The Door Into Infinity
By EDMOND HAMILTON
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird TalesAugust-September 1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CONTENTS
1. The Brotherhood of the Door
2. Death Trap
3. Up the Water-Tunnel
4. The Cavern of the Door
5. The Door Opens
1. The Brotherhood of the Door
"Where leads the Door?"
"It leads outside our world."
"Who taught our forefathers to open the Door?"
"They Beyond the Door taught them."
"To whom do we bring these sacrifices?"
"We bring them to Those Beyond the Door."
"Shall the Door be opened that They may take them?"
"Let the Door be opened!"
Paul Ennis had listened thus far, his haggard face uncomprehending inexpression, but now he interrupted the speaker.
"But what does it all mean, inspector? Why are you repeating this tome?"
"Did you ever hear anyone speak words like that?" asked Inspector PierceCampbell, leaning tautly forward for the answer.
"Of course not—it just sounds like gibberish to me," Ennis exclaimed."What connection can it have with my wife?"
He had risen to his feet, a tall, blond young American whosegood-looking face was drawn and worn by inward agony, whose crisp yellowhair was brushed back from his forehead in disorder, and whose blue eyeswere haunted with an anguished dread.
He kicked back his chair and strode across the gloomy little office,whose single window looked out on the thickening, foggy twilight ofLondon. He bent across the dingy desk, gripping its edges with his handsas he spoke tensely to the man sitting behind it.
"Why are we wasting time talking here?" Ennis cried. "Sitting heretalking, when anything may be happening to Ruth!
"It's been hours since she was kidnapped. They may have taken heranywhere, even outside of London by now. And instead of searching forher, you sit here and talk gibberish about Doors!"
Inspector Campbell seemed unmoved by Ennis' passion. A bulky, almostbald man, he looked up with his colorless, sagging face, in which hiseyes gleamed like two crumbs of bright brown glass.
"You're not helping me much by giving way to your emotions, Mr. Ennis,"he said in his flat voice.
"Give way? Who wouldn't give way?" cried Ennis. "Don't you understand,man, it's Ruth that's gone—my wife! Why, we were married only last weekin New York. And on our second day here in London, I see her whiskedinto a limousine and carried away before my eyes! I thought you men atScotland Yard here would surely act, do something. Instead you talkcrazy gibberish to me!"
"Those words are not gibberish," said Pierce Campbell quietly. "And Ithink they're related to the abduction of your wife."
"What do you mean? How could they be related?"
The inspector's bright little brown eyes held Ennis'. "Did you ever hearof an organization called the Brotherhood of the Door?"
Ennis shook his head, and Campb