A lightning flash--a shadow cast abruptly on the shade of one of
the French windows, to disappear as abruptly as the flash was
blotted out--the shadow of a man--a prowler--feeling his way
through the lightning-slashed darkness to the terrace door. The
detective? Brooks? The Bat? The lightning flash was too brief
for any observer to have recognized the stealing shape--if any
observer had been there.
But the lack of an observer was promptly remedied. Just as the
shadowy shape reached the terrace door and its shadow-fingers
closed over the knob, Lizzie entered the deserted living-room on
stumbling feet. She was carrying a tray of dishes and food--some
cold meat on a platter, a cup and saucer, a roll, a butter pat--
and she walked slowly, with terror only one leap behind her and
blank darkness ahead.
She had only reached the table and was preparing to deposit her
tray and beat a shameful retreat, when a sound behind her made her
turn. The key in the door from the terrace to the alcove had
clicked. Paralyzed with fright she stared and waited, and the next
moment a formless thing, a blacker shadow in a world of shadows,
passed swiftly in and up the small staircase.
But not only a shadow. To Lizzie's terrified eyes it bore an eye,
a single gleaming eye, just above the level of the stair rail, and
this eye was turned on her.
It was too much. She dropped the tray on the table with a crash
and gave vent to a piercing shriek that would have shamed the
siren of a fire engine.
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