I went back to the lobby, to a recess where I had seen a telephone. The phone was there, but dead. I put it down and set out for Minnie Hershey’s room on the sixth floor. I hadn’t been able to do much with the mulatto so far, but she was apparently devoted to her mistress, and, with the telephone useless, I needed a messenger.

I opened the mulatto’s door—lockless as the others—and went in, closing it behind me. Holding a hand over the lens of my flashlight, I snapped it on. Enough light leaked through my fingers to show me the brown girl in her bed, sleeping. The windows were closed, the atmosphere heavy, with a faint stuffiness that was familiar, the odor of a place where flowers had died.

I looked at the girl in bed. She was on her back, breathing through open mouth, her face more like an Indian’s than ever with the heaviness of sleep on it. Looking at her, I felt drowsy myself. It seemed a shame to turn her out. Perhaps she was dreaming of—I shook my head, trying to clear it of the muddle settling there. Lilies of the valley, moonflowers—flowers that had died—was honeysuckle one of the flowers? The question seemed to be important. The flashlight was heavy in my hand, too heavy. Hell with it: I let it drop. It hit my foot, puzzling me: who had touched my foot? Gabrielle Leggett, asking to be saved from Eric Collinson? That didn’t make sense, or did it? I tried to shake my head again, tried desperately. It weighed a ton, and would barely move from side to side. I felt myself swaying; put out a foot to steady myself. The foot and leg were weak, limber, doughy. I had to take another step or fall, took it, forced my head up and my eyes open, hunting for a place to fall, and saw the window six inches from my face.

I swayed forward till the sill caught my thighs, holding me up. My hands were on the sill. I tried to find the handles on the bottom of the window, wasn’t sure that I had found them, but put everything I had into an upward heave. The window didn’t budge. My hands seemed nailed down. I think I sobbed then; and, holding the sill with my right hand, I beat the glass from the center of the pane with my open left.

Air that stung like ammonia came through the opening. I put my face to it, hanging to the sill with both hands, sucking air in through mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and pores, laughing, with water from my stinging eyes trickling down into my mouth. I hung there drinking air until I was reasonably sure of my legs under me again, and of my eyesight, until I knew myself able to think and move again, though neither speedily nor surely. I couldn’t afford to wait longer. I put a handkerchief over my mouth and nose and turned away from the window.

Not more than three feet away, there in the black room, a pale bright thing like a body, but not like flesh, stood writhing before me.

It was tall, yet not so tall as it seemed, because it didn’t stand on the floor, but hovered with its feet a foot or more above the floor. Its feet—it had feet, but I don’t know what their shape was. They had no shape, just as the thing’s legs and torso, arms and hands, head and face, had no shape, no fixed form. They writhed, swelling and contracting, stretching and shrinking, not greatly, but without pause. An arm drifted into the body, was swallowed by the body, came out again as if poured out. The nose stretched down over the gaping shapeless mouth, shrank back up into the face till it was flush with the pulpy cheeks, grew out again. Eyes spread until they were one gigantic eye that blotted out the whole upper face, diminished until there was no eye, and opened in their places again. The legs were now one leg like a twisting, living pedestal, and then three, and then two. No feature or member ever stopped twisting, quivering, writhing long enough for its average outline, its proper shape, to be seen. The thing was a thing like a man who floated above the floor, with a horrible grimacing greenish face and pale flesh that was not flesh, that was visible in the dark, and that was as fluid and as unresting and as transparent as tidal water.

I knew—then—that I was off-balance from breathing the dead-flower stuff, but I couldn’t—though I tried to—tell myself that I did not see this thing. It was there. It was there within reach of my hand if I leaned forward, shivering, writhing, between me and the door. I didn’t believe in the supernatural—but what of that? The thing was there. It was there and it was not, I knew, a trick of luminous paint, a man with a sheet over him. I gave it up. I stood there with my handkerchief jammed to my nose and mouth, not stirring, not breathing, possibly not even letting my blood run through me. I was there, and the thing was there, and I stayed where I was.

The thing spoke, though I could not say that I actually heard the words: it was as if I simply became, through my entire body, conscious of the words:

“Down, enemy of the Lord God; down on your knees.”

I stirred then, to lick my lips with a tongue drier than they were.

“Down, accursed of the Lord God, before the blow falls.”

An argument was something I understood. I moved my handkerchief sufficiently to say: “Go to hell.” It had a silly sound, especially in the creaking voice I had used.

The thing’s body twisted convulsively, swayed, and bent towards me.

I dropped my handkerchief and reached for the thing with both hands. I got hold of the thing, and I didn’t. My hands were on it, in it to the wrists, into the center of it, and shut on it. And there was nothing in my hands but dampness without temperature, neither warm nor cold.

That same dampness came into my face when the thing’s face floated into mine. I bit at its face—yes—and my teeth closed on nothing, though I could see and feel that my face was in its face. And in my hands, on my arms, against my body, the thing squirmed and writhed, shuddered and shivered, swirling wildly now, breaking apart, reuniting madly in the black air.

Through the thing’s transparent flesh I could see my hands clenched in the center of its damp body. I opened them, struck up and down inside it with stiff crooked fingers, trying to gouge it open; and I could see it being torn apart, could see it flowing together after my clawing fingers had passed; but all I could feel was its dampness.

Now another feeling came to me, growing quickly once it had started—of an immense suffocating weight bearing me down. This thing that had no solidity had weight, weight that was pressing me down, smothering me. My knees were going soft. I spit its face out of my mouth, tore my right hand free from its body and struck up at its face, and felt nothing but its dampness brushing my fist.

I clawed at its insides again with my left hand, tearing at this substance that was so plainly seen, so faintly felt. And then on my left hand I saw something else—blood. Blood that was dark and thick and real covered my hand, dripped from it, running out between my fingers.

I laughed and got strength to straighten my back against the monstrous weight on me, wrenching at the thing’s insides again, croaking: “I’ll gut you plenty.” More blood came through my fingers. I tried to laugh again, triumphantly, and couldn’t, choking instead. The thing’s weight on me was twice what it had been. I staggered back, sagging against the wall, flattening myself against it to keep from sliding down it.

Air from the broken window, cold, pure, bitter, came over my shoulder to sting my nostrils, to tell me—by its difference from the air I had been breathing—that not the thing’s weight, but the poisonous flower-smelling stuff, had been bearing me down.

The thing’s greenish pale dampness squirmed over my face and body. Coughing, I stumbled through the thing, to the door, got the door open, and sprawled out in the corridor that was now as dark as the room I had just left.

As I fell, somebody fell over me. But this was no indescribable thing. It was human. The knees that hit my back were human, sharp. The grunt that blew hot breath in my ear was human, surprised. The arm my fingers caught was human, thin. I thanked God for its thinness. The corridor air was doing me a lot of good, but I was in no shape to do battle with an athlete.

I put what strength I had into my grip on the thin arm, dragging it under me as I rolled over on as much of the rest of its owner as I could cover. My other hand, flung out across the man’s thin body as I rolled, struck something that was hard and metallic on the floor. Bending my wrist, I got my fingers on it, and recognized its feel: it was the over-size dagger with which Riese had been killed. The man I was lolling on had, I guessed, stood beside the door of Minnie’s room, waiting to carve me when I came out; and my fall had saved me, making him miss me with the blade, tripping him. Now he was kicking, jabbing, and butting up at me from his face-down position on the floor, with my hundred and ninety pounds anchoring him there.

Holding on to the dagger, I took my right hand from his arm and spread it over the back of his head, grinding his face into the carpet, taking it easy, waiting for more of the strength that was coming back into me with each breath. A minute or two more and I would be ready to pick him up and get words out of him.

But I wasn’t allowed to wait that long. Something hard pounded my right shoulder, then my back, and then struck the carpet close to our heads. Somebody was swinging a club at me.

I rolled off the skinny man. The club-swinger’s feet stopped my rolling. I looped my right arm above the feet, took another rap on the back, missed the legs with my circling arm, and felt skirts against my hand. Surprised, I pulled my hand back. Another chop of the club—on my side this time—reminded me that this was no place for gallantry. I made a fist of my hand and struck back at the skirt. It folded around my fist: a meaty shin stopped my fist. The shin’s owner snarled above me and backed off before I could hit out again.

Scrambling up on hands and knees, I bumped my head into wood—a door. A hand on the knob helped me up. Somewhere inches away in the dark the club swished again. The knob turned in my hand. I went in with the door, into the room, and made as little noise as I could, practically none, shutting the door.

Behind me in the room a voice said, very softly, but also very earnestly:

“Go right out of here or I’ll shoot you.”

It was the plump blonde maid’s voice, frightened. I turned, bending low in case she did shoot. Enough of the dull gray of approaching daylight came into this room to outline a shadow sitting up in bed, holding something small and dark in one outstretched hand.

“It’s me,” I whispered.

“Oh, you!” She didn’t lower the thing in her hand.

“You in on the racket?” I asked, risking a slow step towards the bed.

“I do what I’m told and I keep my mouth shut, but I’m not going in for strong-arm work, not for the money they’re paying me.”

“Swell,” I said, taking more and quicker steps towards the bed. “Could I get down through this window to the floor below if I tied a couple of sheets together?”

“I don’t know—Ouch! Stop!”

I had her gun—a .32 automatic—in my right hand, her wrist in my left, and was twisting them. “Let go,” I ordered, and she did. Releasing her hand, I stepped back, picking up the dagger I had dropped on the foot of the bed.

I tiptoed to the door and listened. I couldn’t hear anything. I opened the door slowly, and couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything in the dim grayness that went through the door. Minnie Hershey’s door was open, as I had left it when I tumbled out. The thing I had fought wasn’t there. I went into Minnie’s room, switching on the lights. She was lying as she had lain before, sleeping heavily. I pocketed my gun, pulled down the covers, picked Minnie up, and carried her over to the maid’s room.

“See if you can bring her to life,” I told the maid, dumping the mulatto on the bed beside her.

“She’ll come around all right in a little while: they always do.”

I said, “Yeah?” and went out, down to the fifth floor, to Gabrielle Leggett’s room.

Gabrielle’s room was empty. Collinson’s hat and overcoat were gone; so were the clothes she had taken into the bathroom; and so was the bloody nightgown.

I cursed the pair of them, trying to show no favoritism, but probably concentrating most on Collinson; snapped off the lights; and ran down the front stairs, feeling as violent as I must have looked, battered and torn and bruised, with a red dagger in one hand, a gun in the other. For four flights of down-going I heard nothing, but when I reached the second floor a noise like small thunder was audible below me. Dashing down the remaining flight, I identified it as somebody’s knocking on the front door. I hoped the somebody wore a uniform. I went to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open.

Eric Collinson was there, wild-eyed, white-faced, and frantic.

“Where’s Gaby?” he gasped.

“God damn you,” I said and hit him in the face with the gun.

He drooped, bending forward, stopped himself with hands on the vestibule’s opposite walls, hung there a moment, and slowly pulled himself upright again. Blood leaked from a corner of his mouth.

“Where’s Gaby?” he repeated doggedly.

“Where’d you leave her?”

“Here. I was taking her away. She asked me to. She sent me out first to see if anybody was in the street. Then the door closed.”

“You’re a smart boy,” I grumbled. “She tricked you, still trying to save you from that lousy curse. Why in hell couldn’t you do what I told you? But come on; we’ll have to find her.”

She wasn’t in any of the reception rooms off the lobby. We left the lights on in them and hurried down the main corridor.

A small figure in white pajamas sprang out of a doorway and fastened itself on me, tangling itself in my legs, all but upsetting me. Unintelligible words came out of it. I pulled it loose from me and saw that it was the boy Manuel. Tears wet his panic-stricken face and crying ruined all the words he was trying to speak.

“Take it easy, son,” I said. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

I understood, “Don’t let him kill her.”

“Who kill who?” I asked. “And take your time.”

He didn’t take his time, but I managed to hear “father” and “mama.”

“Your father’s trying to kill your mother?” I asked, since that seemed the most likely combination.

His head went up and down.

“Where?” I asked.

He fluttered a hand at the iron door ahead. I started towards it, and stopped.

“Listen, son,” I bargained. “I’d like to help your mother, but I’ve got to know where Miss Leggett is first. Do you know where she is?”

“In there with them,” he cried. “Oh, hurry, do hurry!”

“Right. Come on, Collinson,” and we raced for the iron door.

The door was closed, but not locked. I yanked it open. The altar was glaring white, crystal, and silver in an immense beam of blue-white light that slanted down from an edge of the roof.

At one end of the altar Gabrielle crouched, her face turned up into the beam of light. Her face was ghastly white and expressionless in the harsh light. Aaronia Haldorn lay on the altar step where Riese had lain. There was a dark bruise on her forehead. Her hands and feet were tied with broad white bands of cloth, her arms tied to her body. Most of her clothes had been torn off.

Joseph, white-robed, stood in front of the altar, and of his wife. He stood with both arms held high and wide-spread, his back and neck bent so that his bearded face was lifted to the sky. In his right hand he held an ordinary horn-handled carving knife, with a long curved blade. He was talking to the sky, but his back was to us, and we couldn’t hear his words. As we came through the door, he lowered his arms and bent over his wife. We were still a good thirty feet from him. I bellowed:

“Joseph!”

He straightened again, turning, and when the knife came into view I saw that it was still clean, shiny.

“Who calls Joseph, a name that is no more?” he asked, and I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that, standing there—for I had halted ten feet from him, with Collinson beside me—looking at him, listening to his voice, I didn’t begin to feel that perhaps, after all, nothing very terrible had been about to happen. “There is no Joseph,” he went on, not waiting for an answer to his question. “You may now know, as the world shall soon know, that he who went among you as Joseph was not Joseph, but God Himself. Now that you know, go.”

I should have said, “Bunk,” and jumped him. To any other man, I would have. To this one I didn’t. I said: “I’ll have to take Miss Leggett and Mrs. Haldorn with me,” and said it indecisively, almost apologetically.

He drew himself up taller, and his white-bearded face was stern.

“Go,” he commanded; “go from me before your defiance leads to destruction.”

Aaronia Haldorn spoke from where she lay tied on the step, spoke to me:

“Shoot. Shoot now—quick. Shoot.”

I said to the man:

“I don’t care what your right name is. You’re going to the can. Now put your knife down.”

“Blasphemer,” he thundered, and took a step towards me. “Now you will die.”

That should have been funny. It wasn’t.

I yelled, “Stop,” at him. He wouldn’t stop. I was afraid. I fired. The bullet hit his cheek. I saw the hole it made. No muscle twitched in his face; not even his eyes blinked. He walked deliberately, not hurrying, towards me.

I worked the automatic’s trigger, pumping six more bullets into his face and body. I saw them go in. And he came on steadily, showing in no way that he was conscious of them. His eyes and face were stern, but not angry. When he was close to me the knife in his hand went up high above his head. That’s no way to fight with a knife; but he wasn’t fighting: he was bringing retribution to me, and he paid as little attention to my attempts to stop him as a parent does to those of a small child he’s punishing.

I was fighting. When the knife, shining over our heads, started down I went in under it, bending my right forearm against his knife-arm, driving the dagger in my left hand at his throat. I drove the heavy blade into his throat, in till the hilt’s cross stopped it. Then I was through.

I didn’t know I had closed my eyes until I found myself opening them. The first thing I saw was Eric Collinson kneeling beside Gabrielle Leggett, turning her face from the glaring light-beam, trying to rouse her. Next I saw Aaronia Haldorn, apparently unconscious on the altar step, with the boy Manuel crying on her and pulling with too nervous hands at her bonds. Then I saw that I was standing with my legs apart, and that Joseph was lying between my feet, dead, with the dagger through his neck.

“Thank God he wasn’t really God,” I mumbled to myself.

A brown body in white brushed past me, and Minnie Hershey was throwing herself down in front of Gabrielle Leggett, crying:

“Oh, Miss Gabrielle, I thought that devil had come alive and was after you again.”

I went over to the mulatto and took her by the shoulder, lifting her up, asking her: “How could he? Didn’t you kill him dead?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“But you thought he might have come back in another shape?”

“Y-yes, sir. I thought he was—” She stopped and worked her lips together.

“Me?” I asked.

She nodded, not looking at me.