23Then the door opened, and the hall light snapped on. In its blinding glare I struggled on the threshold of the dark abyss and sank . . . but only as far as the step behind me, shaken and shattered as I’ve never been before, but still, I believe, not half as shaken or nearly as shattered as Sergeant Phineas T. Buck. Galvanized, I believe the word is, and that’s what Sergeant Buck was, for an appalled infinity that could have been an hour or a split fraction of a hairbreadth second. Then he was back in the living room again, his brassy voice speaking through a crack hardly wider than an eyelash.
He didn’t go to frighten me, he said. He was there to protect me.
“Protect me!” My teeth were chattering like a jungle-full of monkeys. “Protect me! For the love of Heaven!” I was half laughing,
