The Devil Doctor

or Smith had selected the study as a suitable base of operations. We reached it without mishap, and presently I found mys

ew hours since, his body had been removed. This was such a vigil as I had endured once before, wh

e dreadfully than the rest. It was the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece; and I thought how this sound must have been familiar to Abel Slattin, how it must ha

enter the room and occupy it. There was a little China Buddha upon a bureau in one corner, with a gilded cap upon its head, and

ve no sign, and I knew that my imagination was magnifying these ordinary night sounds out of all proportion to their actual significance. L

them. Smith, like a man of stone, showed no sign. He was capable of so subduing his constitutionally high-strung temperament, at times, that temporarily he became immune from human dreads. On such oc

ily in my breast, I began to count the tickings; one, two, three, fou

nger I noted the tick-tick of the clock, nor the vague creakings, rustlings and whispers. I saw Smith, shadowly,

r squeaking, oddly familiar, yet elusive. Upon it followed a very soft and muffled thud; then a metallic sound as

ap, evidently set in the floor of a loft-like place extending over the entire building. Somewh

any proper decision, another sound,

he stairhead-slowly, cautiously, and all but silently. Yet to my ears,

de of the opened door-behind it, in fact, where I should

rossed the floor

told myself) spoke to my newly awakened, acute perceptions, of the visitor preparing to lower himself to the landing. Followe

the roof of the house by some means, had broken through the skyligh

his hour mentally reconstruct, I waited for the creaking

, subdued breathing; but my eyes were all for the darkened hall-way, for the smudgy outline of

d as those which I had acquired the power of detecting-that I saw

of sight, invisible to Smith on the other side

dark patch vanished-and rea

n to my companion-and I knew that it was impossible fo

y-vanished and reappeared on a level with my eyes. Then a vague shape became visible; no more than a

antelpiece boomed

te (I blush to relate it

rustrated our hopes; that it did not do so was in no measure due to me

t. With a panther-like leap he

ied, "the lights! The switc

nerves, and, bounding past Smith, and past the foot of the stair, I reac

from behind me-an inhuman cry, less a cry

an almost naked man-a man whose brown body glistened unctuously, whose shaven head was apish low, whose bloodshot eyes were the eyes of a mad dog! His teeth, upper and lower, we

e of a feather, he stood like some figure of archaic statuary, nor for an

f the dacoit-for in this glistening brown man I recognized one of th

land Smith, glassy-eyed, and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood there, a realization of L

head trickling down into his eyes, he pointed to the stick which I ha

e gasped hoarsely ... "the r

iety for my friend,

ch Slattin's favourite cane at that moment r

we had disturbed nothing in that stricken house; the

hand. Surely there could n

ed on the flo

he whispered, almost inaudibly, "but

ble began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the ra

if it had been a leprous thing

l God!"

ld-which I had taken from the dacoit-which he had come to substitute for

it was an accurate co

is awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise, no power on earth could have save