However, he did not offer any explanation of what he had been doing. His manner had changed remarkably, and was more controlled and confident than at any former time. In a fashion almost business-like he laid before me a pile of manuscript which he wanted me to type for him. The familiar click of the keys aided me somewhat in dismissing my apprehensions of vague evil, and I could almost smile at the recherché and terrific information comprised in my employer’s notes, which dealt mainly with formulae for the acquisition of unlawful power. But still, beneath my re-assurance, there was a vague, lingering disquietude.

Evening came; and after our meal we returned again to the study. There was a tenseness in Carnby’s manner now, as if he were eagerly awaiting the result of some hidden test. I went on with my work; but some of his emotion communicated itself to me, and ever and anon I caught myself in an attitude of strained listening.

At last, above the click of the keys, I heard that peculiar slithering in the hall. Carnby had heard it, too, and his confident look had utterly vanished, giving place to the most pitiable fear and agitation.

The sound drew nearer and was followed by a dull, dragging noise, and then by more sounds of an unidentifiable slithering and scuttling nature, that varied in loudness. The hall was seemingly full of them, as if a whole army of rats were hauling some carrion booty along the floor. And yet no rodent—or number of rodents—could have made such sounds, or could have moved anything so heavy as the object which came behind the rest. There was something in the character of those noises—something without name or definition—which caused a slowly creeping chill to invade my spine.

“Good Lord! What is all that racket?” I cried.

“The rats! I tell you it is only the rats!” Carnby’s voice was a high, hysterical shriek.

A moment later, there came an unmistakable knocking on the door, near the sill. At the same time I heard a heavy thudding in the locked cupboard at the further end of the room. Carnby had been standing erect; but now he sank limply into a chair. His features were ashen, and his look was almost maniacal with fright.

The nightmare doubt and tension became unbearable. I ran to the door and flung it open, in spite of a frantic remonstrance from my employer. I had no idea what I should find as I stepped across the sill into the feebly litten hall.

When I looked down and saw the thing on which I had almost trodden, my feeling was one of sick amazement and actual nausea. It was a human hand which had been severed at the wrist—a bony, bluish hand like that of a week-old corpse, with garden-mould on the fingers and under the long nails. The damnable thing had moved, it had drawn back to avoid me, and was crawling along the passage somewhat in the manner of a crab! And following it with my gaze, I saw that there were other things beyond it, one of which I recognized as a man’s foot and another as a fore-arm. I dared not look at the rest. All were moving slowly, hideously away in a charnel procession—and I cannot describe the fashion in which they moved. Their individual vitality was horrifying beyond endurance. It was more than the vitality of life—yet the air was laden with a carrion taint. I averted my eyes and stepped back into Carnby’s room, closing the door behind me with a shaking hand. Carnby was at my side with the key, which he turned in the lock with palsy-stricken fingers that had become as feeble as those of an old man.

“You saw them?” he asked in a dry, quavering whisper.

“In God’s name, what does it all mean?” I cried.

Carnby went back to his chair, tottering a little with weakness. His lineaments were agonized by the gnawing of some inward horror, and he shook visibly like an ague patient. I sat down in a chair beside him; and he began to stammer forth his unbelievable confession, half-incoherently, with inconsequential mouthings and many breaks and pauses:

“He is stronger than I am—even in death... even with his body dismembered by the surgeon’s knife and saw that I used... I thought he could not return after that... after I had buried the fragments in a dozen different places... in the cellar... beneath the shrubs... at the foot of the ivy-vines. But the Necronomicon is right ... and Helman Carnby knew it. He warned me before I killed him—he told me he could return—even in that condition. But I did not believe him. I hated Helman, and he hated me too. He had attained to higher power and knowledge and was more favored by the Dark Ones than I... That was why I killed him—my own twin-brother, and my brother in the service of Satan and of Those who were before Satan. We had studied together for many years. We had celebrated the Black Mass together... we were attended by the same familiars... But Helman Carnby had gone deeper into the occult... into the forbidden, where I could not follow him. I feared him, and I could not endure his supremacy.

“It is more than a week—it is ten days since I did the deed. But Helman—or some part of him—has returned every night... . God! his accursed hands crawling on the floor!... his feet, his arms, the segments of his legs, climbing the stairs in some unmentionable way to haunt me! ... Christ! his awful, bloody torso lying in wait!... I tell you, his hands have come even by day to tap and fumble at my door ... and I have stumbled over his arms in the dark.

“Oh, God! I shall go mad with the awfulness of it... But he wants me to go mad, he wants to torture me till my brain gives way. That is why he haunts me in this piecemeal fashion. He could end it all at any time, with the demoniacal power that is his. He could re-knit his sundered limbs and body and slay me as I slew him.

“How carefully I buried the portions, with what infinite forethought! And how useless it was!... I buried the knife and saw, too, at the further end of the garden, as far away as possible from his evil, itching hands... But I did not bury the head with the other pieces—I kept it in that cupboard at the end of my room. Sometimes I have heard it moving there—as you heard it a while ago... . But he does not need the head—his will is elsewhere, and can work intelligently through all his members.

“Of course, I locked all the doors and windows at night when I found that he was coming back... But it made no difference. And I have tried to exorcise him with the appropriate incantations—with all those that I knew. Today I tried that sovereign formula from the Necronomicon which you translated for me... I got you here to translate it. Also, I could no longer bear to be alone... and I thought that it might help if there were someone else in the house... That formula was my last hope. I thought it would hold him—it is a most ancient and most dreadful incantation. But... as you have seen... it is useless....”

His voice trailed off in a broken mumble, and he sat staring before him with sightless, intolerable eyes in which I saw the beginning flare of madness. I could say nothing—the confession he had made was so ineffably atrocious. The moral shock, and the ghastly supernatural horror, had almost stupified me. My sensibilities were stunned; and it was not till I had begun to recover myself that I felt the irresistible surge of a flood of loathing for the man beside me.

I rose to my feet. The house had grown very silent, as if the macabre and charnel army of beleaguerment had now retired to its various graves. Carnby had left the key in the lock; and I went to the door and turned it quickly.

“Are you leaving? Don’t go,” Carnby begged in a voice that was tremulous with alarm, as I stood with my hand on the door-knob.

“Yes, I am going,” I said coldly. “I am resigning my position right now; and I intend to pack my belongings and leave your house with as little delay as possible.”