The inspector's bright little brown eyes held Ennis'. "Did you ever hear of an organization called the Brotherhood of the Door?" Ennis shook his head, and Campbell continued, "Well, I am certain your wife was kidnapped by members of the Brotherhood." "What kind of an organization is it?" the young American demanded. "A band of criminals?" "No, it is no ordinary criminal organization," the detective said. His sagging face set strangely. "Unless I am mistaken, the Brotherhood of the Door is the most unholy and blackly evil organization that has ever existed on this earth. Almost nothing is known of it outside its circle. I myself in twenty years have learned little except its existence and name. That ritual I just repeated to you, I heard from the lips of a dying member of the Brotherhood, who repeated the words in his delirium." Campbell leaned forward. "But I know that every year about this time the Brotherhood come from all over the world and gather at some secret center here in England. And every year, before that gathering, scores of people are kidnapped and never heard of again. I believe that all those people are kidnapped by this mysterious Brotherhood." "But what becomes of the people they kidnap?" cried the pale young American. "What do they do with them?" * * * * * Inspector Campbell's bright brown eyes showed a hint of hooded horror, yet he shook his head. "I know no more than you. But whatever they do to the victims, they are never heard of again." "But you must know something more!" Ennis protested. "What is this Door?" Campbell again shook his head. "That too I don't know, but whatever it is, the Door is utterly sacred to the members of the Brotherhood, and whomever they mean by They Beyond the Door, they dread and venerate to the utmost." "Where leads the Door? _It leads outside our world_," repeated Ennis. "What can that mean?" "It might have a symbolic meaning, referring to some secluded fastness of the order which is away from the rest of the world," the inspector said. "Or it might----" He stopped. "Or it might what?" pressed Ennis, his pale face thrust forward. "It might mean, literally, that the Door leads outside our world and universe," finished the inspector. Ennis' haunted eyes stared. "You mean that this Door might somehow lead into another universe? But that's impossible!" "Perhaps unlikely," Campbell said quietly, "but not impossible. Modern science has taught us that there are other universes than the one we live in, universes congruent and coincident with our own in space and time, yet separated from our own by the impassable barrier of totally different dimensions. It is not entirely impossible that a greater science than ours might find a way to pierce that barrier between our universe and one of those outside ones, that a Door should be opened from ours into one of those others in the infinite outside."