Free Hell House by Richard Matheson Page B

think.
    She was about to change the subject when there was a loud knocking on the front door. Edith, who was drinking coffee, spilled some as her hand jerked. Barrett smiled at her. "Our generator, I imagine, And a carpenter, I hope."
    Standing, he picked up his candle holder and cane and started toward the great hall. He stopped to look back at Edith. "Well, I guess it's safe to leave you long enough to answer the door," he said after a few moments.
    He crossed the great hall and moved into the entry hall. Opening the front door, he saw Deutsch's representative standing on the porch, coat collar raised, an umbrella in his hand. To Barrett's surprise, he saw that it was raining.
    "I've got your generator and your carpenter," the man said.
    Barrett nodded. "What about the cat?"
    "That too."
    Barrett smiled with satisfaction. Now he could move.
    1:17 P.M.
    The lights went on, and, in unison, all four uttered sounds of pleasure. "I'll be damned," said Fischer. They exchanged spontaneous smiles. "I never thought electric lights could look so good," Edith said.
    Bathed with light, the great hall was another place entirely. Now its size seemed regal rather than ominous. No longer black with looming shadows, it was a massive chamber in some art museum, and not a haunted cavern. Edith looked at Fischer. He was obviously pleased, his posture different, apprehension cleansed from his eyes. She looked at Florence, who was sitting with the cat on her lap. The lights on, she thought. That cat resting peacefully. She smiled. It didn't seem like a haunted house at all now.
    She gasped as the lights flickered, went out, then on again. Immediately, they began to dim. "Oh, no," she murmured.
    "Easy," Barrett said. "They'll get it."
    A minute later, the lights were bright and steady. When another minute passed without a change, Barrett smiled. "There, you see?"
    Edith nodded. Her relief had ended, though. From relaxed assurance, she had fallen back to a nagging dread that, any second, they might once more be in darkness.
    Florence looked at Fischer, caught his eye, and smiled at him. He did not return it. Idiots, he thought. Some bulbs go on, and they all think the danger's over.
    1:58 P.M.
    The cabinet had been constructed in the northeast corner of the great hall by the installation of an eight-foot-long round wooden bar between the walls. A pair of heavy green draperies was hanging from the bar on rings, forming a triangular enclosure seven feet high. Inside the enclosure was a straight-backed wooden armchair.

22
    Barrett edged aside the draperies on each side until there was an opening in the middle large enough to accommodate a small wooden table he had asked Fischer to carry in. Pushing the table in front of the opening, he placed on top of it a tambourine, a small guitar, a tea bell, and a length of rope. He looked at the cabinet appraisingly for several moments, then turned to the others.
    They watched as he rummaged through the contents of the wooden chest from which he'd gotten the rope, tea bell, guitar, and tambourine. He lifted out a pair of black tights and a black long-sleeved smock and held them out to Florence. "I believe they'll fit," he said.
    Florence stared at him.
    "You don't object, do you?"
    "Well—"
    "You know it's standard procedure."
    "Yes, but"—Florence hesitated, then went on—"as a precaution against fraud."
    "Primarily."
    Florence's smile was awkward. "Surely you don't think I'm capable of perpetrating fraud with a form of mediumship I didn't even know I had before last night."
    "I'm not implying that, Miss Tanner. It's simply that I must maintain a standard. If I don't, the results of the sitting are scientifically unacceptable."
    Finally she sighed. "Very well." She took the tights and smock, looked around, then went inside the cabinet to change, pulling the draperies together. Barrett turned to Edith. "Would you examine her, my dear?" he asked. Bending over the box, he lifted out a spool of black thread