Holmes advanced along it in
the same slow and methodical way, while we kept close at his
heels, with our long black shadows streaming backwards down the
corridor. The third door was that which we were seeking. Holmes
knocked without receiving any answer, and then tried to turn the
handle and force it open. It was locked on the inside, however,
and by a broad and powerful bolt, as we could see when we set our
lamp up against it. The key being turned, however, the hole was
not entirely closed. Sherlock Holmes bent down to it, and
instantly rose again with a sharp intaking of the breath.
"There is something devilish in this, Watson," said he, more
moved than I had ever before seen him. "What do you make of it?"
I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. Moonlight was
streaming into the room, and it was bright with a vague and
shifty radiance. Looking straight at me, and suspended, as it
were, in the air, for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a
face,--the very face of our companion Thaddeus. There was the
same high, shining head, the same circular bristle of red hair,
the same bloodless countenance. The features were set, however,
in a horrible smile, a fixed and unnatural grin, which in that
still and moonlit room was more jarring to the nerves than any
scowl or contortion.
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