do not you hear it, too, my friend? Hark!"

I listened with bated breath, but no sound save the occasional ghostly creak of a floor-board came to my ears, then——

Faint, so faint it might have been mistaken for the echo of an imagined sound, had it not been for its insistence, I heard the light, far-away-sounding tinkle-tinkle of bells. "Tink-a-tink, a-tink-a-tink; tink-a-tink, a-tink-a-tink" they sounded, scarcely louder than the swishing of silk,