e key into the keyhole, and
unfastened the lock. The bolts turned easily, and placing the lamp upon
the desk again I pulled at the handle of the safe door. For a moment it
resisted and then swung open with a sound like a sob, emitting a breath
of cold air that chilled me and set the flame of the lamp flaring above
the chimney. It was like the damp breath of some underground tomb.
Moreover, it seemed to circle around me, blowing upon my neck and making
the papers on my desk rustle and whisper. So strong was this impression
that I swung about in my chair and stared into the blackness at the
other end of the room, and even as I did so, one of the papers before
me was silently wafted off the desk. I watched it as it floated slowly
and noiselessly towards the doorway, and when at last it settled gently
on the floor, I felt the beads of perspiration trickling down my face.
For fully a minute I must have sat peering into the darkness as though
fascinated by the gigantic shadows on the walls.

Then I laughed nervously, mopped my forehead, turned again to the safe,
and hastily took from the inner compartment a bundle of wills. Bateman's
testament was the third in the bundle. It was sealed up in a plain
envelope and the endorsement was in his own handwriting.

"_Will of Josiah Bateman. Dated June 10, 1855._"

The papers had that musty smell peculiar to old documents, and to which
I was entirely accustomed, but that night the odor had a sickening
effect upon me. It seemed to dry up the very air and make it suffocating
with the horrible stench of decay. I stood up and stretched my neck to
get an upper stratum of air, but the whole room seemed tainted with the
foul cloying breath.

I sat down at the desk again and turned my back upon the lamp so that
the light would fall over my shoulder. With a shudder I picked up the
envelope, which seemed to reek with the unendurable odor, and as I did
so, noticed the window close beside me. Why had I not thought of that
before? I dropped the paper and rose to open the sash.

The darkness outside and the light within had turned the window pane
into a mirror reflecting the room behind me with perfect clearness. The
whole effect was fearfully weird, and for an instant it held me
spellbound. In the foreground was my own ghastly white face--the eyes
apparently gazing not into mine, but at something behind me. In the
background the lamp, the desk, the papers, and the brass-nailed green