He cast himself back on his bed, determined to be at ease. Nevertheless, his heart kept bumping absurdly. Now, Terry began to grow angry. With the feeling that there was danger in the air of Craterville--for him--there came a nervous setting of the muscles, a desire to close on someone and throttle the secret of this hostility. At this point he heard a light tapping at the door. Terry sat bolt upright on the bed. There are all kinds of taps. There are bold, heavy blows on the door that mean danger without; there are careless, conversational rappings; but this was a furtive tap, repeated after a pause as though it contained a code message. First there was a leap of fear--then cold quiet of the nerves. He was surprised at himself. He found himself stepping into whatever adventure lay toward him with the lifting of the spirits. It was a stimulus. He called cheerfully: "Come in!" And the moment he had spoken he was off the bed, noiselessly, and half the width of the room away. It had come to him as he spoke that it might be well to shift from the point from which his voice had been heard. The door opened swiftly--so swiftly was it opened and closed that it made a faint whisper in the air, oddly like a sigh. And there was no click of the lock either in the opening or the closing. Which meant an incalculably swift and dexterous manipulation with the fingers. Terry found himself facing a short-throated man with heavy shoulders; he wore a shapeless black hat bunched on his head as though the whole hand had grasped the crown and shoved the hat into place. It sat awkwardly to one side. And the hat typified the whole man. There was a sort of shifty readiness about him. His eyes flashed in the lamplight as they glanced at the bed, and then flicked back toward Terry. And a smile began somewhere in his face and instantly went out. It was plain that he had understood the maneuver. He continued to survey Terry insolently for a moment without announcing himself. Then he stated: "You're him, all right!" "Am I?" said Terry, regarding this unusual visitor with increasing suspicion. "But I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage." The big-shouldered man raised a stubby hand. He had an air of one who deprecates, and at the same time lets another into a secret. He moved across the room with short steps that made no sound, and gave him a peculiar appearance of drifting rather than walking. He picked up a chair and placed it down on the rug beside the bed and seated himself in it. Aside from the words he had spoken, since he entered the room he had made no more noise than a phantom. "You're him, all right," he repeated, balancing back in the chair. But he gathered his toes under him, so that he remained continually poised in spite of the seeming awkwardness of his position. "Who am I?" asked Terry. "Why, Black Jack's kid. It's printed in big type all over you."