The Project Gutenberg eBook, Whispers at Dawn, by Roy J. Snell

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Whispers at Dawn

Or, The Eye

Author: Roy J. Snell

Release Date: September 9, 2013 [eBook #43677]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHISPERS AT DAWN***

E-text prepared by
Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

WHISPERS AT
DAWN
or The Eye

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

COPYRIGHT, 1934
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Fantastic as the happenings recorded in this book may at times seem, they are, nevertheless, a fairly exact recording of the feats of magic already accomplished by the electrical wizards of our time.

Roy J. Snell.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Three Black Boxes 11

II Something Rather Terrible 28

III The Battle 39

IV Back in the Old Shack 48

V Past and Present 57

VI A Store in Chicago 62

VII The Unholy Five 73

VIII Down a Beam of Light 78

IX Cut Adrift 85

X A Runaway Captured 92

XI A Room of Strange Magic 103

XII The Whisperer Returns 109

XIII So Long as God Gives Us Breath 124

XIV A Human Spider 134

XV A Living Picture 145

XVI A Strange Treasure 155

XVII “The Eye” 164

XVIII The Trap Is Sprung 171

XIX A Whisper from Afar 183

XX The Sky Slider 193

XXI Christmas Eve 204

XXII The Warning 214

XXIII A Promise That Is a Threat 221

XXIV A Strange Victory 231

XXV The Whisperer Talks 240

WHISPERS AT DAWN
or The Eye

CHAPTER I
THREE BLACK BOXES

As Johnny Thompson put out a hand to ring the door bell of that brownstone house facing the deserted grounds of the Chicago Century of Progress and the lake, the door opened without a sound. He looked up, expecting to see a face, hear a voice, perhaps. The voice came: “Step inside, please.” But there was no face. The space before him was empty.

A little puzzled, he stepped into the narrow passageway. Instantly in a slow, silent manner that seemed ominous, the door closed behind him.

The place was all but dark. Certainly there was no lamp; only a curious blue illumination everywhere. A little frightened, he put out a hand to grip the door knob. It did not give to his touch. Indeed it was immovable as the branch of an oak.

“Locked!” he muttered. Then for a space of seconds his heart went wild. From the wall to the right of him had flashed a pencil of white light. Like an accusing finger it fell upon something on the opposite wall. And that something was an eye, an eye in the wall,—or so it seemed to the boy. And even as he stared, with lips parted, breath coming short and quick, the thing appeared to wink.

“The eye!” he whispered, and again, “the eye!”

For a space of many seconds, like a bird charmed by a snake, he stood staring at that eye.

And then cold terror seized him. In the corner of the place he had detected some