Court of Inquiry
We ate beneath a sprinkling of electric lights and my mind was glum
with foreboding.
As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a shrill staccato
was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen Aire, a new arrival.
Him I had not yet met, the table being already seated when I came down
from revising my toilet in my lofty bed-chamber.
“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, the _new_
psychology, forsooth!”
A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in the nature of
a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the challenge would be
received by Doctor Aire, who was seated at the same side of the table
as I. All that was visible of him, of course, was head and shoulders,
extraordinarily broad and square shoulders in rough purplish tweed,
and a shocking small and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched
skin, a balt spot like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and
short pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat
only two away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be
twinkling amusement.
“The new psychology, sir—”
“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips curved
sharply upward at the ends, “not the _new_ psychology, of course.
_Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone living to-day!_”
At this iteration of his own words of the night before his Lordship
stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small but delighted
squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the other end gave away the
secret of pre-arrangement, and a laugh murmured about the table.
Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this very young
lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I took in her appearance,
I became almost intuitively aware of another gaze making an angle with
mine. Cosgrove was staring at her, so enigmatically that I removed my
glance from her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with
a quick little movement of her head. Vastly _interested_, totally
engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of his
interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I guessed his to
be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed fascinated, yet scandalized.
Then the fleeting expression was gone, and he leaned back, turned to
his neighbour.
Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on Cosgrove!
Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. The ends of
the table, however, were broad enough to seat two of our numerous
party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the foot with a youth of sturdy
appearance. Bob Cullen completed the American group among us. His
alert eyes had the queer habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he
possessed also a pug nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless
and determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of
“Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He was
very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had happened to
overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” addressed with
schoolboy gruffness to Alberta Pendleton, who smiled on him with
aunt-like approbation. He has attended for a year, I understand, one
of the great American universities.
He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s regard rested
in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. The American youth’s
face went unwontedly white, and his eyes, now wide open, glared. There
was nothing puzzled in his expression, only resentment and a vague
awe, as if he knew he confronted a better man than he.
Then Cosgrove shifted, and the drama of three seconds, which has taken
three pages to describe, was over.
Chairs scraped; we rose to our several heights. “Lib” and Bob were
distinctly the shortest among us, and Doctor Aire was not much taller.
But the physician, standing up, was the strangest creature in the
room—a clockwork man.
That broad-shouldered body in the tweed-suiting was boiler-shaped, and
the long, gaunt arms and short, stodgy legs, seemed casual appendages
joined at convenient locations. Atop this mechanical contrivance his
head stuck like an absurd plaster carving on a pedestal. I could not
but feel a queer, half-repugnant sensation when, on my being
introduced to him, his yellowy, almost Chinese-looking face was close
to mine, and I saw only the blue shadows where his eyes had retreated
and the narrow-lipped mouth nigh to white in its bloodlessness.
I looked about to be presented to the pair of young Americans; they
had already skipped out of the room.
“Since it’s still raining and we’re tired of the things we’ve been
doing anyhow, we’re going to get Doctor Aire to tell us about the old
magic in this neighbourhood,” said Alberta.
“That will be frightfully jolly,” I remarked, surprised at the bizarre
field of knowledge evidently studied by the physician.
“I’m afraid it will be, as you say, ‘frightfully jolly,’” remarked
Doctor Aire, with his smile at the very ends of his mouth. “I’m not
sure the subject—in view of events—”
“Why not the new magic instead?” asked Crofts.
Doctor Aire turned his head sharply; I almost expected to hear a
ratchet click. “What’s that?”
“The stuff in old Watts’ attic, I mean. We’ve found a conjurer’s
outfit there, Doctor. Why not give ’em a show? That performance of
yours at Coventry was as good as any professional’s.”
“Oh, we’ll settle that in the Hall,” smiled Alberta. “Come along, Mr.
Bannerlee.”
“But I want him here,” objected Crofts. “We’re going to examine the
servants.”
“You really want me?” I exclaimed. “But I don’t know your
servants—haven’t seen but four of ’em yet.”
“That’s just it,” he explained. “I want someone to be here who can get
a good unprejudiced impression of how they behave.”
“Well, if I can assist—”
“But have you asked Mr. Bannerlee if he _wants_ to stay and listen to
the silly—”
Crofts besought me. “Oh, come, Bannerlee, you know as much as Doctor
Aire does about magic—you with your antiquities.”
“On the contrary, it is one of the fields where I have done very
little spading, but—”
“There, see,” smiled Alberta.
“But I was going to say that this interrogation of yours sounds
particularly interesting. I’ll stay, if you don’t mind, Alberta.”
“Of course not,” laughed Pendleton’s good-natured wife. “I only tried
to protect you. Crofts is a fearfully long-winded inquisitor.”
“I think I am the best judge—” began he, but the door closed, cutting
short his speech and her laugh.
There were thirteen servants in the room when the tale was made. The
dessert dishes from luncheon had not been removed. Crofts sat at the
head of the board; I was inconspicuous in the curtained recess of the
window where Belvoir had sat at breakfast-time.
From this vantage-point I had my first glimpse of the grounds
immediately east of the House. I saw an unexpected lawn with lovely
flower-patches extending to the kitchen-gardens. On both sides were
topless and toppled walls much gnawed by time, clearly a portion of
the ancient, much vaster edifice of which Highglen House is a
survival. A group of well-preserved square stone buildings about
thirty yards away on my right were, of course, the stables and garage.
The half-dozen women-servants and two elderly men-servants, besides
the magisterial Blenkinson, were in chairs along the inner side of the
room, while the other men stood with marked differences of composure
before the screens that guarded the entrance to the pantries and the
kitchen. The number of “below-stairs” folk would have been much
greater, of course, had not the Pendletons requested their guests not
to bring personal servants. Thus we men all valeted ourselves, and for
the ladies the staff of maids had to “go round.”
Pendleton began bluntly: “It’s about this foolishness of Parson
Lolly.”
Blenkinson lifted the lid of one eye, the better to observe the master
of the House. “And did you mean to say, sir, if I may make so bold,
that any of _us_ have anything to do with the honfortunate affair?”
“Everything, everything!” said Crofts, and to allay a hum of dismay
and dignity offended, hastily added, “Oh, don’t misunderstand, please.
I mean just this: this Parson Lolly—this ridiculous Parson Lolly—of
course, we don’t believe in any such nonsense. What I want to do is to
get from each one of you, if you can pull yourselves together and give
plain, straightforward statements—I want to find the origin of this
folk-tale—this fairy-story—from each one of you—that is—do you see?”
“Can’t say as we do—speakin’ for me at least,” drawled a
gaunt tawny-faced man in a leather coat and vest and corduroy
riding-breeches, a cartridge-belt hanging over his arm. His voice had
the pleasant modulation of this countryside, with a little chirruppy
uptilt at the end of each phrase.
“Hughes, I expected—you see, of course, that it’s that common talk of
you—all of you—and such as you, that spreads such wild, romantic, and
unfounded legends through the countryside. Now, a man four hundred
years old—which of you has seen such a man?”
“If I may hinterpose,” came in Blenkinson again, “I might remind you,
sir, that most of us are not of Welsh extraction. These foolish
stories don’t ’ave much credit with us from London and other parts,
you may be sure.”
This speech was approved by vigorous nods on the part of several,
while three or four, the darker-faced and smaller ones, glowered for a
bit, particularly two of the women, strikingly handsome and strikingly
alike. Old Finlay the gardener smiled with sublime sarcasm, such as to
elicit a question from Pendleton.
“I was thinkin’ as how they was all flummoxed and flabbergasted last
night. It tickle me—that it do. They fules!” The ancient slapped his
knee and burst into a silent guffaw. “Why, they tales—”
“One moment, Finlay,” said Pendleton; “we must go through this in an
orderly way.”
“Sir,” Blenkinson cautioned.
“Oh, yes, yes, of course—what you say is very true—forgotten about
it.” Pendleton scratched his head, saw light suddenly. “Why, of
course, er—most of you are English, not British—”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Not Welsh—same thing. I suppose, then—there won’t be much—well, let’s
see how much we do know. I’ll take you in turn.”
He spoke to the men standing by the screen. “Wheeler, Tenney,
Morgan—any of you had any, er, experiences in the stables? Wheeler?”
“No, sir,” answered a young, rubicund fellow with a swollen and
discoloured cheek and blue-ringed eye. (He drove the Pendleton car.)
“Nothing but when we were called out last night.”
“Where did you get that eye?”
“Fell over pitchfork, sir, and hit the side of a stall.”
“Tenney, you?”
“No, sir.” He who answered was a tired-looking man, whose eyelids were
most of the time let down. The two words, his total contribution to
the inquiry, were drawn out to the length of polysyllables.
“Morgan, you’re a Welshman from around this district. You must have a
lot of these old wives’ tales simmering inside that head of yours.”
The man, a swart, square-bearded little man, speaking with the
sing-song of local accent, answered that he had heard tell of Parson
Lolly “out of the cradle.”
“I’ve no doubt—ignorant folly,” commented Pendleton. “Well, what is
all this nonsense?”
“You mean about Parson Lolly, sir?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“Well, sir, they do say he be the biggest of the farises and he be out
of sight of any man for age.”
“Farises?”
“He means the fairies, sir,” interpreted one of the women, a mite of a
person sitting on the edge of her chair, with a wisp of tartan colour
at the throat of her black lady’s maid’s uniform.
“Eh? Oh, Ardelia, thanks,” exclaimed Pendleton, while the stableman
Morgan mumbled something about the propriety of a “not Welshly
person’s” keeping still, and one of the two handsome women gave
her small fellow-servant an unsisterly look and ejaculated,
“Hop-o’-my-thumb!”
“Go on, Morgan,” bade Pendleton, quieting a general stir.
The ensuing account was full of omens and transformation, of black
calves and fairy ovens, of wizard marks, sucking pigs, “low winds,”
and horses ridden by the “goblin trot” in stables at night.
“Great Scott, man! Do you believe all this?”
The “London servants” and those from other parts tittered.
Morgan seemed to be weighing his words. “Well, that be hard to say,
sir.”
“What’s hard about it? Don’t you know what believing is?”
“Right well I do, sir, but—”
The small Ardelia woman with the fleck of colour at her collar bobbed
forward. “If he can’t say it, I’ll say it for him. Sometimes he does
believe, and sometimes he doesn’t. Now, Saul Morgan, say if ’tisn’t
so.”
The stableman gave her a critical glare, but assented. “That’s nigh
the way of it, as Miss Lacy says, sir.”
“Well!” snorted the interlocutor. “Sometimes you do and sometimes you
don’t! And what causes these changes of front?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“What makes you believe—”
“Well, sir, sometimes it’s right dark outside, you understand, and
things or somethin’ you can’t see—well, they—”
“What, the things you can’t see?”
“Yes, sir. They have a way of surely creepin’ in your blood, if you
understand what I mean, sir.”
“Yes,” said Pendleton, settling back, and, I thought, shivering a
little, “I suppose I do.”
Morgan, on account of his complete and ingenuous exegesis of the lore
of Parson Lolly, the object of much ironic commiseration from the
“Londoners,” pulled out a florid handkerchief and wiped the beads from
his brow. He stole a half-ashamed glance at the diminutive Ardelia
Lacy, whose wide disapproving eyes made him squirm and shrink.
Pendleton turned to the women ranged along the wall, whose examination
was shorter. Harmony, Em, and Jael, minxes with buxom bodies and good
fresh faces, were “not Welshly people,” and had no traditions of
Parson Lolly in their mental make-up, but they evidently had some
respect for him born of the stories of indigenous servants. Harmony’s
troubled look showed, to be sure, that she was remembering painfully
to keep the secret of the new announcement of the Parson, but by none
save Crofts and me was her embarrassment marked. Ardelia Lacy, minute
and prim, personal maid of Alberta Pendleton, was also a “Londoner.”
The two dark-featured, vivacious women, were the “Clays,” Rosa and
Ruth, cook and housekeeper, nieces, it appeared, of Hughes. Rosa Clay
it was who had shown a little animosity toward the “foreign” Ardelia,
indicating possibly a rivalry in respect to the favour of Morgan the
stableman. They knew of no doings of Parson Lolly prior to the arrival
of the guests for the Bidding Feast.
There remained three men-servants grouped in chairs about the foot of
the table: Blenkinson the staid, Soames, footman, with mutton-chops
and unction, and old Finlay the gardener with his irrepressible silent
guffaws. And in the background against the screen loomed the figure of
the man in out-of-doors clothing and cartridge-belt, the gamekeeper.
Crofts looked at Soames and Blenkinson reflectively, but passed them
as already examined. He raised his eyes.
“How about you, Hughes?”
“_What_ about me, sir?” Again the keeper’s voice betrayed his kinship
of race with Morgan.
“You, too, have this mythology of the Parson pat, like Morgan?”
“Well, sir, I hardly think Morgan had it ‘pat,’ as you say,” answered
the man, turning the eyes in his motionless head toward the stableman,
who muttered something unintelligible. “I don’t think he was very well
taught, sir—things mixed up, or something, and things that didn’t
belong there, you might say. Now, as it was always told me—I come from
down Powys-way, sir—”
“You surprise me, Hughes, a man of your age and sense. Now, what about
this? While the House was empty and you and the rest were caretaking,
what signs were of Parson Lolly then? I don’t mean larks and pigeons—I
mean real evidence lying around, or real activity.”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Not anywhere in the preserve? Not in the whole estate?”
“No, sir. Nothing used to happen until you brought down the folk that
are here now.”
“I see, I see. And you know nothing of the cause of the disturbances
of the last few days?”
There was an ominous pause, while Hughes seemed to be considering his
words. The room grew a little tenser; Pendleton looked up in surprise.
“What! You do!”
“Well, sir, I might say so; it’s connected with what I’ve heard about
Parson Lolly. But it’s an old story, sir—tells about the great lord
who built the castle that was here.”
“Ha! it does? About Sir Pharamond Kay?”
“It’s sure to, sir.”
“Sir Pharamond—hm—built this castle—exactly—well, come on, man; what
is this?”
Contrasted with Morgan’s, that was a thoroughly intelligible tale the
tall keeper recited in his voice with the mellow burr and up-ended
sentences. Under those conditions of semi-darkness and suspense in the
old, black-beamed chamber, it made a thoroughly moving story. And to
one who knew the rigours and alarums of feudatory existence, who
realized the ingrown awe of their masters felt by peasants with a long
tradition of ancestral servitude to imperious Lords Marchers, it was
quite obvious what a foothold in fact this tale of enchantments must
have had. For from his youth, or ever that most ancient castle up the
Vale was destroyed, Sir Pharamond Kay had been a wizard, and between
him and Parson Lolly, then presumably a magnus in the prime of his
powers, existed a rivalry shrewd and unflagging!
Wizards, to be sure, are not born but made, and Sir Pharamond went
through complicated and profound measures to acquire his occult
influence. This was before he had achieved his turbulent lordship, and
his father ruled all Aidenn Forest with mailed fist. Sir Pharamond
first unbaptized himself by three times spewing out water from the
Holy Well. Then he stitched up his own lips with three stitches and
for a certain space fasted and remained dumb. When he had unsealed his
mouth again, he went by himself to a lonely room and did certain rites
with a Bible, a fire, and a circle drawn with blood upon the floor,
whereafter the Bible was ashes and Sir Pharamond, as he well deserved,
was a true and certified wizard.
All this while Parson Lolly, whose sphere of influence included Aidenn
Forest, had been watching the career of the ambitious necromancer with
baleful interest, and now the older magician believed that he must try
conclusions with the usurper or be shorn of his potency in this
region. In the guise of a skipping hare he invaded the castle, and
having come into the presence of its lord, suddenly assumed his wizard
shape and challenged Sir Pharamond to a contest for supremacy. This
took place at the Four Stones (monuments of an eldern time still
standing lonely in a field-corner some miles beyond the mouth of the
Vale) and the Lord of Aidenn proved to have an Evil Eye so strong the
Parson was put to rout. In the form of a buzzard he fled to the
desolate summit of Black Mixen at the top of Aidenn Forest. But Sir
Pharamond, having assumed the shape of a small caterpillar, clung with
all his legs between the shoulders of the bird and reconfronted his
rival when he alighted where The Riggles are now. Those enormous
scratches are the marks of his buzzard-claws.
Then when the Parson strove with powers enforced by the deadly fear he
was in, the tide of battle turned. On that solitary hilltop, moreover,
the elemental influences were on the side of the older magician. With
a dart of his beak the Parson sank a deep wound in the cheek of Sir
Pharamond, destroying the efficacy of his Evil Eye. Then it was the
Lord of Aidenn’s time to flee, and he escaped to the innermost black
sanctuary of his castle.
But Parson Lolly overthrew the castle, whose skeleton of clay slate
chunks lies wasting up the Vale to this day.
Thenceforth, although Sir Pharamond lived on, his magic was only the
shadow of what it had been, and he lived in perpetual dread of Parson
Lolly. He built him a new castle where the mill had stood, and where
Highglen House stands to-day. But he never found content within his
re-erected halls. The menace of the Parson hung over his days and
nights. Whenever in his woeful heart he meditated regaining his former
ascendancy, from the cheek of his portrait on the wall blood would run
and in his own cheek he would feel overwhelming pain, as when the
Parson had driven his buzzard-beak into the flesh.
“One moment!” interjected Crofts. “Do you mean the painting in the
corridor?”
“No, sir; it’s that little one way up on the wall of the Hall of the
Moth as I mean.”
“Ah!” My host licked somewhat dry lips. “Go on.”
“There’s not so much more to it, sir, I expect. The Parson finally
_would_ make an end of Sir Pharamond. He sent Sir Pharamond’s own
corpse-candle for Sir Pharamond to see.”
“Corpse-candle!”
“A dimmery light, sir—it floats in the air. It’s a sure sign of a
death in these parts. And the Tolaeth sounded, too; so Sir Pharamond
knew then that it was all up with him.”
“The Tolaeth—I don’t think I know what that means,” said Crofts. The
Welsh folk stirred just a little.
The keeper’s voice fell, I do not think by design. “The rappin’s, sir,
that come just before a person dies. Tappin’, sir, like—”
Our hearts were in our throats while he finished the speech in a
sudden gasp—“like that.”
For from the other side of the corridor wall, high toward the ceiling,
had sounded three sharp knocks.
And again, before a breath was taken in the room, three knocks
again—and again.
“It’s the Three Thumps.” Morgan’s voice was that of a strangling man.
“Coffin-making,” muttered one of the Clay sisters, her eyes lightless.
I saw Crofts’ glance flit about the room, taking in the whole group.
I, too, had thought of collusion, but the number of servants was
complete; none had slipped out while the keeper’s story was in
progress.
Crofts remained irresolute for only a few seconds before he jumped up
and sprang to the door, flung it open and glared down the corridor.
“Empty,” he said, and I could not tell whether satisfaction or
distress was uppermost in his voice. Then the silence for a bit was
blank and appalling. He returned to the table. “Get on with your
story, Hughes. We’ll find out about this fol-de-rol later.”
“Well, sir, the Lord of Aidenn was sure to fight the Parson again when
the signs had come. He still tried to get back his magic power, and
the blood stood out on the picture and the pain came in his cheek. But
he knew that it was life-and-death, and he kept repeating his spells
and made a man of wax against the Parson. But just as he was going to
drive a bodkin through the man of wax, the pain of his old wound made
him stagger, and everyone heard the Parson laughing though they
couldn’t see him, and the portrait fell down from the wall—and Sir
Pharamond was dead!”
All of us, I believe, drew a long, grateful breath. Crofts sat
quietly, seeming to cogitate.
At length he said, “Look here, Hughes. That’s a priceless fairy-tale,
but what makes you think it may have any connection with what’s going
on here?”
The keeper hunched a shoulder toward the corridor wall. “You’ve just
heard that, sir. And if there _is_ a Parson Lolly, sir—”
Crofts leapt in the breach to nullify this dangerous beginning. “We’ll
not discuss such a preposterous supposition.”
“They do say, sir,” appended Hughes, “that blood will come on the face
of the picture when the time comes for Highglen House to be
destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“Yes, sir. By Parson Lolly.”
There was no denying that Hughes had scored several palpable hits,
besides the unaccountable business of the knocking on the wall, and
Crofts was glad to dismiss him, so to speak, from the witness-box.
I, seated in the embrasure of the window a little way behind
Pendleton, had an unobstructed view of the upper iron-bound door
leading into the portrait-corridor. While, then, I happened to glance
at the substantial iron handle of the door, for it had no knob, the
roots of my hair stirred and a thrill shot down my spine.
For, very slowly, the black bar was turning while something outside
softly pressed downward on the handle.
The fascination that took hold of me then was almost hypnotic. I
forgot the room, the people there, the cracked fleering voice of the
old gardener; all that existed for me then was the slowly descending
bar. To call attention to the thing never so much as occurred to me.
Nothing occurred to me. When the bolt of the lock had been drawn back,
the door began to open with imperceptible motion—an inch—two
inches—and was at rest. The handle gradually returned to its
horizontal position. It seemed as if I had taken only one breath
during those four or five minutes.
Crofts’ questioning went on, and little by little I came out from the
spell of the door, which remained ajar. The questioning went on, with
some secret listener outside in the passage. Still I held silence,
for, clouded with excitement as was my mind in those minutes, the
notion of danger did not possess me. I kept my eyes on the motionless
door, dreading that it might open further, distinctly unwilling to see
what it might disclose—and the questioning went on.
Pendleton was learning nothing from Finlay; I was vaguely aware that
the old gardener was fencing with the over-anxious Crofts.
Then a thing occurred to relieve the tension: from the kitchen entry
came sound of hurried movement, of a dish falling to the floor, and
presently was visible the tousled head of a boy peering around the
edge of the screen, a head surprised into a gape by sight of the
assemblage.
“Come in, Toby,” said Crofts. “We’re—”
“I just got back, sir, with Mr. Bannerlee’s bag and all. Oh, sir,”
cried the head, bringing its body into the room, “the Water’s swellin’
awfully from the rain—”
His hair was quite tangential, and his shoes and clothing bore marks
of the storm. An ulster dangled both ends from his shoulders. He was
breathing hard with exertion added to stress of spirit.
Pendleton began to explain to him: “We are trying to clear up this
business of—”
“I waited under ellum, till the rain stopped,” persisted the excited
lad. “It went under old bridge with a roar and a roar. I misdoubt—”
The exciting thought of the door softly released and pushed ajar had
grown weaker in my mind upon the entrance of Toby. But again my eyes
chanced to light upon the portal, and again my blood rushed pell-mell
through a throbbing temple. For, unless my senses were false, the door
trembled a little, as if uncertain whether to open farther or to shut.
The secret watcher’s hand must be upon it still!
In a daze I arose and came out of my retirement in the window-place.
“Crofts,” I said. . . . “Crofts.”
So hushed was my voice that he spun around in his chair with open
mouth, and the servants’ chorus gave a slight gasp.
I tried to open a path through my throat for words to issue.
“Crofts . . . there’s something—someone, I mean—watching us.”
“How? What on earth do you mean? What’s the matter with you?”
I extended my arm toward where showed a long narrow slit of blackness
between jamb and door-edge.
“There.”
“How do you know?”
My courage was small, but I summoned more to add to what I had. “I saw
the door opened from the passageway. I tell you this inquiry has been
overheard.”
I strode toward the door, while from behind me came the scrape of
Crofts rising to his feet, and the rustle of the servants. Open that
door I would, if the fourfold centenarian himself were waiting outside
to do me mischief. But I believed, and would not have been sorry to
discover, that the unknown visitant had by this time fled, and with
this hope upholding me I gripped the handle-piece and jerked the
portal open.
But no! A man stood in the corridor.