The crooked crossDutton, Charles J. (Charles Judson)
General
The crooked cross
Dutton, Charles J. (Charles Judson)
Bartley, John (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
Puzzled by this, we followed Bartley back again to the side of the
church, and this time paused directly under one of the windows. It was
placed only a few feet above the ground, for the church building was
rather low. At Bartley's suggestion I placed myself so he could step
on my hand and reach the window sill. Reaching it, he stood balanced
against the glass for some moments, then dropped to the ground without
a word. Coming to our side, he said shortly:
“There is some one in the church, and there seems to be a light there.
But it is a very feeble one at the best. We will go down to the last
window. This time we will let Pelt look inside and tell us what he
sees.”
We went down the side of the church until we reached the last window.
Here Bartley aided me as I scrambled up to the sill and stood upon the
rather large ledge. The window was partly covered over with ivy, but I
found a clear place and pressed my face against the glass. For a while
as I looked within, I saw nothing. In fact, the church was simply a
vast dark cave, the darkness so dense that I could not distinguish any
of the objects within.
But I did discover something else. Somewhere near my ear there must
have been a hole in the glass, or a broken section, for the sound of
the organ was much louder than when I heard it before. Within the
church some one was playing—playing with a feeling and a power which
was hard to describe. The loud notes rolled down to my ear,
increasing, it seemed, in sound every second. And the music was
indescribable, like nothing I had ever heard before and, for that
matter, nothing that I would care to hear again.
It seemed to contain a note of victory mingled with some wild,
barbaric strain of exaltation; music unlike anything I had ever heard
before, and music, which for some unknown reason, made my blood run
cold. One thing was certain, whatever was being played it was not the
type of music which one hears in a church. The wild, barbaric strains,
now shrieking forth in gleeful triumph, now seeming to cry defiance to
one's enemies, was not church music. It was too loud and far too
primitive for that. And then, suddenly, I saw something.
With my face pressed against the glass, I had tried to penetrate the
darkness within. But the gloom hid everything from sight as if a heavy
thick blanket had been drawn across my vision. As my glance swept down
the length of the church and then upward, I suddenly saw a light. It
was the merest pin point of a light, far up in the organ loft. As I
gazed at the speck of brightness in the darkness, I saw something
else.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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