The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

your laughter is not backed by courage!”
I fell away from him. Had I stood within reach, I am sure he would have struck
me. Struck me! And I have been nearer to M. S. for the past ten years than any
man in London. And as I retreated from his temper, he reached forward to seize
my arm. I could not help but feel impressed at his grim intentness.
“Look here, Dale,” he said bitterly, “I will wager you a hundred pounds that
you will not spend the remainder of this night in the warehouse above you! I will
wager a hundred pounds against your own courage that you will not back your
laughter by going through what this fellow has gone through. That you will not
prowl through the corridors of this great structure until you have found room
4167—and remain in that room until dawn!”
There was no choice. I glanced at the dead man, at the face of fear and the
clutching, twisted hands, and a cold dread filled me. But to refuse my friend’s
wager would have been to brand myself an empty coward. I had mocked him.
Now, whatever the cost, I must stand ready to pay for that mockery.
“Room 4167?” I replied quietly, in a voice which I made every effort to
control, lest he should discover the tremor in it. “Very well, I will do it!”
It was nearly midnight when I found myself alone, climbing a musty, winding
ramp between the first and second floors of the deserted building. Not a sound,
except the sharp intake of my breath and the dismal creak of the wooden stairs,
echoed through that tomb of death. There was no light, not even the usual dim
glow that is left to illuminate an unused corridor. Moreover, I had brought no
means of light with me—nothing but a half empty box of safety matches which,
by some unholy premonition, I had forced myself to save for some future
moment. The stairs were black and difficult, and I mounted them slowly,
groping with both hands along the rough wall.
I had left M. S. some few moments before. In his usual decisive manner he had
helped me to climb the iron grating and lower myself to the sealed alley-way on
the farther side. Then, leaving him without a word, for I was bitter against the
triumphant tone of his parting words, I proceeded into the darkness, fumbling
forward until I had discovered the open door in the lower part of the warehouse.
And then the ramp, winding crazily upward—upward—upward, seemingly
without end. I was seeking blindly for that particular room which was to be my
destination. Room 4167, with its high number, could hardly be on the lower
floors, and so I had stumbled upward.…
It was at the entrance of the second floor corridor that I struck the first of my
desultory supply of matches, and by its light discovered a placard nailed to the