Charnel House by Graham Masterton Page B

of these dozens of views should have been drawn on overcast days.
    The doorknocker banged again. “All right! All right!” I snapped, “I can hear you!”
    I pulled the door open, and there was Dr. Jarvis, standing on the porch with Jane. It was still raining and thundering out, but after being shut up in Seymour Wallis’s study, the night air was cool and refreshing. Across the street, I could see Bryan Corder, his head bent against the sloping rain, his shoulders hunched as he walked quickly toward us.
    â€œYou two seem to have met,” I said to Jane and Dr. Jarvis as I ushered them inside.
    â€œIt was just one of those chance encounters across a gloomy porch,” said Jane.
    Bryan came running up the steps, shaking rain from his hair like a wet dog. He was a solid, bluff man of almost forty, with a broad, dependable face that always reminded me of a worldly Pat Boone, if such a thing could exist. He gripped my arm. “Hi, John. Almost couldn’t make it. How’s things?”
    â€œSpooky,” I said, and meant it. And before I closed the front door, I couldn’t stop myself from taking a quick look at the doorknocker, just to see if it was still bronze, still inanimate, and still as fiercely ugly as ever.
    I led everyone to Seymour Wallis’s study, and introduced them. Wallis was polite but distracted, as if we were nothing more unusual than realtors who had come to value his property. He shook hands and offered whisky, and pulled up chairs, but then he sat back at his desk and stared at the threadbare carpet and said almost nothing.
    Dr. Jarvis looked less medical in a navy blue sportcoat and slacks. He was sharp, short, and gingery, and I was beginning to like him. He took a swallow of whisky, coughed, and then said, “Your friend hasn’t made much improvement I’m afraid. He hasn’t had any more of those attacks, but he still has respiration problems, and we can’t wake him out of his coma. We’re running some EKGs and EEGs later tonight to see if there’s any sign of brain damage.”
    â€œBrain damage? But all he did was fall off a chair.”
    â€œI’ve known people to die from falling off chairs.”
    â€œDo you still think it’s concussion?” Jane said. “What about his eyes?”
    Dr. Jarvis turned in his seat. “If I thought it was concussion and nothing else, I wouldn’t be here. But it seems like there’s something else involved, and right now I don’t have a dog’s idea what.”
    â€œWas this the room where it happened? The breathing and everything?” Bryan asked.
    â€œSure.”
    Bryan stood up and walked around the perimeter of the study, touching the walls here and there, and peering into the fireplace. Every now and then he tapped the plaster with his knuckles to feel how solid it was. After a while he stood in the center of the room, and he looked puzzled.
    â€œThe door was closed?” he asked me.
    â€œDoor and windows.”
    He shook his head slowly. “That’s real strange.”
    â€œWhat’s strange?”
    â€œWell, normally, when you get any kind of pressure build-up because of drafts or air currents, the fireplace is free and the chimney is unblocked. But you can put your hand here in the fireplace and feel for yourself. There’s no downdraft here. The chimney is all blocked up.”
    I went across and knelt on the faded Indian carpet in front of the fire. It was one of those narrow Victorian study fires, with a decorated steel hood and a fireclay grate. I craned my head around and stared up into the cold, soot-scented darkness. Bryan was right, there was no draft, no breath of wind. Usually, when you look up a chimney stack, you can hear the sounds of the night echoing down the shaft, but this chimney was silent.
    â€œMr. Wallis,” said Bryan, “do you know for certain that this chimney is blocked? Did someone have it bricked