-the
deserted offices here and there show a shaded light in some rear room,
but the ghastly glow only intensifies the darkness, and over all is the
silence--the awful silence--of the night. It is not the restful quiet of
sleep--it is not the peaceful stillness of death--it is the horrid,
breathing, staring silence of the trance. It is the silence that makes
you stop and listen--hush and whisper, or gently motion with your finger
on your lips.

The feeling of all this was upon me as I turned toward my office. The
unaccustomed stillness filled me with absurd apprehension, and tricked
me into starting at every shadow. My footsteps echoed more and more
rapidly upon the sidewalk, and louder and louder until I found myself
actually running along deserted Front Street.

I had been in the offices at night before, but I stumbled and tripped
up the familiar stairway as though the steps and the very walls
themselves had changed positions in the darkness.

I lit a lamp in our front room, but the big black shadows transformed
the well-known surroundings so that nothing seemed the same.

The globe on the corner shelf took the shape of some great bird sitting
gorged and sombre on its ample perch--the document cases with their
white letterings suggested dark heads and shining rows of teeth, and the
green baize doors studded with brass-nails seemed like monster coffins
set on end, each staring silently through an oval eye of glass.

I carried the lamp into my private room, but the draught from the hall
blew it out, so I closed the door before lighting it again.

In those days my private room in the rear of our office suite was
connected with the main rooms by a short hall, from which it was
separated by a green baize and glass-panelled door. In this room was the
firm safe, a cavern-like affair built into and occupying the entire rear
wall. The interior was lined with sheet iron, and the huge doors of the
same material were opened and locked with a key weighing perhaps half a
pound.

Sitting down at my desk I touched the secret spring of the drawer
containing this key. I am not a nervous man, but I had been under more
or less tension all day, and the stillness of the streets and the ugly
suggestions of the dark shadows in the outer offices had had their
effect upon my nerves, making me start as the spring snapped and the
drawer shot out. Holding the lamp in my left hand close to the safe
directly behind my chair, I fitted the hug