Free Within That Room! by John Russell Fearn

phenomena’? But what the heck! After this evening, and we were only in the room a few minutes, we were nearly laid out.” He scowled in front of him and bit the ends of his fingers, a habit from the days when he had released bombs on Berlin. “No trace of— Vera’s got to hear of this!”
    He rolled out of bed and went for his dressing gown; then he slowed up and sighed, rubbed his tousled hair.
    â€œBetter not,” he muttered. “Get back to bed, you dope!”
    Disconsolate, he returned to his position between the sheets; but he was definitely awakened. The glaring fact that psychic experts had examined that room at leisure during the ghost’s absence and had failed to find a thing wrong with it was full of deep significance. It meant—
    â€œEither,” Dick whispered, “the evil influence didn’t operate in the days when this was written, or else it is a sort of induced horror! Induced? Why not? And that ties up somewhere. Something I’ve seen—done—felt.”
    He gave it up. The notion he had drifting in the back of his mind refused to be tempted out. He looked at the book’s flyleaf and found that it had been published in 1912. “Still, an evil influence could hardly come on slowly. It is one of those phenomena that should have been as pungent in 1912 as it has been this very evening.”
    He flicked over more pages but found nothing as moving as those other few lines. Finally he scanned the index and studies the various plates referred to. One—“Complete Map of Sunny Acres and District”—took his fancy most, but when he looked for it, he got his second shock.
    It was not there! The map had been torn out. Dick frowned deeply and resumed the biting of his fingernails. His mind, already jarred, had been jarred a good deal more. Of what use could the theft of a map of Sunny Acres and district be to anybody? For it had been theft. Whoever had taken it had not cut it out carefully. It had been torn out violently, hurriedly.
    Dick muttered, “There must be something in the book about it....”
    This new angle impelled him to the book once more and he held it close under the smelly oil lamp. Between spells of heavy yawning, he read stubbornly until at last he alighted on a few relevant sentences:
    â€œSunny Acres—so named because from dawn to sunset some part of the house or grounds is in the sunshine—stands on the rising ground which forms the valley side of Waylock, in the trough of which lies Waylock Dean (See Plate 18...listed in the Gazetteer as a hamlet). The district is rich in minerals and ancient volcanic deposits, while the atmosphere is mainly dry. It has been proven geologically that Sunny Acres has been built right across a now-sealed volcanic seam, and in consequence the grounds of the residence are richly fertile.”
    â€œOnly needs the volcano to erupt and then everybody will be happy,” Dick sighed, closing the book with a bang and relaxing wearily. “The ‘Fall of the House of Usher’ wouldn’t be in it! Rich in minerals and volcanic deposits, eh? See a plate that isn’t there! No psychic phenomena....”
    He forced himself to meditate for a whole, his eyes on the high ceiling. Then again an active idea took possession of him. To his way of thinking, an overcrowded mind needs a tabulated list. He took a notebook and pencil from his coat and began writing:
    â€œNo psychic phenomena. Red-brown ash in cellar. Bad smell. Volcanic deposits. Something seen somewhere which links up....”
    He looked critically at “Bad smell,” then crossed it out, replacing it with “Unpleasant odor.”
    â€œNot that I lay any claim to being a detective,” he explained to himself, as he put the note away; “but there is something in all these incidents that forms a chain. If I could only remember the odd bit that keeps bothering me! Ah, well, I’ll probably