Every light in the store came on and I stopped, frozen. The Count ordered the ghastly thing to wheel over the bar, as it turned away I saw what could have been a chimney projecting behind one shoulder. He sat in the center of the plot, like a spider on its web pulling the strings that set things into motion. Anyone with less self-esteem thanmyselfor who had led a more honest early lifemight have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. No one came near us or even bothered to notice us. What were youdoing. The roof guard saluted when I went by, and I could see the red spark of a cigarette in his hand. Being locked in a black room full of corpses had an unusually depressing effect on me.