I am not afraid of the thing I can see, but it seemed to me, all at
once, that if anything was going to come up the staircase I might as
well get down first. A staircase is no place to meet anything,
especially if one doesn’t know what it is.
I listened again. Mademoiselle was quiet. I flashed my light down the
narrow stairs. They were quite empty. I shut off the flash and went
down. I tried to go slowly, to retreat with dignity, and by the time I
had reached the landing below I was heartily ashamed of myself. Was this
shivering girl the young woman Mr. Patton called his right hand?
I dare say I should have stopped there, for that night at least. My
nerves were frayed. But I forced myself on. The mystery lay below. Well,
then, I was going down. It could not be so terrible. At least it was
nothing supernatural. There must be a natural explanation. And then that
silly story about the headless things must pop into my head and start me
down trembling.
The lower rear staircase was black dark, like the upper, but just at the
foot a light came in through a barred window. I could see it plainly and
the shadows of the iron grating on the bare floor. I stood there
listening. There was not a sound.
It was not easy to tell exactly what followed. I stood there with my
hand on the rail. I’d been very silent; my rubber shoes attended to
that. And one moment the staircase was clear, with a patch of light at
the bottom. The next, something was there, half way down—a head, it
seemed to be, with a pointed hood like a monk’s cowl. There was no body.
It seemed to lie at my feet. But it was living. It moved. I could tell
the moment when the eyes lifted and saw my feet, the slow back-tilting
of the head as they followed up my body. All the air was squeezed out of
my lungs; a heavy hand seemed to press on my chest. I remember raising a
shaking hand and flinging my flashlight at the head. The flash clattered
on the stair tread harmless. Then the head was gone and something living
slid over my foot.
I stumbled back to my room and locked the door. It was two hours before
I had strength enough to get my aromatic ammonia bottle.
V
It seemed to me that I had hardly dropped asleep before the children
were in the room, clamoring.
“The goldfish are dead!” Harry said, standing soberly by the bed. “They
are all dead with their stummicks turned up.”