The bed quivered an instant at the shock, but the unholy spell
was lifted from his soul and Jim Shorthouse sprang out of bed and across
the floor in a single bound. He knew that ghastly murder had been
done--the murder by a father of his son.
With shaking fingers but a determined heart he lit the gas, and the
first thing in which his eyes corroborated the evidence of his ears was
the horrifying detail that the lower portion of the partition bulged
unnaturally into his own room. The glaring paper with which it was
covered had cracked under the tension and the boards beneath it bent
inwards towards him. What hideous load was behind them, he shuddered to
think.
All this he saw in less than a second. Since the final lurch against the
wall not a sound had proceeded from the room, not even a groan or a
foot-step. All was still but the howl of the wind, which to his ears
had in it a note of triumphant horror.
Shorthouse was in the act of leaving the room to rouse the house and
send for the police--in fact his hand was already on the door-knob--when
something in the room arrested his attention.
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