“Wait just inside the door,” I directed, “and if Sullivan comes, or anybody that answers his description, grab him without ceremony and ask him questions afterwards.”

The apartment, save in the hallway, was unlighted.  By one of those freaks of arrangement possible only in the modern flat, I found the kitchen first, and was struck a smart and unexpected blow by a swinging door.  I carried a handful of matches, and by the time I had passed through a butler’s pantry and a refrigerator room I was completely lost in the darkness.  Until then the situation had been merely uncomfortable; suddenly it became grisly.  From somewhere near came a long-sustained groan, followed almost instantly by the crash of something—­glass or china—­on the floor.

I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway.  Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire to get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and attempted to cross the room.  I thought I had kept my sense of direction, but I crashed without warning into what, from the resulting jangle, was the dining-table, probably laid for dinner.  I cursed my stupidity in getting into such a situation, and I cursed my nerves for making my hand shake when I tried to strike a match.  The groan had not been repeated.

I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against the sole of my shoe.  It flickered faintly and went out.  And then, without the slightest warning, another dish went off the table.  It fell with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed broken into crashing waves of sound.  I stood still, braced against the table, holding the red end of the dying match, and listened.  I had not long to wait; the groan came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits.  I breathed again.

“Come, old fellow,” I said.  “Come on, old man.  Let’s have a look at you.”

I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move.  He only whimpered.  There is something companionable in the presence of a dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble.  Slowly I began to work my way around the table toward him.

“Good boy,” I said, as he whimpered.  “We’ll find the light, which ought to be somewhere or other around here, and then—­”

I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly.  “Did I step on you, old man?” I exclaimed, and bent to pat him.  I remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward me around the table.  I recall even that I had put the matches down and could not find them.  Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the door by which I had entered.

I could not find it.  I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles of wall.  The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel now, to my excited mind, with the Thing under the table.  And when, after aeons of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any man could be.