Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Messenger I struck something and went a-sprawl, cursing the obstruction. Without waiting to see what it was, I picked myself up, opened the front door and switched on the lights. In front of the door lay the paints and painting-materials I had ordered that day. I carried them into the house and considered what was next to be done. All told, I had not been absent over an hour or so. lay before me, and being of an energetic turn of mind, I determined to fall to work at my redecorating without further delay. The kitchen was the immediate base of opera- tions. This required fresh white paint from truck to keelson; after the paint dried, new linoleum could be laid. Three hours of steady work ought to eliminate the kitchen from further calculation. With this in mind I laid aside coat and collar, got out my brushes and picked up a can-opener to attack a can of white enamel. I had set the opener to the tin and was about to puncture it, when a sound halted me. A sound? More like a shock. You try dropping a hundred-pound sack of wheat on an upper floor of an empty house and you will get some idea of how hard a man’s body falls when it does fall. There was no mistaking that soft, heavy thud which fairly shook the house. Some one was up-stairs. Then came the dis- tinct slam of a door—and silence. For all my listening, there came no further sound—not a footstep, not the creak of a board. Abandoning my operations, I went out to the front hall, then at the foot of the stairs halted. Instead of going up, I went to the door and looked outside. The trunk belonging to James Death had disappeared. I had given it no thought when entering the house. “Who the devil’s up-stairs?” With this query in my mind I switched on the upper hall lights and ascended. The dead silence of the house puzzled me. It was that intense silence which only comes upon a house in which no soul is moving, even breathing. The upper hall was empty. I stood there staring about. In the silence I could have sworn that no living person was in the house. “Anybody here?” I called. Only the echo of my own voice responded and I swore at the silence. I looked into one or two rooms—de- serted and empty. It occurred to me that some of my ousted tenants might be trying some sort of revenge for the ousting. I had been gone since before noon. All the after- noon the house had stood deserted. Upon my return I had not even gone up-stairs. One or a dozen persons might be in hiding here. That there was no one down-stairs I was certain. I went to the door that led up to the attic. It was locked, as I had left it, but I had certainly heard a door slam up here somewhere. That narrowed down the matter to a definite The evening © 133 basis. I looked at the doors opening on the hall, and three of them were closed. The first two opened upon empty rooms. Then I turned to the third and realized that it was my own room, the room occupied by James Death. Upon the instant I felt con- vinced that here lay the answer to the question; that when I opened this door, I would find some- thing strange and sinister. And I hesitated at the door, for my pistol lay up-stairs in my grip. ‘Then I knocked but . had no answer. Angered by my own weakness, I twisted the knob and flung open the door, at the same instant keeping back. That morning’s escape had taught me a lesson. The room showed only blackness, for the hall light did not reach it. I stepped inside, felt for the switch and lighted the room. For perhaps three minutes I stood there, absolutely motionless, trying to igure out what had happened here. “© Near the window which overlooked the bungalow, James Death’s trunk was standing open. Therefore, Death had returned, found no one about and, being ignorant of my return, had calmly brought his trunk back to his room, Also, he had replaced the knife over the door. At my feet lay the body of a man, face down. He had entered the room with head down, hastily and furtively. The knife had caught him at the juncture of neck and shoulder; must have killed him instantly. He had fallen for- ward, probably had grasped at the door and caused it to slam behind him. “No!” I muttered. ‘That door slammed after the man had fallen and he could not have done it himself by any possibility.” Then I looked again at the position of the knife, which was driven in clear to the haft. With this, all my reasoning showed wrong. The man could not have been killed from above. The knife had been slid into him as he looked into the room. The murderer had then let him fall forward, and slammed the door, and .... At this point in my reflections I glanced hastily over my shoulder and closed the door behind me. The murderer was in the house and I preferred to have an inch of wood at my back, FORTUNATELY my Paisley father Si bequeathed me an excellent cool head 27 in emergencies; it was apt to be hot at other times. Whoever had done this deed knew that I was in the house and alone. The size of the body on the floor was very large, as large as my own. Therefore, this was not James Death, as evidently James Death had done the work himself. What, then, would come next on his program? “This chap is no fool,’ I told myself. “If he could get the police in a hurry, the chances are about even that I would be convicted of this murder on circumstantial evidence. A COPMMICLOOOKS (E@)