Creeping stealthily forward, he
approached a corner of the room, where he now saw, for the first
time--a mattress--a mattress on which lay a huddled-up form. What the
Thing was--whether human or animal--Mr. Vance did not know--did not
care--all he felt was that it was there for him to kill--that he
loathed and hated it--hated it with a hatred such as nothing else
could have produced. Tiptoeing gently up to it, he bent down, and,
lifting his knife high above his head, plunged it into the Thing's
body with all the force he could command.
* * * * *
He recrossed the room, and found himself once more in his apartment at
the inn. He looked for the skeleton hand--it was not where he had left
it--it had vanished. Then he glanced at the mirror, and on its
brilliantly polished surface saw--not his own face--but the face of
the gardener, the man who had given him the hand! Features, colour,
hair--all--all were identical--wonderfully, hideously identical--and
as the eyes met his, they smiled--devilishly.
* * * * *
Early the next day, Mr. Vance set out for the spinney and cottage;
they were not to be found--nobody had ever heard of them. He continued
his travels, and some months later, at a loan collection of pictures
in a gallery in Edinburgh, he came to an abrupt--a very abrupt--halt,
before the portrait of a gentleman in ancient costume. The face
seemed strangely familiar--the huge head with thick, red hair--the
hawk-like features--the thin and tightly compressed lips.
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