Bidding the Russian good night, with the promise that we would speak further in the morning, I returned to my room, finding Inspector Vakarian lingering at the door. At his questioning glance, I repeated Lt. Alenko’s warning, happy to take the constable into my confidence. The Inspector nodded, adding his own caution that one of the reports he received from Greenmarsh had spoken of a great mob of surly Russian immigrants descending on the town during the exiles and pogroms following the Bolshevik coup. He was thus wary of the intentions of the burly Cossack in Dr. Newstead’s employ, as there were hints of immigrant involvement in the murders he had been sent to investigate. Agreeing to remain on guard, we shook hands and departed to our separate rooms.
Despite my earlier travel-induced weariness, I found that restorative sleep evaded me. Sullen winds rattled the shuttered windows, and the loathsome ivy scraped and shook against the walls of the manor in a manner unpleasantly suggestive. Unable to find slumber and unwilling to dwell upon the eerie clamor, I contemplated the incredible journey I had embarked upon, and the most singular woman who had precipitated it. Such a contradiction is rarely found across the breadth of humanity; one so gentle, but frightfully determined, so open, but shrouded in mystery nonetheless. A supreme irony, one of the many tricks an uncaring universe has chosen to torment its playthings. I again returned to that night aboard the SS
Normadie, so fraught with horrifying allure, but foolishly all that came to the forefront of my mind was the distressing enticement of her pale lips, finally revealed to me by a chance gust of wind. Of the heights of eldritch terror preceding that moment, I rue to admit that I thought nothing.
A sound startled me from my reverie, muffled by the door, but distinct all the same. From the hallway there came a peculiar slithering, tentative and stealthy, across the floorboards. I strained every nerve, held frozen by apprehension as the noise drew nearer, occasionally making a muted bump or knock, as if something groped blindly down the corridor. Several times a curious rattle or metallic clicking could be heard, though I would not comprehend the import of this for a moment yet. Finally the source of this dreadful, squamous sound stopped before my room. Silence reigned momentarily, and I fairly held my breath for the tension. Just as it seemed that it had all been merely a fancy, the product of the uncanny atmosphere of the house working on my fatigue-addled imagination, there came a fumbling at the latch of the door, and I realized that
it had tried each latch in the hallway in succession! I would have sprang from bed to seize the door and prevent entry to whatever lurked outside, but as quick as it had begun, it stopped, and made its slithering retreat back down the corridor. Now more wary than ever, I remained awake for some time, falling asleep only at the thought of Miss Zorah’s strange actions at each door before we had retired for the night.