United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A dozen or so feet west of the stair-well two doors opened upon the lateral passage. They were directly opposite each other; the front room having been the one occupied by Maillot the previous night, while the other was Burke's.
I strode along in a deep, moody revery, unconsciously scanning each in turn of the absurdly small footprints. I unfolded it. The sheet bore a roughly sketched floor plan of some house's interior. There was a wide hall, a square stair-well, and three or four rooms. One of the rooms the smallest had been designated by a cross. All at once I uttered a little cry.
He was about to speak when he heard footsteps in the upper hall. His grandfather glanced inquiringly through the stair-well, asking: "Who's that up there?" The sharp tone confessed that fear of the Cedars was active in the warped brain. "The district attorney," Bobby answered, "a detective, probably Hartley Graham." "What they doing here?" He indicated Paredes. "What's this fellow doing here?
The carpet between these two points plainly showed signs of a recent struggle, and at the western vortex of the angle formed by the balustrade surrounding the stair-well, innumerable drops of congealed paraffin were scattered widely over the floor. And the railing itself also held a record.
The next instant she had stepped out to the stairs and called: "Karl!" There was no reply. Smith came out to the stair-well and listened. "It is his custom," she whispered, "to lock his door before retiring. That is what we heard." "Call again." "He can’t hear me. He is in bed." "Call, all the same." "Karl!" she cried out in an unsteady voice.
Holden and Johnny Simms came clattering down from the control-room together. They looked excited. They plunged together toward the stair-well that would take them to the deck on which the airlock opened. Holden panted, "Jed! Creatures outside! They look like men!" The communicator-screen faithfully monitored the end of the commercial.
He was up and about his room early. The odor of baking muffins and frying ham came up the stair-well, and the sound of Mike vigorously polishing the floor in the hall. Mixed with the odor of cooking and of floor wax was the scent of flowers from Lucy's room, and Mrs. Sayre's machine stopped at the door while the chauffeur delivered a great mass of roses.
Innes's room, like Clint's, faced the stair-well, being also Number 14, and from behind the closed door came a babel of voices. "Full house tonight," observed Amy, knocking thunderously. But the knocking wasn't heard inside and, after a moment, Amy turned the knob and walked in, followed by Clint.
So the ladders were brought in from outside and put up in the stair-well, and with some difficulty everybody was brought safely up-stairs again.
What she said I didn't hear, or rather didn't grasp, in my wonder at the quality and timbre of that great voice, which, issuing from the folds of the checked apron, seemed fairly to fill the big hall below and the stair-well above with a deep, beautiful sound. I apologized and asked her to repeat what she had said.
Word Of The Day