CHAPTER XXX
THE ROOM IN THE TOWER
STEP by step Teak made his way along the dizzy parapet where only a steeplejack or a sailor could have found foothold. He had reached it by a route long contemplated and carefully mapped in his mind.
The Limehouse furnaces were cold to-night; otherwise, since it was nearly three o'clock, he must already have been on his way to the little lock-up garage where the two-seater was housed in which he performed his regular journeys from West to East, from East to West.
Far below him lay Park Lane, deserted as far as the eye could reach. Ahead and slightly above from a window of the tower room that strange blue light rose and fell, rose and fell.
Some few more perilous steps and the origin of this phenomenon which had provoked him for a long time would become apparent, A faint humming sound was audible, and Teak thought that he could distinguish the vibration of mechanism. This might have been an illusion, however, created by the quality of the humming sound.
He advanced cautiously, silent in his rubber-soled shoes. For so heavy a man he was very active and sure-footed, qualities demanded by this latter part of his journey which indeed, one might have assumed, only a cat or a monkey could have accomplished successfully.
At last, a little breathless, and his heart beating more rapidly than usual, Teak raised himself upright upon a narrow chimney stack, one arm thrown about the metal pipe of the northernmost chimney, to find himself looking through a high-set, narrow window into that secret room which he had never entered—indeed to which he knew of no means of entrance.
He suppressed a gasp of astonishment.
A cold pang of fear, fear of that sort which he had never been able to define, struck at his heart. He had performed a feat of climbing to have taxed the courage of an experienced mountaineer or an acrobat, yet here, looking into a darkened room, he knew terror for the first time.
The humming sound had become louder, and now, as he stared through the window, he saw what looked at first like a revolving disk glittering strangely as if it reflected some distant blue light. This was a mirror, he thought, but nothing showed upon its surface. Then he saw that it was not a mirror. It was a globe; and it seemed to derive its strange luminance from the sky which it resembled in colour and clarity.
As he watched, almost doubting the evidence of his own senses, vague outlines began to form within the globe as if sketched in smoke. They sharpened; took definite shape. The blue light faded, and Teak beheld, as if projected by a miniature cinematograph upon an invisible screen, the vivid presentment of a large and elegantly furnished bed-chamber.
It was irregularly illuminated by moonlight which shone through the windows, and someone—the distance was too great to enable him at first to determine whether man or woman—lay in the bed. A voice spoke. It resembled the voice of Trepniak, yet in some subtle quality it differed.
"I am here," the voice said. "Obey me."
The figure in the bed started suddenly upright. It was that of a woman, for Teak now could see her bright red hair streaming over her shoulders.
"Sleep until I awaken you," the voice commanded.
The woman fell back again upon her pillows. Then came silence save for the ceaseless humming sound. The picture remained sharply defined in the blackness of the room. The windows through which moonlight streamed were clearly visible in this miniature representation; and now, as a black silhouette, an ape-like figure appeared there, apparently upon a balcony outside the room.
A long arm reached out, and inch by inch opened one of the windows, which already was ajar.
Bending forward in a horrible, crouching attitude, the intruder advanced toward the bed.
Teak closed his eyes for a moment, clutching dizzily for support. Was his reason deserting him? Was he awake? What was this thing at which he looked, and how was it produced?
In the crouching figure which had stolen into the shadows of the room he had recognized Krauss!
It was impossible to mistake the figure of the ape-man, and now, opening his eyes. Teak looked once more. Yes, it was still visible, that tiny room, like one in some exquisite doll's house, but magically peopled with living creatures.
Half in light and half in shadow, Krauss was bending over the figure in the bed. For a moment the moonlight glittered brightly upon some surgical instrument which he held in his hand—then, abruptly, the picture vanished.
A stifled cry reached Teak's ears; there came the click of an electric switch, and a light sprang up in the tower room, clearly revealing the great beryl revolving upon its axis. Part of the metal roof above he could see from his position and a portion of one wall-but nothing else. Of the person or persons in the room he could obtain no glimpse; but:
"No, no!" cried a frenzied voice, which now he clearly identified as that of Trepniak. "Go away!" There followed a sound of hurried movement as though someone had run across the room. "You have no right to be here; you are dead—you are dead! Why do you mock me? Why do you torture me?"
A groaning cry followed the words, then:
"It was not my fault—it was not my fault!" the babbling voice continued brokenly, almost sobbingly. "Don't touch me, don't touch me! Merciful God! She is coming nearer!"
Teak, trembling wildly, began to climb down from his dizzy perch. Confusedly he wondered if his shaking limbs would betray him. He paused, closing his eyes again, fighting for self-control.
All the perils of that return journey presented themselves to him in a new guise. Of the sights and the sounds of the tower room he sought not to think, concentrating all the bulldog tenacity of purpose which was his upon the task of regaining physical composure.
At last, opening his eyes, he ventured. Babbling cries as of a man beset by a host of phantoms reached him from the open window. But his eyes glaring straight before him, he set out, moving rapidly.
The first and most dangerous part of the journey accomplished, he came to the parapet—hesitated—and then essayed it. Step by step he moved along, balancing like a tight-rope walker. He arrived safely at the end, and, lowering himself to a section of sloping roof, slid down perilously until one rubber-shod foot touched an iron gutter and he overhung the stone-paved yard far beneath.
Foot by foot he worked his way along, coming at last to a descending pipe which seemed to offer a frail support for so heavy a man. The effort was telling upon him. His heart seemed to be ready to burst in his breast, and perspiration almost blinded him.
Yet he only paused here long enough to inhale one deep breath, and then, bending down inch by inch, until it seemed that nothing could prevent his being precipitated into the yard below, he caught at the gutter with both hands, moved his right foot until it touched the descending pipe, and, by means of an athletic contortion, worked his way down until all his weight rested upon his arms.
With knees and feet he grasped the pipe. Now, releasing the gutter with his right hand, he transferred this also to the pipe. Finally, he allowed himself to slip downward until his left foot rested upon a window ledge. The window was wide open. It was that of his own bedroom.
A moment later he literally threw himself into the room, heedless of noise and hurt, and lay prone upon the carpet, shaking, exhausted, terrified.
That night for the first time in many years he had thought of prayer; and now as he lay trembling on the floor of his own room he whispered words of thanks to Heaven. Great fear and great danger had cast him back into boyhood, into the years before he knew the evil of the world. Reaction would come, although now he did not realize the fact. Then, as he lay there, he heard his name called, faintly, in some distant part of the house. He rose unsteadily to his feet.
"Teak!"
It was drawing nearer.
"Teak!"
He staggered forward to the door—to make sure that it was locked, although he well remembered locking it before setting out on his perilous adventure.
"Teak!"
It was Trepniak who cried his name! Trepniak who was running wildly in the direction of his room!
Teak pressed his forehead, wet with perspiration, against the panels of the door, grasping the knob at once for support and with some obscure idea of excluding the intruder. Now, Trepniak was in the corridor, uttering short, hysterical cries; now he had thrown himself against the outside of the door; and:
"Teak!" he cried, and banged feebly upon the panel. "For God's sake let me in! For God's sake let me in!"
Teak swallowed noisily but did not speak; then:
"The door," Trepniak moaned—"Quick—quick! She is close behind me."
Teak reached across to the switch and the room became lighted. This somewhat restored his courage, and:
"What is the matter?" he asked—and failed to recognize his own voice.
"Thank God you're awake! Open the door."
Teak that night had conceived a horror of his employer inexpressible in any terms known to him. But there was that in the pitiful sobbing voice which, in his present mood, spoke to some rudimentary good in the man. A moment longer he hesitated; then, unlocking the door, he threw it open.
Trepniak, his eyes glaring, his face twitching horribly, tottered in. A sort of deathly grin transfigured his pale face.
"Shut," he whispered. "Quick! shut the door."
He turned and retreated backward, his hands stretched out, his fingers quivering.
Teak, chilled icily, as though an Arctic breeze had blown into the room, slammed the door fast and locked it. He came about. … Trepniak, by the farther wall, was kneeling and staring with a glassy look of madness in the direction of the doorway. He raised his shaking hands, and:
"Teak," he whispered, almost inaudibly, "are you a Christian?"
Through all the horror which lay like a cloud on his mind Teak seemed to perceive a solution of some of those mysteries which hitherto had baffled him. Trepniak had declared Krauss to be mad, but the reverse of this was the truth. Trepniak was a madman! It was a dreadful idea, but not so dreadful as the doubts which had preceded it; therefore:
"Yes," said Teak more steadily, realizing that he must humour the speaker. "I was raised Roman Catholic."
"Then, quick, quick!" Trepniak glanced rapidly from the closed door to Teak and then back again. "Have you anything, a rosary, a relic—anything belonging to your religion?"
Teak hesitated. In a little box amongst collar studs and similar odds and ends of the toilet was a tiny silver crucifix which long ago had ceased to possess the slightest religious significance for its owner, and which he had retained solely for its sentimental associations—associations with an almost forgotten past.
However, nodding grimly, and with the passage of every moment recovering self-confidence, he crossed to a chest of drawers, opened the top one, delved into a cardboard box and produced the little emblem.
"Hurry, hurry!" came from Trepniak. "Fasten it with something, with anything, to the door. Fasten it to the door, Teak—oh, God! Be quick!"