
The house was of gray stone, outwardly ornate after the old way, which frescoes, tall, arching windows
of stained glass, and a sharply gabled roof. The door creaked on its hinges and let them into an
atmosphere of museum antiquity, uncarpeted floors and plain, stark old walls stamped infrequently with
ancient oil paintings and prints.
In the vestibule stood a rickety table, on this an aged silver holder for four candles; and Tobias Weaver
applied a match to the candles, then handed them to Doc Savage. It was gloomy in the old house.
"This is a—queer old house," he said shakily. "It was built—by an ancestor who was—eccentric.
Teddy—Teddy will enjoy telling you about it, if you care to listen. And later, I will show you—the
strange place."
He advanced toward a door, and the door opened before he reached it, making a strange, low sigh as it
did so.
"Teddy will be asleep," Tobias Weaver said, pointing through the portal, "and it would be wonderful if
you would go to him alone and awaken him. Teddy—will think it is—a dream." He pointed again. "You
just go straight ahead, through the doors."
Doc Savage nodded and passed through the door, leaving old Tobias Weaver behind. The bronze man’s
tread was easy for one of such physical build, and silent except for an occasional creak of old flooring
underfoot. The flames of the four candles leaned backward slightly in the air as he moved forward and
the tips of the flames gave off little yarns of smoke.
The first room through which Doc passed was narrow and long, made dark as a vault with drawn
shades, and furnished only with a carved table at which stood two fragile chairs. There was no sign of the
party who had caused the opening of the first door, and as the bronze man approached the door on the
far side of the bare chamber, that also opened, making as it did so a low sound that was between sigh
and groan.
And, stepping through that aperture, the bronze man lifted the candles; but there was no trace of human
presence, except his own Gargantuan shadow leaping along the aged walls when he moved. Here, also,
there was no furniture, but only plain floors, plainer walls, and antiquity everywhere.
Doc went on. The air was not dank, for dankness is moisture, humidity; and this air had the dryness of
something shut up for a long time. The kind of air that would be expected in a desert tomb, where they
find the mummies that have been there a half dozen thousand of years, and which collapse the instant
there is a freshening of the air.
Even the wails of the boards underfoot were dry whinnies. And then the flooring changed to stone, and
the walls, too, and there was another door which opened in the same uncanny fashion as the others, with
no one to be seen; apparently no human agency was behind the phenomenon.
The giant bronze man, silent now, stepped through the opening, holding his candles out to one side,
where the light would not get in his eyes. It was inevitable that the eerie, labyrinthian old house would
create an effect on his mind, but his metallic features had not changed expression. But he came to a stop
now, holding the four candles high.
This room was smaller. Of stone, too—ceiling, walls and floor, all gray, flinty rock; while the door—the
one through which he had come was the only door—was of wood on one side, and sheeted with steel on
the inside.
The sheeting had the appearance of ancient doing. The stone walls here were marred with strange