pencil. Still reeling from the morbid and unaccountable foetor, I seized

the paper and tried to read it in the light from the doorway.

Beyond question, it was in Edward's script. But why had he written when he

was close enough to ring - and why was the script so awkward, coarse and

shaky? I could make out nothing in the dim half light, so edged back into

the hall, the dwarf figure clumping mechanically after but pausing on the

inner door's threshold. The odour of this singular messenger was really

appalling, and I hoped (not in vain, thank God!) that my wife would not

wake and confront it.

Then, as I read the paper, I felt my knees give under me and my vision go

black. I was lying on the floor when I came to, that accursed sheet still

clutched in my fear-rigid hand. This is what it said.

"Dan - go to the sanitarium and kill it. Exterminate it. It isn't Edward

Derby any more. She got me - it's Asenath - and she has been dead three

months and a half. I lied when I said she had gone away. I killed her. I

had to. It was sudden, but we were alone and I was in my right body. I

saw a candlestick and smashed her head in. She would have got me for

good at Hallowmass.

"I buried her in the farther cellar storeroom under some old boxes and

cleaned up all the traces. The servants suspected next morning, but they

have such secrets that they dare not tell the police. I sent them off,

but God knows what they - and others of the cult - will do.

"I thought for a while I was all right, and then I felt the tugging at