Given the apparent thoroughness of the search which my associates had conducted, I felt somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed with my own investigation. This state of uncertainty, however, lasted but a moment. Bending down, I retrieved one of the old, brittle newspapers that lay dose to my feet. I then straightened up, and—holding my breath (so as to avoid inhaling any of the dust-like particles of disintegrating paper which had precipitated my earlier fit of uncontrolled sternutation)—I quickly leafed through the fragile pages of this twenty-year-old gazette.

Within seconds, I had come upon a piece by Alexander Montague dealing with the acoustical deficiencies of the then newly constructed Holliday Street Theatre. The discovery of this article served to account for the otherwise baffling collection of moldering newspapers stored within the room. It was dear that Montague had meticulously preserved a copy of each of the issues to which he had contributed a review.

That one or another of these writings might contain a due to the mysteries associated with the bloody word “Nevermore” seemed at least remotely plausible to me. The sheer number of newspapers littering the room, however, made the prospect of pursuing this line of investigation excessively daunting. In any event, there was no possibility at all of my engaging in such an onerous undertaking at the moment. Carefully refolding the newspaper, I laid it on the tabletop and cast my eye about the dimly illuminated room.

Immediately, my gaze lighted upon the leather-bound volume of Jacobean drama which lay atop the bureau, in precisely the same position I had left it when forced to flee the noxious confines of the room several hours earlier. Although I had looked through this volume with reasonable care, it now struck me that some additional information might be gleaned from a more scrupulous perusal of its pages—as well as from a closer examination of the numerous other books belonging to Montague. With this end in view, I made for the bureau. I had taken only one or two steps, however, when I was brought to a sudden—and startled—halt.

A muffled scrape, like the sound of another person moving stealthily across the floorboards, had issued from a spot somewhere close behind me!

So unexpected—so utterly alarming—was this noise that I felt my heart cease to beat and my limbs grow as rigid as the sculpted appendages of the celebrated Hermes by the Greek master Praxiteles. Not daring to move—to breathe—or indeed, to so much as blink an eye—I listened in an extremity of terrified suspense. But though I remained in this state of frozen attentiveness for several agonizingly protracted minutes, I could detect no repetition of the sound.