For answer the collie danced frantically, peering up the stairway and then beseechingly back at Vail. No dogman could have failed to interpret the plea. “All right,” vouchsafed Thaxton. “_Go!_” Like a furry whirlwind the dog scurried up the stairs into the regions of the house which had been so silent but whence now came the murmur of startledly questioning voices and the slamming of doors. Forced on by a nameless fear, Vail ran up, three steps at a time, in the dog’s wake. He reached the second floor, just as two or three of his guests, in the sketchiest attire, came stumbling out into the broad upper hall. At sight of Thaxton on the dim-lit landing they broke into a clamor of questions. For reply Vail pressed the light switch, throwing the black spaces into brilliant illumination. Then his glance fell on Macduff. The collie had halted his headlong run just outside a door at the head of the hall. At the oaken panels of this he was tearing madly with claws and teeth. As Vail hurried to him, the dog ceased his frantic efforts; as though aware that the man could open the door more easily than could he. And again he tossed his muzzle aloft, making the house reverberate to that hideously keening wolf-howl. The hall was full of jabbering and gesticulating people, clad in night clothes. Vail pushed through them to the door at which Mac had clamored. It was the door of Thaxton’s own bedroom. He turned the knob rattlingly. The door was locked. The others crowded close, wildly questioning, getting in one another’s way. Vail stepped back, colliding with Clive Creede and Joshua Q. Mosely. Then, summoning all his strength, he hurled himself at the door. The stout oak and the old-fashioned lock held firm. Thaxton stepped back again, his muscular body compact. And a second time he crashed his full weight at the panels. Under the catapult impact the lock snapped. The door burst open, flinging Vail far into the dense blackness. Clive Creede, close behind him, groped for the light switch just inside the threshold and pressed it, flooding the room with light. There was an instant of blank hush. Then Mrs. Mosely screamed, shrilly, in mortal terror. CHAPTER XI WHAT LAY BEYOND THE SMASHED DOOR Dr. Ezra Lawton had come home an hour earlier from enacting the trying rôle of Stork’s Assistant. He had sunk to sleep wearily and embarked at once on a delightful dream of his unanimous election as Chairman of the Massachusetts State Medical Board. All Aura, apparently, celebrated this dream election. For the three church bells were ringing loudly in honor of it. There were also a few thousand other bells which had been imported from somewhere for the occasion. The result was a continuous loud jangle which was as deafeningly annoying to the happy old doctor as it was gratifying.