Free Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly Page B

mortifying for Gamadge, to have people saying that his wife was weak in the head.
    She applied herself seriously to her puzzle, and worked at it for what seemed to her a long time. Her watch said twenty minutes past twelve, then half past twelve, then twenty minutes to one. She felt thirsty, thought of going to the kitchen for ice water, and suddenly realized that she was afraid to get up and walk out into the lighted dining room. She was afraid to move from her chair.
    I’ve read about this, she thought. This is what happens to people who sit up all night in a haunted house; it gets them. Anything can happen. People don’t wake when you call, or they’re all dead.
    She was still gazing at her watch, which seemed to have stopped; or had all these thoughts rushed through her mind in a few seconds, and was it still twenty minutes to one? There was a small sound like something dropping to the floor, and she raised her eyes in time to see the sealed door swing open, pushed by a brownish hand at the end of an arm clad in faded purple. It was there, against a screen of darkness; shapeless and faceless in its black-sprigged garment and its collapsed sunbonnet, it seemed to dominate the room.
    If it comes in I shall go out of my mind, thought Clara. I shall go out of my mind if I see its face. But it did not come in, it was there only a moment; it faded or moved aside, it was no longer in the doorway; it had retreated as if before Clara’s presence, as if unable to enter the room while she sat staring at it.
    For a few seconds Clara’s head went forward almost to her knees; then the dizziness left her, and with her eyes again on the black oblong of the doorway she struggled to her feet. Still watching the empty place where the figure had stood, she walked stiffly to the door that led into the dining room; there, clinging to the frame, she tried to scream for Hunter. His door was shut, but somebody must hear her. She screamed wildly.
    She thought she would never hear sounds in the house, but at last Hunter came at a run through the living room. In his shirt sleeves and his black dress-trousers, what did he look like? A duelist? He was across the dining room in two seconds, and had her by the elbows; she clutched him, her eyes still on the blackness beyond the open door.
    â€œClara—what is it?” He was staring over her shoulder at that incredible gateway to mystery and night.
    â€œShe came, she came! The woman in the sunbonnet!”
    â€œWho opened that door?”
    â€œShe did.”
    He frowned, and turned his head to the left.
    â€œShe’s all right,” gasped Clara. “The woman didn’t come in. Miss Radford’s all right.”
    But Hunter, still looking at the bed, was frowning even more heavily. He asked: “Will you be all right for a moment? You won’t fall?”
    â€œNo.”
    He left her leaning against the doorframe, and went past her and up to the bedside. Clara, watching him, saw him stand there, looking down; saw him bend slightly, saw his face change. Then he just put out a hand and touched Miss Radford’s, which lay along the counterpane. He turned and came back to Clara.
    â€œCome out of here, my poor child.”
    â€œWe can’t leave her! We must fasten that door shut!”
    â€œNothing can hurt her now.”
    â€œPhineas—you don’t mean… She was all right!”
    â€œShe’s dead. She’s been killed.”
    â€œThat thing never came into the room. I never took my eyes off it or off the doorway except for a few seconds when I got dizzy, nothing could have happened in just those seconds, I should have known.” Her words were running together. Hunter got her into the dining room, into the easy chair. Fanny came running down, Maggie lumbered in her wake.
    â€œGet her some whiskey, you two,” Clara heard him say. “Get her to bed. Wait a minute, give her some of the luminal with the whiskey.