![]() ![]() For tonight I fear you’ll have to wait on yourself to a great extent. You have the file with you, of course? And the Kodak prints and records? Noyes put your valise in the hall-I suppose you saw it. I can’t say how glad I am to see you in person after all our many letters. You know what I wrote in my last letter-there is so much to tell you tomorrow when I shall feel better. Noyes must have told you but I could not resist having you come just the same. Wilmarth, I presume? You must pardon my not rising. The accent was by no means a rustic one, and the language was even more polished than correspondence had led me to expect. It was a hard whisper to catch at first, since the grey moustache concealed all movements of the lips, and something in its timbre disturbed me greatly but by concentrating my attention I could soon make out its purport surprisingly well. He had on a loose dressing-gown, and was swathed around the head and high around the neck with a vivid yellow scarf or hood.Īnd then I saw that he was trying to talk in the same hacking whisper with which he had greeted me. There was a touch of the pitiful in the limp, lifeless way his lean hands rested in his lap. Was it not enough to break any human being-even a younger man than this intrepid delver into the forbidden? The strange and sudden relief, I feared, had come too late to save him from something like a general breakdown. I felt that there must be something more than asthma behind that strained, rigid, immobile expression and unwinking glassy stare and realised how terribly the strain of his frightful experiences must have told on him. I had studied the Kodak picture repeatedly, and there could be no mistake about this firm, weather-beaten face with the cropped, grizzled beard.īut as I looked again my recognition was mixed with sadness and anxiety for certainly, his face was that of a very sick man. Dim though the light was, I perceived that this was indeed my host. Within its shadowy depths I saw the white blur of a man’s face and hands and in a moment I had crossed to greet the figure who had tried to speak. For a moment the closed blinds allowed me to see very little, but then a kind of apologetic hacking or whispering sound drew my attention to a great easy-chair in the farther, darker corner of the room. There likewise appeared to be some faint, half-imaginary rhythm or vibration in the air. The room beyond was darkened as I had known before and as I entered it I noticed that the queer odour was stronger there. Refusing to let these cloudy qualms overmaster me, I recalled Noyes’s instructions and pushed open the six-panelled, brass-latched white door on my left. 40535 The Whisperer in Darkness - Chapter 7 H.P.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |