“No,” laughed Miss Blunt. “A robot of myself.
A clever facsimile!”
“But, but…”
“Don’t cry darling.
I’m quite all right.
Let me look at myself.
Well, so there I am! Up the chimney. Like you said.
Isn’t that funny?”
Miss Blunt walked away, laughing.
“Have a drink, Garrett?”
“I believe I will.
That unnerved me.
My God, what a place.
This does deserve tearing down.
For a moment there…” Garrett drank.
Another scream.
Mr. Steffens, borne upon the shoulders of four white rabbits, was carried down a flight of stairs which magically appeared in the floor.
Into a pit went Mr. Steffens, where, bound and tied, he was left to face the advancing razor steel of a great pendulum which now whirled down, down, closer and closer to his outraged body.
“Is that me down there?” said Mr. Steffens, appearing at Garrett’s elbow.
He bent over the pit.
“How strange, how odd, to see yourself die.”
The pendulum made a final stroke.
“How realistic,” said Mr. Steffens, turning away.
“Another drink, Mr. Garrett?”
“Yes, please.”
“It won’t be long.
The Dismantlers will be here.”
“Thank God!”
And for a third time, a scream.
“What now?” said Garrett apprehensively.
“It’s my turn,” said Miss Drummond.
“Look.”
And a second Miss Druxnmond, shrieking, was nailed into a coffin and thrust into the raw earth under the floor.
“Why, I remember that,” gasped the Investigator of Moral Climates.
“From the old forbidden books.
The Premature Burial.
And the others. The Pit, the Pendulum, and the ape, the chimney, the Murders in the Rue Morgue.
In a book I burned, yes!”
“Another drink, Garrett.
Here, hold your glass steady.”
“My lord, you have an imagination, haven’t you?”
They stood and watched five others die, one in the mouth of a dragon, the others thrown off into the black tarn, sinking and vanishing.
“Would you like to see what we have planned for you?” asked Stendahl.
“Certainly,” said Garrett.
“What’s the difference?
We’ll blow the whole damn thing up, anyway.
You’re nasty.”
“Come along then.
This way.”
And he led Garrett down into the floor, through numerous passages and down again upon spiral stairs into the earth, into the catacombs.