If I could gain the stairs now.

.

.
Stealthily, and more stealthily as the fear returned and grew, I reached the door, pushed it open, and looked out on the landing.

But for a worm-eaten trunk and a line of old suits dangling from pegs around the wall, it was bare.

The little light filtered through a cracked and discoloured window high up in the slope of the roof.
The stairhead lay a short two yards from me, to be reached by one bold leap.
This, however, was not what I first saw; nay, how or when I saw it is a wonder still.