# Weird Tales/Volume 1/Issue 2/Beyond the Door

From Weird Tales, Volume 1, Issue 2
​Creeping Horror Lurked
Beyond the Door
An Unusual Story
By Paul Suter
"You haven't told me yet how it happened," I said to Mrs. Malkin.
She set her lips and eyed me, sharply.
"Didn't you talk with the coroner, sir?"
"Yes, of course," I admitted; "but as I understand you found my uncle, I thought——"
"Well, I wouldn't care to say anything about it," she interrupted, with decision.
This housekeeper of my uncle's was somewhat taller than I, and much heavier—two physical preponderance which afford any woman possessing them an advantage over the inferior male. She appeared a subject for diplomacy rather than argument.
Noting her ample jaw, her breadth of cheek, the unsentimental glint of her eye, I decided on conciliation. I placed a chair for her, there in my Uncle Godfrey's study, and dropped into another, myself.
"At least, before we go over the other parts of the house, suppose we rest a little," I suggested, in my most unctuous manner. "The place rather gets on one's nerves—don't you think so?"
It was sheer luck — I claim no credit for it. My chance reflection found the weak spot in her fortifications. She replied to it with an undoubted smack of satisfaction:
"It's more than seven years that I've been doing for Mr. Sarston, sir: Bringing him his meals regular as clockwork, keeping the house clean—as clean as he'd let me—and sleeping at my own home, o'nights; and in all that time, I've said, over and over, there ain't a house in New York the equal of this for queerness."
"Nor anywhere else," I encouraged her, with a laugh; and her confidence opened another notch:
"You're likely right in that, too sir. As I've said to poor Mr. Sarston, many a time, 'It's all well enough,' says I, 'to have bugs for a hobby. You can afford it; and being a bachelor and by yourself, you don't have to consider other people's likes and dislikes. And it's all well enough if you want to,' says I, 'to keep thousands and thousands o'them in cabinets, all over the place, the way you do. But when it comes to pinnin' them on the walls in regular armies,' I say, 'and on the ceiling of your own study; and even on different parts of the furniture, so that a body don't know what awful thing she's agoin' to find under her hand of a sudden when she does the dusting; why, then,' I says to him, 'it's drivin' a decent woman too far.'"
​"And did he never try to reform his ways when you told him that?" I asked, smiling.
"To be frank with you, Mr. Robinson, when I talked like that to him, he generally raised my pay. And what was a body to do then?"
"I can't see how Lucy Lawton stood the place as long as she did," I observed, watching Mrs. Malkin's red face very closely.
She swallowed the bait, and leaned forward, hands on knees.
"Poor girl, it got on her nerves. But she was the quiet kind. You never saw her, sir?"
I shook my head.
"One of them slim, faded girls, with light hair, and hardly a word to say for herself. I don't believe she got to know the next-door neighbor in the whole year she lived with your uncle. She was an orphan, wasn't she, sir?"
"Yes," I said. "Godfrey Sarston and I were her only living relatives. That was why she came from Australia to stay with him, after her father's death."
Mrs. Malkin nodded. I was hoping that, by putting a check on my eagerness, I could lead her on to a number of things I greatly desired to know. Up to the time I had induced the housekeeper to show me through this strange house of my Uncle Godfrey's, the whole affair had been a mystery of lips which closed and faces which were averted at my approach. Even the coroner seemed unwilling to tell me just how my uncle had died."
"Did you understand she was going to live with him, sir?" asked Mrs. Malkin, looking hard at me.
I confined myself to a nod.
"Well, so did I. Yet, after a year, back she went."
"She went suddenly?" I suggested.
"So suddenly that I never knew a thing about it till after she was gone. I came to do my chores one day, and she was here. I came the next, and she had started back to Australia. That’s how sudden she went."
"They must have had a falling-out," I conjectured. "I suppose it was because of the house."
"Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t."
"You know of other reasons?"
"I have eyes in my head," she said. "But I'm not going to talk about it. Shall we be getting on now, sir?"
I tried another lead:
"I hadn't seen my uncle in five years, you know. He seemed terribly changed. He was not an old man, by any means, yet when I saw him at the funeral—" I paused, expectantly.
To my relief, she responded readily:
"He looked that way for the last few months, especially the last week. I spoke to him about it, two days before—before it happened, sir—and told him he’d do well to see the doctor again. But he cut me off short. My sister took sick the same day, and I was called out of town. The next time I saw him, he was—"
She paused, and then went on, sobbing:
"To think of him lyin' there in that awful place, and callin' and callin' for me, as I know he must, and me not around to hear him!"
As she stopped again, suddenly, and threw a suspicious glance at me, I hastened to insert a matter-of-fact question:
"Did he appear ill on that last day?"
"Not so much ill, as——"
"Yes?" I prompted.
She was silent a long time, while I waited, afraid that some word of mine had brought back her former ​attitude of hostility. Then she seemed to make up her mind.
"I oughtn't to say another word. I've said too much, already. But you've been liberal with me, sir, and I know somethin' you've a right to be told, which I'm thinkin' no one else is agoin' to tell you. Look at the bottom of his study door a minute, sir."
I followed her direction. What I saw led me to drop to my hands and knees, the better to examine it.
"Why should he put a rubber strip on the bottom of his door?" I asked, getting up.
She replied with another enigmatical suggestion:
"Look at these, if you will, sir. You'll remember that he slept in this study. That was his bed, over there in the alcove."
"Bolts!" I exclaimed. And I reinforced sight with touch by shooting one of them back and forth a few times. "Double bolts on the inside of his bedroom door! An upstairs room, at that. What was the idea?"
Mrs. Malkin portentously shook her head and sighed, as one unburdening her mind.
"Only this can I say, sir: He was afraid of something—terribly afraid, sir. Something that came in the night."
"What was it?" I demanded.
"I don't know, sir."
"It was in the night that—it happened?" I asked.
She nodded; then, as if the prologue were over, as if she had prepared my mind sufficiently, she produced something from under her apron. She must have been holding it there all the time.
"It's his diary, sir. It was lying here on the floor. I saved it for you, before the police could get their hands on it."
I opened the little book. One of the sheets near the back was crumpled, and I glanced at it, idly. What I read there impelled me to slap the covers shut again.
"Did you read this?" I demanded.
She met my gaze, frankly.
"I looked into it, sir, just as you did—only just looked into it. Not for worlds would I do even that again!"
"I noticed some reference here to a slab in the cellar. What slab is that?"
"It covers an old, dried-up well, sir."
"Will you show it to me?"
"You can find it for yourself, sir. if you wish. I'm not goin' down there," she said, decidedly.
"Ah, well, I've seen enough for today," I told her. "I'll take the diary back to my hotel and read it."
I did not return to my hotel, however. In my one brief glance into the little book, I had seen something which had bitten into my soul; only a few words, but they had brought me very near to that queer, solitary man who had been my uncle.
I dismissed Mrs. Malkin, and remained in the study. There was the fitting place to read the diary he had left behind him.
His personality lingered like a vapor in that study. I settled into his deep morris chair, and turned it to catch the light from the single, narrow window—the light, doubtless, by which he had written much of his work on entomology.
That same struggling illumination played shadowy tricks with hosts of wall-crucified insects, which seemed engaged in a united effort to crawl upward in sinuous lines. Some of their number, impaled to the ceiling itself, peered quiveringly down on the aspiring multitude. The whole house, with its crisp dead, rustling in any vagrant breeze, brought back to my mind the hand that had pinned them, one by one, on wall and ceiling and furniture. A kindly hand, I reflected, though eccentric; one not to ​be turned aside from its single hobby.
When quiet, peering Uncle Godfrey went, there passed out another of those scientific enthusiasts, whose passion for exact truth in some one direction has extended the bounds of human knowledge. Could not his unquestioned merits have been balanced against his sin? Was it necessary to even-handed justice that he die face-to-face with Horror, struggling with the thing he most feared? I ponder the question still, though his body—strangely bruised—has been long at rest.
The entries in the little book began with the fifteenth of June. Everything before that date had been torn out. There, in the room where it had been written, I read my Uncle Godfrey’s diary.
   "It is done. I am trembling so that the words will hardly form under my pen, my mind is collected. My course was for the best. Suppose I had married her? She would have been unwilling to live in this house. At the outset, her wishes would have come between me and my work, and that would have been only the beginning.
   "As a married man, I could not have concentrated properly, I could not have surrounded myself with the atmosphere indispensable to the writing of my book. My scientific message would never have been delivered. As it is, though my heart is sore, I shall stifle these memories in work.
   "I wish I had been more gentle with her, eqpecially when she sank to her knees before me, tonight. She kissed my hand. I should not have repulsed her so roughly. In particular, my words could have been better chosen. I said to her bitterly: 'Get up, and don't nuzzle my hand like a dog.’ She rose, without a word, and left me. How was I to know that, within an hour———
   "I am largely to blame. Yet, had I taken any other course afterward than the one I did, the authorities would have misunderstood."
Again there followed a space from which the sheets had been torn; but from the sixteenth of July, all the pages were intact. Something had come over the writing, too. It was still precise and clear—my Uncle Godfrey’s characteristic hand—but the letters were less firm. As the entries approached the end, this difference became still more marked. Here follows, then, the whole of his story; or as much of it as will ever be known. I shall let his words speak for him, without further interruption:
   "My nerves are becoming more seriously affected. If certain annoyances do not shortly cease, I shall be obliged to procure medical advice. To be more specific, I find myself, at times, obsessed by an almost uncontrollable desire to descend to the cellar and lift the slab over the old well.
   "I never have yielded to the impulse, but it has persisted for minutes together with such intensity that I have had to put work aside, and literally hold myself down in my chair. This insane desire comes only in the dead of night, when its disquieting effect is heightened by the various noises peculiar to the house.
   "For instance, there often is a draft of air along the hallways, which causes a rustling among the specimens impaled on the walls. Lately, too, there have been other nocturnal sounds, ​strongly suggestive of the clamor of rats and mice. This calls for investigation. I have been at considerable expense to make the house proof against rodents, which might destroy some of my best specimens, some structural defect has opened a way for them, the situation must be corrected at once."
   "July 17th. The foundations and cellar were examined today by a workman. He states positively that there is no place of ingress for rodents. He contented himself with looking at the slab over the old well, without lifting it."
   "July 19th. While I was sitting in this chair late last night, writing, the impulse to descend to the cellar suddenly came upon me with tremendous insistence. I yielded-which, perhaps, was as well. For at least I satisfied myself that the disquiet which possesses me has no external cause.
   "The long journey through the hallways was difficult. Several times, I was keenly awere of the same sounds (perhaps I should say, the same IMPRESSIONS of sounds) that I had erroneously laid to rats. I am convinced now that they are mere symptoms of my nervous condition. Further indications of this came in the fact that, as I opened the cellar door, the small noises abrupthy ceased. There wae no final scamper of tiny footfalls to suggest rats disturbed at their occupations.
   "Indeed, I wes conscious of a certain impression of expectant silence—as if the thing behind the noises, whatever it was, had paused to watch me enter its domain. Throughout my time in the cellar, I seemed surrounded by this same atmosphere. Sheer ‘nerves,’ of course.
   "In the main, I held myself well under control. As I was about to leave the cellar, however, I unguardedly glanced back over my shoulder at the stone slab covering the old well. At that, a violent tremor came over me, and, losing all command, I rushed back up the cellar stairs, thence to this study. My nerves are playing me sorry tricks."
   "July 30th. For more than a week, all has been well. The tone of my nerves seems distinctly better. Mrs. Malkin, who has remarked several times lately upon my paleness, expressed conviction this afternoon that I am nearly my old self again. This is encouraging. I was beginning to fear that the severe strain of the past few months had left an indelible mark upon me. With continued health, I shall be able to finish my book by spring."
   "July 31st. Mrs. Malkin remained rather late tonight in connection with some item of housework, and it was quite dark when I returned to my study from bolting the street door after her. The blackness of the upper hall, which the former owner of the house inexplicably failed to wire for electricity, was profound. As I came to the top of the second flight of stairs, something clutched at my foot, and, for an instant, almost pulled me back. I freed myself and ran to the study."
   "August 3rd. Again the awful insistence. I sit here, with this diary upon my knee, and it ​seems that fingers of iron are tearing at me. I WILL NOT go! My nerves may be utterly unstrung again (I fear they are), but I am still their master."
   "August 4th. I did not yield, last night. After a bitter struggle, which must have lasted nearly an hour, the desire to go to the cellar suddenly departed. I must not give in at any time."
   "August 5th. Tonight, the rat noises (I shall call them that for want of a more appropriate term) are very noticable. I went to the length of unbolting my door and stepping into the hallway to listen. After a few minutes, I seemed to be aware of something large and gray watching me from the darkness at the end of the passage. This is a bizarre statement, of course, but it exactly describes my impression. I withdrew hastily into the study, and bolted the door.
   "Now that nervous condition is so palpably affecting the optic nerve, I must not much longer delay seeing a specialist. But—how much shall I tell him?"
   "August 8th. Several times, tonight, while sitting here at my work, I have seemed to hear soft footsteps in the passage. 'Nerves' again of course or some new trick of the wind among the specimens on the walls."
   "August 9th. By my watch it is four o'clock in the morning. My mind is made up to record the experience I have passed through. Calmness may come that way.
   "Feeling rather fatigued last night, from the strain of a weary day of research, I retired early. My sleep was more refreshing than usual, as it is likely to be when one is genuinely tired. I awakened, however (it must have been about an hour ago), with a start of tremendous violence.
   "There was moonlight in the room. My nerves were ‘on edge’, but, for a moment, I saw nothing unusual. Then, glancing toward the door, I perceived what appeared to be thin, white fingers, thrust under it—exactly as if someone outside the door were trying to attract my attention in that manner. I rose and turned on the light, but the fingers were gone.
   "Needless to say, I did not open the door. I write the ocurrence down, just as it took place, or as it seemed; but I can not trust myself to comment upon it."
   "August 10th. Have fastened heavy rubber strips on the bottom of my bedroom door."
   "August 15th. All quiet, for several nights. I am hoping that the rubber strips, being something definite and tangible, have had a salutary effect upon my nerves. Perhaps I shall not need to see a doctor."
   "August 17th. Once more, I have been aroused from sleep. The interruptions seem to come always at the same hour—about three o'clock in the morning. I had been dreaming of the well in the cellar—the same dream, over and over—everything black except the slab, and a figure with bowed head and averted face sitting there. Also, I had vague dreams about a dog. Can it be that my last words to her have impressed that on my ​mind? I must pull myself together. In particular I must not, under any pressure, yield and visit the cellar after nightfall."
   "August 18th. Am feeling much more hopeful. Mrs. Malkin remarked on it, while serving dinner. This improvement is due largely to a consultation I have had with Dr. Sartwell, the distinguished specialist in nervous diseases. I went into full details with him, excepting certain reservations. He scouted the idea that my experiences could be other than purely mental.
   "When he recommended a change of scene (which I had been expecting) I told him positively that it was out of the question. He said then that, with the aid of a tonic and an occasional sleeping draft, I am likely to progress well enongh at home. This is distinctly encouraging. I erred in not going to him at the start. Without doubt, most, if not all, of my hallucinations could have been averted.
   "I have been suffering a needless penalty from my nerves for an action I took solely in the interests of science. I have no disposition to tolerate it further. From today, I shall report regularly to Dr. Sartwell."
   "August 19th. Used the sleeping draft last night, with gratifying results. The doctor says I must repeat the dose for several nights, until my nerves are well under control again."
   "August 21st. All well. It seems I have found the way out—a very simple and prosaic way. I might have avoided much needless annoyance by seeking expert advice at the beginning. Before retiring, last night, I unbolted my study door and took a turn up and down the passage. I felt no trepidation. The place was as it used to be, before these fancies assailed me. A visit to the cellar after nightfall will be the test for my complete recovery, but I am not yet quite ready for that. Patience!"
   "August 22nd. I have just read yesterday's entry, thinking to steady myself. It is cheerful—almost gay; and there are other entries like it in preceding pages. I am a mouse, in the grip of a cat. Let me have freedom for ever so short a time, and I begin to rejoice at my escape. Then the paw descends again.
   "It is four in the morning—the usual hour. I retired rather late, last night, after administering the draft. Instead of the dreamless sleep, which heretofore has followed the use of the drug, the slumber into which I fell was punctuated by recurrent visions of the slab, with the bowed figure upon it. Also, had one poignant dream in which the dog was involved.
   "At length, I awakened, and reached mechanically for the light switch beside my bed. When my hand encountered nothing, I suddenty realised the truth. I was standing in my study, with my other hand upon the doorknob. It required only a moment, of course, to find the light and switch it on. I saw then that the bolt had been drawn back.
   "The door was quite unlocked. My awakening must have interrupted me in the very act of opening it. I could hear something restlessly in the passage outside the door."
   "August 23rd. I must beware of sleeping at night. Without confiding the fact to Dr. Sartwell, I have begun to take the drug in the daytime. At first, Mrs. Malkin's views on the subject were pronounced, but my explanation of 'doctor's orders' has silenced her. I am awake for breakfast and supper, and sleep in the hourse between. She is leaving me, each evening, a cold lunch to be eaten at midnight."
   "August 26th. Several times, I have caught myself nodding in my chair. The last time, I am sure that, on arousing, I perceived the rubber strip under the door bend inward, as if something were pushing it from the other side. I must not, under any circumstances, permit myself to fall asleep."
   "September 2nd. Mrs. Malkin is to be away. because of her sister's illness. I can not help dreading her absence. Though she is here only in the daytime, even that companionship is very welcome."
   "September 3rd. Let me put this into writing. The mere labor of composition has a soothing influence upon me. God knows, I need such an influence now, as never before!
   "In spite of all my watchfulness, I fell asleep, tonight—across my bed. I must have been utterly exhausted. The dream I had was the one about the dog. I was patting the creature's head, over and over.
   "I awoke, at last, to find myself in darkness, and in a standing position. There was a suggestion of chill and earthiness in the air. While I was drowsily trying to get my bearings, I became aware that something was nuzzling my hand, as a dog might do.
   "Still saturated with my dream, I was not greatly astonished. I extended my hand, to pat the dog's head. That brought me to my senses. I was standing in the cellar.
   "THE THING BEFORE ME WAS NOT A DOG!
   "I can not tell how I fled back up the cellar stairs. I know, however, that, as I turned, the slab was visible, in spite of the darkness, with something sitting upon it. All the way up the stairs, hands snatched at my feet."
This entry seemed to finish the diary, for blank pages followed it; but I remembered the crumpled sheet, near the back of the book. It was partly torn out, as if a hand had clutched it, convulsively. The writing on it, too, was markedly in contrast to the precise, albeit nervous penmanship of even the last entry I had perused. I was forced to hold the scrawl up to the light to decipher it. This is what I read:
   "My hand keeps on writing, in spite of myself. What is this? I do not wish to write, but it compels me. Yes, yes, I will tell the truth, I will tell the truth."
A heavy blot followed, partly covering the writing. With difficulty, I made it out:
   The guilt is mine—mine, only. I loved her too well, yet I was unwilling to marry, though she entreated me on her knees—though she kissed my hand. I told her my scientific work came first. She did it, herself. I was not expecting that—I swear I was not expecting it. But I was afraid the authorities ​would misunderstand. So I took what seemed the best course. She had no friends here who would inquire.
   "It is waiting outside my door. I FEEL it. It compels me through my thoughts. My hand keeps on writing. I must not fall asleep. I must think only of what I am writing. I must——"
Then came the words I had seen when Mrs. Malkin had handed me the book. They were written very large. In places, the pen had dug through the paper. Though they were scrawled, I read them at a glance:
   "Not that! Oh, my God, anything but that! Anything——"
By what strange compulsion was the hand forced to write down what was in the brain; even to the ultimate thoughts; even to those final words?
The gray light from outside, slanting down through two dull little windows, sank into the sodden hole near the inner wall. The coroner and I stood in the cellar, but not too near the hole.
A small, demonstrative, dark man—the chief of detectives—stood a little apart from us, his eyes intent, his natural animation suppressed. We were watching the stooped shoulders of a police constable, who was angling in the well.
"See anything, Walters?" inquired the detective, raspingly.
The policeman shook his head.
The little man turned his questioning to me.
"You're quite sure?" he demanded.
"Ask the coroner. He saw the diary," I told him.
"I'm afraid there can be no doubt," the coroner confirmed, in his heavy, tired voice.
He was an old man, with lacklustre eyes. It had seemed best to me, on the whole, that he should read my uncle's diary. His position entitled him to all the available facts. What we were seeking in the well might especially concern him.
He looked at me opaquely now, while the policeman bent double again. Then he spoke—like one who reluctantly and at last does his duty. He nodded toward the slab of gray stone, which lay in the shadow to the left of the well.
"It doesn't seem very heavy, does it?" he suggested, in an undertone.
I shook my head. "Still, it's stone," I demurred. "A man would have to be rather strong to lift it."
"To lift it—yes." He glanced about the cellar. "Ah, I forgot," he said, abruptly. "It is in my office, as part of the evidence." He went on, half to himself: "A man—even though not very strong—could take a stick—for instance, the stick that is now in my office—and prop up the slab. If he wished to look into the well," he whispered.
The policeman interrupted, straightening again with a groan, and laying his electric torch beside the well.
"It's breaking my back," he complained. "There’s dirt down there. It seems loose, but I can't get through it. Somebody'll have to go down."
The detective cut in: "I'm lighter than you, Walters."
"I'm not afraid, sir."
"I didn't say you were," the little man snapped. "There's nothing down there, anyway—though we'll have to prove that, I suppose." He glanced truculently at me, but went on talking to the constable: "Rig the rope around me, and don't bungle the knot. I've no intention of falling into the place."
​"There is something there," whispered the coroner, slowly, to me. His eyes left the little detective and the policeman, carefully tying and testing knots, and turned again to the square slab of stone.
"Suppose—while a man was looking into that hole—with the stone propped up—he should accidentally knock the prop away?" He was still whispering.
"A stone so light that he could prop it up wouldn't be heavy enough to kill him." I objected.
"No." He laid a hand on my shoulder. "Not to kill him—to paralyze him—if it struck the spine in a certain way. To render him helpless, but not unconscious. The post mortem would disclose that, through the bruises on the body."
The policeman and the detective had adjusted the knots to their satisfaction. They were bickering now as to the details of the descent.
"Would that cause death?" I whispered.
"You must remember that the housekeeper was absent for two days. In two days, even that pressure——" He stared at me hard, to make sure that I understood——"with the head down——"
Again the policeman interrupted:
"I'll stand at the well, if you gentlemen will grab the rope behind me. It won't be much of a pull. I'll take the brunt of it."
We let the little man down, with the electric torch strapped to his waist, and some sort of implement—a trowel or a small spade—in his hand. It seemed a long time before his voice, curiously hollow, directed us to stop. The hole must have been deep.
We braced ourselves. I was second, the coroner, last. The policeman relieved his strain somewhat by snagging the rope against the edge of the well, but I marveled, nevertheless, at the ease with which he held the weight. Very little of it came to me.
A noise like muffled scratching reached us from below. Occasionally, the rope shook and shifted slightly at the edge of the hole. At last, the detective's hollow voice spoke.
"What does he say?" the coroner demanded.
The policeman turned his square, dogged face toward us.
"I think he's found something," he explained.
The rope jerked and shifted again. Some sort of struggle seemed to be going on below. The weight suddenly increased, and as suddenly lessened, as if something had been grasped. then had managed to elude the grasp and slip away. I could catch the detective's rapid breathing now; also the sound of inarticulate speech in his hollow voice.
The next words I caught came more clearly. They were a command to pull up. At the same moment, the weight on the rope grew heavier, and remained so.
The policeman’s big shoulders began straining, rhythmically.
"All together," he directed. "Take it easy. Pull when I do."
Slowly, the rope passed through our hands. With each fresh grip that we took, a small section of it dropped to the floor behind us. I began to feel the strain. I could tell from the coroner's labored breathing that he felt it more, being an old man. The policeman, however, seemed untiring.
The rope tightened, suddenly, and there was an ejaculation from below—just below. Still holding fast, the policeman contrived to stoop over and look. He translated the ejaculation for us.
"Let down a little. He's stuck with it against the side."
We slackened the rope, until the detective's voice gave us the word again.
​The rhythmic tugging continued. Something dark appeared, quite abruptly, at the top of the hole. My nerves leapt in spite of me. but it was merely the top of the detective’s head—his dark hair. Something white came next—his pale face, with staring eyes. Then his shoulders, bowed forward, the better to support what was in his arms. Then——
I looked away; but, as he laid his burden down at the side of the well, the detective whispered to us:
"He had her covered up with dirt—covered up. . . . ."
He began to laugh—a little, high cackle. like a child's—until the coroner took him by the shoulders and deliberately shook him. Then the policeman led him out of the cellar.
It was not then, but afterward, that I put my question to the coroner.
"Tell me," I demanded. "People pass there at all hours. Why didn't my uncle call for help?"
"I have thought of that." he replied. "I believe he did call. I think, probably, he screamed. But his head was down, and he couldn't raise it. His screams must have been swallowed up in the well."
"You are sure he didn't murder her?" He had given me that assurance before, but I wished it again.
"Almost sure," he declared. "Though it was on his account, undoubtedly, that she killed herself. Few of us are punished as accurately for our sins as he was."
One should be thankful, even for crumbs of comfort. I am thankful.
But there are times when my uncle's face rises before me. After all, we were the same blood; our sympathies had much in common; under any given circumstances, our thoughts and feelings must have been largely the same. I seem to see him in that final death march along the unlighted passageway—obeying an imperative summons—going on, step by step—down the stairway to the first floor, down the cellar stairs—at last, lifting the slab.
I try not to think of the final expiation. Yet was it final? I wonder. Did the last Door of all, when it opened, find him willing to pass through? Or was Something waiting beyond that Door?
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 53 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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