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Worse: the lights in the hallway and on the stairs were deteriorating; the bulbs losing power with every foot the elevator ascended.
    He turned back into the apartment and went to take hold of Barbara's wrist. She made no protest. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway through which she seemed to know her judgement would come.
    'We'll take the stairs,' he told her, and led her out on to the landing. The lights were within an ace of failing. He glanced up at the floor numbers being ticked off above the elevator doors. Was this the top floor they were on,
    or one shy of it? He couldn't remember, and there was no time to think before the lights went out entirely.
    He  stumbled across the unfamiliar territory of the landing with the girl in tow, hoping to God he'd find  the stairs before the elevator reached this floor. Barbara wanted to loiter, but he bullied her to pick up her pace.
    As his foot found the top stair the elevator finished its ascent.
    The doors hissed open, and a cold fluorescence washed the landing. He couldn't see its source, nor did he wish to, but its effect was to reveal to the naked eye every stain and blemish, every sign of decay and creeping rot that the paintwork sought to camouflage. The show stole Harry's attention for a moment only, then he took a firmer hold of the woman's hand and  they began their descent.
    Barbara was not interested in escape however, but in events on the landing. Thus occupied she tripped and fell heavily against Harry. The two would have toppled but that he caught hold of the banister. Angered, he turned to her. They were out of sight of the landing, but the light crept down the stairs and washed over Barbara's face.
    Beneath its uncharitable scrutiny Harry saw decay busy in her. Saw rot in her teeth, and the death in her skin and hair and nails. No doubt he would have appeared much the same to her, were she to have looked, but she was still staring back over her shoulder and up the stairs. The light-source was on the move. Voices accompanied it.
    The door's open,' a woman said.
    'What  are you waiting for?' a voice replied. It was Butterfield.
    Harry  held  both  breath and  wrist as  the light-
    source moved again, towards the door presumably,
    and then  was partially eclipsed as it disappeared into the apartment.
    'We have to be quick,' he told Barbara. She went with him down three or four steps and then, without warning,
    her hand leapt for his face, nails opening his cheek. He let go of her hand to protect himself, and in that instant she was away - back up the stairs.
                       29He cursed and stumbled in pursuit of her, but her former  sluggishness had  lifted; she was  startlingly nimble. By  the dregs of light from the landing he watched  her reach the top of the stairs and disappear from sight.
    'Here I am,' she called out as she went.
    He stood immobile on the stairway, unable to decide whether to go or stay, and so unable to move at all. Ever since Wyckoff Street he'd hated stairs. Momentarily the light from above flared up, throwing the shadows of the banisters across him; then it died again. He put his hand to his face. She had raised weals, but there was little blood. What could he hope from her if he went to her aid? Only more of the same. She was a lost cause.
    Even as he despaired of her he heard a sound from round the corner at the head of the stairs; a soft sound that might have been either a footstep or a sigh. Had she escaped their influence after all? Or perhaps not even reached the apartment door, but thought better of it and about-turned? Even as he was weighing up the odds he heard her say:
    'Help me ... The voice was a ghost of a ghost; but it was indisputably her, and she was in terror.
    He  reached for his .38, and started up the stairs again.
    Even before he had turned the corner he felt the nape of his neck itch as his hackles rose.
    She was there. But so was the tiger. It stood on the landing, mere feet from