THE CLOSED
ROOM An Uncanny Short Story By MAEBELLE MCCALMENT
DR. KING WAYLAND, the emin-
ent brain specialist, so far for-
got his professional dignity as
to lean tensely forward and gaze at Anne
Norman in horror and amazement, inter-
mingled with incredulity.
The eyes that looked back at him did
not gleam with the light of insanity;
yet had the story with all its gruesome
details fallen from other lips, without
hesitancy he would have pronounced it
nothing more nor less than a grotesque
hallucination. Now he mentally tabulat-
ed it the frenzy of a tortured brain. He
noted the quivering lips, but the eyes
were the same steadfast, unwavering
eyes that had won him ten years before
when her husband, Richard Norman, and
he were pals in medical college.
At the time of his graduation, which
preceded that of King Wayland by a
year, Dick Norman had married Camille
West, the gay college widow, and had
left shortly for a year of travel in Amer-
ica and abroad. He had already come
into his father's vast estate, and had
studied medicine merely for the love of
it.
Three months later came the terrible
tragedy in his life. While crossing the
Great American Desert his party had
been overtaken by a severe sand storm,
and in some unaccountable manner
Norman and his wife were separated
from their guides. They had wandered
on and on for days, without food or
water, until Mrs. Norman could go no
farther. Norman staggered
toward
the alluring, ever-elusive mirage, or the
visionary gray spiral of smoke he im-
agined he saw in the dim distance. Later
he was found in an unconscious condi-
tion by two prospectors who took him
to their shack in the foot-hills and
nursed him back to life. It was a year
later, when all that remained of the
beautiful dashing Camille Norman was
found and identified by a few shreds of
clothing, her wedding ring, and a string
of emerald beads.
In the meantime Norman had return-
ed to Denver and won from Wayland
the woman he loved, Anne Paddington.
King Wayland took his loss like a man,
going abroad immediately for his two
years of study in Berlin.
For eight years he had toiled inces-
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