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“Nothing, Mr. Holmes,” she answered, as much mystified by our actions and exclamations as by the question. “We are twenty feet from the ground. What could possibly be at the window?”

“What indeed?” said Holmes. “I think, Watson, we should repair to the library.”

“I’ll ring for Susan to show you the way,” said Mrs. Westen, but my friend demurred and said we would find our own way to the church and its chained library.

Once out of the door, however, I began to wonder if that might be easier said than done, for we were shrouded within the thickest fog I had ever encountered. It was like being encased by masses of grey wool, and almost as palpable. Not at all like the wet yellow London particulars. Yet, for all that, it was still a fog. We could barely see a yard in front of us, and the moment we left the door of the cottage we were groping like blind men along the wall. Presently we rounded a corner and found ourselves in that open space of coarse grass upon which stood the abbey ruins.

“Quite an outré case this missing book affair has turned into, eh, Watson?” I heard Holmes say somewhere immediately ahead of me as we picked our way along. I voiced some vague agreement, and he continued, “Which may yet prove to be less than it seems.”

“What I saw was utterly convincing … as I believe it was for you, at least momentarily.”

“Remember, Watson, there is hypnotism at work in this case. For the present I shall give human trickery equal consideration with spectral manifestation. You observed how friend Carnacki absented himself immediately upon arrival?”

“The library was of immediate interest to him,” said I, defending the Occult Detective. “Do you suspect him?”

“I make no accusations. I merely note the fact. In any event, Watson, you will agree with me that I have not led you on a fool’s errand … that was the phrase you used, I believe?”

I gave a non-committal grunt as we shuffled on through the fog. Its dullness deepened, it grew thicker and closer, claustrophobic and suffocating, our footsteps as queerly distorted as were now our voices.

“I think there’s something distinctly unnatural about this fog,” said I, as much to break the deadening silence as to state the disturbingly apparent.

“Yes,” said my friend, but refrained from further comment. I knew he detested any suggestion of the supernatural, and yet I was certain he would welcome a ghost over stagnation any time. Indeed, I was beginning to think that the supernatural was what we had run up against. It was not a wholesome thought there with the close greyness about us, creeping among the ruins of an ancient abbey, edging past broken arches and columns. It became a simple matter to imagine ghostly monks with nothing but darkness beneath their cowls walking silently close behind or looming up before me out of the fog.

Then, as if my wandering imagination had overtaken reality, there was a loud crash, followed by a piercing cry, such that I had never heard issue from either man or beast. I stared uselessly into the fog, unable to tell from whence the sounds came. Then a hand clutched at my arm and I almost yelled with fright.

“Watson!” said Holmes, invisible at my elbow. “Listen. Something approaches.”

Something was indeed approaching. I did not hear it, I could not see it, but I knew something was coming all the same, as I’m certain did Holmes at that instant. And I knew that its motion through the fog was swift and unerring, exuding a sense of its utter wrongness as it rushed silently and invisibly upon us. Within seconds this grew in me to an unreasoning fear, to horror, to animal terror, to a sure knowledge of this thing’s hatred of my very humanity. The sensation overwhelmed me like an ocean wave of pure malignity. I cried out as it all but crushed me down into the rank grass. Then as swiftly as it had come, it was gone, passed unseen and the horror of the moment faded like the dwindling memory of a fevered dream.

“Did you … did you feel that, Holmes?” I gasped.

“Yes … an experience I should not wish to repeat,”