Free Nebulon Horror by Hugh Cave

captive frog. Then this curious business of the door that wasn't a door and was opened but not passed through. Now this about the mayor's boy, Raymond. Children, all. All the same age, too. All in the same second grade at Lois Ellstrom's school. The second-grade teacher was a Miss Aube, wasn't she? Yes. Quite an attractive young woman. She had come to see him a couple of weeks ago, complaining of recurring headaches.
    Willard Ellstrom came back into the room and sat down. "What do you think, Norman?"
    "About what's going on? I haven't a clue."
    "No, I meant Lois."
    "She's overwrought. Just too much happening in one day. I think she'll snap out of it after a good night's sleep."
    Willard was obviously relieved. "What did you want to see me about? You said on the phone—"
    "Yes. I'd been talking to the little Jansen girl about her frequent visits to old Gustave's house. It seems she plays there a lot. She told me some things about the place that made me downright curious, and I suddenly remembered you'd taken some pictures there." For months Willard Ellstrom had been photographing Nebulon's places of interest for a book his wife was doing on the history of the town. "You did get inside, didn't you?" Doc asked.
    "I did, finally."
    "Elizabeth wasn't cooperative?"
    "Elizabeth was adamantly uncooperative until I happened to touch a weak spot. She had a photo of her sister Ellyn, the one who died in that hardware store fire. It hung on a wall in the living room. On one of my visits I just happened to remark that she ought to have it enlarged and properly framed, and when I said I'd be glad to do it for her, I was in."
    "She let you take any pictures you wanted? Even in those locked rooms I've been hearing about?"
    "No, not those. Are they locked? I thought they were just closed up. I did take some shots in that part of the house, however."
    "You mean there's a whole section of the place she doesn't use?"
    "The whole back of the house upstairs. Yes. I wanted a shot of the staircase from above. It was made by hand, each baluster separately carved. So she took me up there, and while I was there I managed a shot in the master bedroom at the front, the one she uses. But she said the rooms at the rear were empty."
    "Do you have those pictures here, Will?"
    "Yes, I do." Crossing the room to a low bookcase that ran along two thirds of the opposite wall, Willard returned with a thick folder of prints, which he placed in Doc's hands. They were large prints, nine by eleven at least. "Wonderful," Doc said as he took his time over them, studying every detail.
    "I got a bit carried away," Willard said. "We won't use more than one or two in the book, of course. But that's a fascinating old house."
    "I can see." What Doc was seeing was a huge living room—or was it called a parlor?—filled with old, dark furniture, a dining room with furnishings of the same vintage, a kitchen that appeared to be a blend of two eras, a staircase with a remarkable balustrade, a bedroom almost as vast as the living room, and finally one photo that appeared to have gone wrong somehow. "What happened to this one?" he asked.
    "The negative appears to be light-struck. I don't know how it happened. The rest of the roll was all right, as you can see."
    "This is that upstairs hall?"
    "Yes. Looking back from the doorway of her bedroom. I wanted the doors of those shut-up rooms, if only for a conversation piece."
    It had to be the upstairs hall, Doc realized. The top of the staircase was visible at one side. Beyond the stairs on the same side he could just make out two closed doors. On the other side he thought he could distinguish two or even three more, but could not be sure because of the defect. The latter was a misty blur in the middle of the print. It gave Doc an idea, and he chuckled.
    "You should use this in the book. Say the old house is spooked and you have a photo to prove it."
    "It does look like a person, doesn't it? I think what happened, I took these on a