Francis Stevens - Citadel of Fear

"A queer place and no mistake," muttered Colin; "and I'm thinking that once in the O'Hara may wish himself out again. I wonder has this beast I've chased here anything at all to do with the other matters? Could a monkey, however knowing, have done the things that were performed at the bungalow? No, likely this is an occurrence by itself, and I'll just give the beast's owner a piece of my mind and go home again."

Having reached this conclusion, Colin began to weary of such long waiting. The gate-keeper had now been absent at least a quarter of an hour, and for any evidence of life the Irishman might have been the only human being within miles. Not even a car had passed on the pike behind him. He shifted from one foot to the other and swore softly.

"The white-faced fool has played me some trick!" he grumbled. "Very like 'twas through his fault that the beast got loose, and he's never gone near his precious master."

Well, there was a bell connected with this gate. He had heard it sing. Searching for a moment he located a push-button and set his thumb firmly against it. The bell rang; but it rang inside the ivy-covered heap beside the gate. It was a lodge, then. The shrill clamor sounded so startlingly near and out of place in the silence that Colin hesitated a moment before ringing again.

Was that vague rustling sound from inside the lodge, or was it the wind among the leaves? It ceased after a moment. Colin waited, then as no one came he rang again. For fully five minutes he continued to ring, first steadily, then in long and short assaults on the bell-push. But the noise he made was his sole reward.

Disgusted, and at last really angry, O'Hara drew back from the gate and contemplated the wall. Fully ten feet high it extended right and left in an unbroken barrier.

"My coat to the wall," said Colin, proceeding to take it off, "and I'll soon be over."

The garment with which he intended padding the sharp, wicked-looking spikes was in his hand, and he was about to fling it upward when he arrested his arm and hastily slipped the coat on again. A sound had reached his ear from beyond the gate. Either the gatekeeper was returning or the bell had at last roused someone else to action.

Again he, peered into the grounds. Out of the darkness a figure emerged, walking with a brisk, firm tread, and close behind glimmered the white face and red eyes of his first acquaintance, the gate-keeper. As the newcomer advanced, Colin could perceive, even in the dim, shadow-streaked light, that he was a bearded man, that he wore a pair of round glasses with tortoise rims, and that he was frowning angrily.

"Are you the ruffian who broke that poor brute's arm? Marco, open the gate and have him come in!"

O'Hara was so taken aback by this forestalling of his own complaint that Marco, he of the white face, had time to unlock and swing wide the portals before he could think of any fit reply. But he had no hesitation about entering. In he stalked and confronted the newcomer, while behind him the gates shut, clanging.

"I am the man your beast would have strangled," he began indignantly; "and for why do you let him run wild at night, the way he might have killed me had I been a small, weak man? Strangling at the throat of me when I am meditating in my own dooryard! Or is it that you are training the handsome creature for murder?"

At that the bearded man laughed. His tone was low, amused, with just the faintest hint of a sneer somewhere about it.

"Pray, my dear sir, don't carry your accusation to the point of absurdity. If, as you hint, it was Khan who attacked you first, I owe you an apology. Perhaps we had best go to the house and discuss this quietly. Will you follow me, sir?"

O'Hara hesitated, but only momentarily. He was possessed of a dubious feeling, scarcely amounting to suspicion, that wisdom would carry his feet elsewhere than inward. To O'Hara, however, discretion was ever an uninteresting virtue. When the bearded man led the way into the dark shadows of the trees, after him went Colin.

He was still conscious of a sense of repulsion toward the white-faced gate-keeper, following close at his heels, and of a generally eerie and disagreeable impression. But no doubt this was folly, and no man, not even such a one as this gate-keeper, can help the looks he is born with. As for the ungainly monster he had chased here, it was most likely a valuable pet, whose ferocity might or might not be known to its master.

Barely able to see his way, Colin was not aware that they had approached a house until the drive curved sharply aside and they arrived at an entrance, the light of whose open door was shielded by a deep stone porch and a porte-coch?re , arching above the driveway.

From the look of these he judged the mansion to be one of considerable size and dignity, but whether a private residence or a public institute of some kind, he was not yet able to determine. The three men ascended the steps, passed through the porch, and came into a square, old-fashioned reception hall.

Within the door the master of the house turned to his guest. He was an older man than the latter had at first supposed, for the carefully trimmed Vandyke beard was thickly streaked with gray. But the dark eyes behind the great, round lenses were very bright, his expression was keenly intelligent, and these characteristics, together with his quick, alert way of moving, lent him a deceptive look of youth.

As he stood, Colin noticed that he kept his left hand in the pocket of his coat. He noticed it, because that hand had been in that pocket since the first moment of their meeting. Colin had seen other men's left or right hands concealed in the same consistent manner, and it generally meant one thing.

He himself was unarmed.

"Will you be seated, sir?" inquired the man courteously enough. "I must ask you to excuse me while I give Marco some directions for the setting of Khan's arm. The poor brute is suffering."

O'Hara acquiesced. As Marco passed across the room in his master's wake, the visitor received one quick, full view of him and of his face. The man's singular pallor was explained, for Marco was an albino. He had removed his cap and disclosed a smooth, oval skull, sparsely covered with bristling white hairs.

By this more revealing light, his eyes, that had gleamed red in the shadow-shot gloom, were a reddish pink, and in that one clear glimpse of them O'Hara had a sickening notion that those eyes saw not out but inward. The pupils were like black pin-points.

The effect was as if the man had literally reversed his vision and contemplated not his outer surroundings but the secrets of his own stealthy soul. A childish and an unjust idea, for what had he against Marco save his unfortunate appearance?

Alone in the hall O'Hara looked about with a judging, curious eye. His first impression had been pleasant. The room was agreeably lighted by a hanging fixture, whose translucent, cream-colored globe diffused a mellow radiance. A log glowed in the depths of a fireplace of black dignity and size. The furniture, while severely plain, was good. There was certainly no hint of mystery or danger in that well-lighted, well-ordered, empty hall.

And yet as he stood there, O'Hara was again keenly conscious of the feeling he had experienced on entering the gate. It was as though the very atmosphere were charged with discomfort and some incomprehensible warning. It was indubitably charged beside with a faint but unpleasant odor. Very like it was that which troubled him. He wondered again if Reed kept other beasts than Khan on the premises, and if the bungalow mystery were not indeed near its solution.

A door opened and his host reentered.

"What? Still standing?" began the man, but Colin broke in on his hospitable protestations-which might have seemed more friendly had not that left hand remained in ambiguous concealment.