"Yes, one must be certain," he replied.
He got one wall finished, and then...
He came to another wall.
"What time is it?"
He looked at the mantel clock. An hour gone. It was five after one.
The doorbell rang.
Acton froze, staring at the door, the clock, the door, the clock.
Someone rapped loudly.
A long moment passed. Acton did not breathe. Without new air in his body he began to fail away, to sway; his head roared a silence of cold waves thundering onto heavy rocks.
"Hey, in there!" cried a drunken voice. "I know you're in there, Huxley! Open up, dammit! This is Billy-boy, drunk as an owl, Huxley, old pal, drunker than two owls."
"Go away," whispered Acton soundlessly, crushed against the wall.
"Huxley, you're in there, I hear you breathing!" cried the drunken voice.
"Yes, I'm in here," whispered Acton, feeling long and sprawled and clumsy on the floor, clumsy and cold and silent. "Yes."
"Hell!" said the voice, fading away into mist The footsteps shuffled off. "Hell..."
Acton stood a long time feeling the red heart beat inside his shut eyes, within his head. When at last he opened his eyes he looked at the new fresh wall straight ahead of him and finally got courage to speak. "Silly," he said. "This wall's flawless. I won't touch it. Got to hurry. Got to hurry. Time, time. Only a few hours before those damn-fool friends blunder in!" He turned away.
From the corners of his eyes he saw the little webs. When his back was turned the little spiders came out of the woodwork and delicately spun their fragile little half-invisible webs. Not upon the wall at his left, which was already washed fresh, but upon the three walls as yet untouched. Each time he stared directly at them the spiders dropped back into the woodwork, only to spindle out as he retreated. "Those walls are all right," he insisted in a half shout. "I won't touch them!"
He went to a writing desk at which Huxley had been seated earlier. He opened a drawer and took out what he was looking for. A little magnifying glass Huxley sometimes used for reading. He took the magnifier and approached the wall uneasily.
Fingerprints.
"But those aren't mine!" He laughed unsteadily. "I didn't put them there! I'm sure I didn't! A servant, a butler, or a maid perhaps!"
The wall was full of them.
"Look at this one here," he said. "Long and tapered, a woman's, I'd bet money on it."
"Would you?"
"I would!"
"Are you certain?"
"Yes!"
"Positive?"
"Well--yes."
"Absolutely?"
"Yes, damn it, yes!"
"Wipe it out, anyway, why don't you?"