Broken
glass crunched under our feet, and I saw that the floor was strewn
with wine bottles whose necks had been snapped off to save the pulling
of the cork. On a mattress at the farther end of the room lay a man
with gray hair, and shaggy, unkempt iron-gray beard. He seemed either
asleep or dead, but when I turned my electric light full on his face
he proved to be still alive, for he rubbed his eyes languidly, and
groaned, rather than spoke:--
'Is that you at last, you beast of a butler? Bring me something to
eat, in Heaven's name!'
I shook him wider awake. He seemed to be drowsed with drink, and was
fearfully emaciated. When I got him on his feet, I noticed then the
deformity that characterised one of them. We assisted him through the
aperture, and down into the dining-room, where he cried out
continually for something to eat, but when we placed food before him,
he could scarcely touch it. He became more like a human being when he
had drunk two glasses of wine, and I saw at once he was not as old as
his gray hair seemed to indicate. There was a haunted look in his
eyes, and he watched the door as if apprehensive.
'Where is that butler?' he asked at last.
'Dead,' I replied.
'Did I kill him?'
'No; he fell down the stairway and broke his neck.
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