Part 3

When his visitors had gone, Williams had to finish writing letter, so it was after midnight before he was ready to go to bed. picture lay face upwards on table where Garwood had left it and, as Williams was putting out lamp, he saw it.

For moment he was too surprised to move, then he slowly picked up picture and stared at it in horror. In middle of lawn, in front of unknown house, there was figure where there had been figure earlier. It was crawling on hands and knees towards house, and it was covered in strange black garment with white cross on back.

After second or two Mr Williams took picture by one corner and carried it to empty room. There, he locked it, face downwards, in cupboard, then closed and locked door of empty room. He went back to his own room and locked door behind him. Before going to bed, he sat down and wrote note describing in detail extraordinary change in picture since he had received it.

He was glad to remember that Mr Garwood, who had looked at picture earlier in evening, had also seen ‘rather unpleasant’ figure. He decided that in morning he must ask someone to look carefully at picture with him, and he must try very hard to discover name of house. He would ask his neighbour, Mr Nisbet, to have breakfast with him. Then he would spend morning looking for house in his guidebooks.

Mr Nisbet arrived at nine o’clock and two men sat down to breakfast. When they had finished, Mr Williams, feeling both nervous and excited, hurried to empty room. He unlocked cupboard, took out picture, still face downwards, and, without looking at it, went back to his own room and put it into Nisbet’s hands.

‘Now, Nisbet,’ he said, ‘I want you to tell me what you see in that picture. Describe it, please, in detail. I’ll tell you why afterwards.’
‘Well,’ said Nisbet, ‘I have here picture of English country house by moonlight.’
‘ moonlight? Are you sure?’
‘Oh, yes. moon is shown quite clearly and there are clouds in sky.’
‘All right. Go on. But I’m sure,’ added Williams quietly, ‘that there was moon when I first saw it.’
‘Well, there’s not much more I can say,’ Nisbet continued. ‘The house has three rows of windows, five in each row, except at bottom, where there’s door instead of middle one and…’

‘But what about figures? ‘said Williams with great interest.
‘ figures?’ replied Nisbet. ‘There aren’t any.’
‘What? figure on grass in front?’
‘No. Not thing.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I am. But there’s one other thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘One of windows on ground floor, on left of door, is open.’
‘Is it really? Oh dear! I suppose he’s got into house,’ said Williams, with great excitement.

He hurried across to where Nisbet was sitting and, taking picture from him, saw for himself. It was quite true. There was figure on lawn, and there was open window.