hought.

There was fear there. Fear and dread. And there was puzzlement too. A
puzzlement that made his brain spin. Joan had spoken with terror in her
voice. Terror that had said somebody was going to kill. And Joan was
not a girl to be easily frightened. And she had mentioned Gaddon's
name. Gaddon, the man who had shot into the heavens in an experimental
rocket. Gaddon, who was supposed to be dead.

* * * * *

He felt now that same feeling that had crept through him after the
launching. The feeling that had whispered in his mind that maybe Gaddon
had been right after all. That maybe he wouldn't die. That maybe ... And
now the dread swept him. For he thought of the sound he had heard over
the phone. The last sound before the line went dead. The sound of an
animal growling in wrath. And he remembered the girl's scream about a
monster.

A cold sweat was on his forehead as he pulled the coupe into the curb in
front of the Fenwick house. He switched off the motor and closed the car
door after him.

Then he was hurrying up the walk to the front door, his eyes taking in
the house in a swift glance, noting that the lights were lit in the
consultation room. Lights that slivered out from the closed venetian
blinds.

He stood then on the front porch, his hand closing over the knob of the
door.

It was locked.

He pressed the bell then and heard its clarion sound inside the house.
But other than that there was nothing to be heard. A deep, ominous
silence that somehow brought a feeling of panic to him. Was he too late?

And then suddenly the panel in the front of the door opened and a face
peered out at him.

Fred Trent felt the blood drain from his lips. A paralysis seemed to
grip his body at what he saw framed in the opening.

For it was not the face of a human being. And yet, it was not the face
of an animal. It was a horrible, twisted, cat-like visage that peered
out at him, furred and ugly, with bared teeth and glowing, feline eyes.

And as he looked, a sound came from the twisted lips. It was the same
sound he had heard over the telephone. The sound of a growling rage.

And as the sound hit his ears, a terrible realization swept over him.
For his eyes, riveted on that monstrous countenance, had registered an
impossible fact upon his mind.

_As twisted as it was, as horribly changed into an animal grimace, it
was the face of someone he knew--the English scientist, Blair Gaddon!_