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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0b1121 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54273 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54273) diff --git a/old/54273-0.txt b/old/54273-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1b0b397..0000000 --- a/old/54273-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2575 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Locked Doors, by Mary Roberts Rinehart - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Locked Doors - - -Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart - - - -Release Date: March 3, 2017 [eBook #54273] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOCKED DOORS*** - - -E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) - - - -Transcriber’s note: - - This eBook contains only the story “Locked Doors,” although - the title page is from a printed omnibus edition. - - Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). - - - - - -MARY ROBERTS RINEHART’S CRIME BOOK - -Containing -Three Complete Stories - - THE AFTER HOUSE - LOCKED DOORS - THE RED LAMP - - - - - - -New York -Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers - -By arrangement with Farrar & Rinehart - -Copyright, 1914, 1925, by Mary Roberts Rinehart -Printed in the United States of America -All Rights Reserved - - - - - LOCKED DOORS - - - - - I - - -“You promised,” I reminded Mr. Patton, “to play with cards on the -table.” - -“My dear young lady,” he replied, “I have no cards! I suspect a game, -that’s all.” - -“Then—do you need me?” - -The detective bent forward, his arms on his desk, and looked me over -carefully. - -“What sort of shape are you in? Tired?” - -“No.” - -“Nervous?” - -“Not enough to hurt.” - -“I want you to take another case, following a nurse who has gone to -pieces,” he said, selecting his words carefully. “I don’t want to tell -you a lot—I want you to go in with a fresh mind. It promises to be an -extraordinary case.” - -“How long was the other nurse there?” - -“Four days.” - -“She went to pieces in four days!” - -“Well, she’s pretty much unstrung. The worst is, she hasn’t any real -reason. A family chooses to live in an unusual manner, because they like -it, or perhaps they’re afraid of something. The girl was, that’s sure. I -had never seen her until this morning, a big, healthy-looking young -woman; but she came in looking back over her shoulder as if she expected -a knife in her back. She said she was a nurse from St. Luke’s and that -she’d been on a case for four days. She’d left that morning after about -three hours’ sleep in that time, being locked in a room most of the -time, and having little but crackers and milk for food. She thought it -was a case for the police.” - -“Who is ill in the house? Who was her patient?” - -“There is no illness, I believe. The French governess had gone, and they -wished the children competently cared for until they replaced her. That -was the reason given her when she went. Afterward she—well, she was -puzzled.” - -“How are you going to get me there?” - -He gathered acquiescence from my question and smiled approval. - -“Good girl!” he said. “Never mind how I’ll get you there. You are the -most dependable woman I know.” - -“The most curious, perhaps?” I retorted. “Four days on the case, three -hours’ sleep, locked in and yelling ‘Police’! Is it out of town?” - -“No, in the heart of the city, on Beauregard Square. Can you get some -St. Luke’s uniforms? They want another St. Luke’s nurse.” - -I said I could get the uniforms, and he wrote the address on a card. - -“Better arrive about five,” he said. - -“But—if they are not expecting me?” - -“They will be expecting you,” he replied enigmatically. - -“The doctor, if he’s a St. Luke’s man——” - -“There is no doctor.” - - -It was six months since I had solved, or helped to solve, the mystery of -the buckled bag for Mr. Patton. I had had other cases for him in the -interval, cases where the police could not get close enough. As I said -when I began this record of my crusade against crime and the criminal, a -trained nurse gets under the very skin of the soul. She finds a mind -surrendered, all the crooked little motives that have fired the guns of -life revealed in their pitifulness. - -Gradually I had come to see that Mr. Patton’s point of view was right; -that if the criminal uses every means against society, why not society -against the criminal? At first I had used this as a flag of truce to my -nurse’s ethical training; now I flaunted it, a mental and moral banner. -The criminal against society, and I against the criminal! And, more than -that, against misery, healing pain by augmenting it sometimes, but -working like a surgeon, for good. - -I had had six cases in six months. Only in one had I failed to land my -criminal, and that without any suspicion of my white uniform and -rubber-soled shoes. Although I played a double game no patient of mine -had suffered. I was a nurse first and a police agent second. If it was a -question between turpentine compresses—stupes, professionally—and seeing -what letters came in or went out of the house, the compress went on -first, and cracking hot too. I am not boasting. That is my method, the -only way I can work, and it speaks well for it that, as I say, only one -man escaped arrest—an arson case where the factory owner hanged himself -in the bathroom needle shower in the house he had bought with the -insurance money, while I was fixing his breakfast tray. And even he -might have been saved for justice had the cook not burned the toast and -been obliged to make it fresh. - -I was no longer staying at a nurses’ home. I had taken a bachelor suite -of three rooms and bath, comfortably downtown. I cooked my own -breakfasts when I was off duty and I dined at a restaurant near. -Luncheon I did not bother much about. Now and then Mr. Patton telephoned -me and we lunched together in remote places where we would not be known. -He would tell me of his cases and sometimes he asked my advice. - -I bought my uniforms that day and took them home in a taxicab. The -dresses were blue, and over them for the street the St. Luke’s girls -wear long cloaks, English fashion, of navy blue serge, and a blue bonnet -with a white ruching and white lawn ties. I felt curious in it, but it -was becoming and convenient. Certainly I looked professional. - -At three o’clock that afternoon a messenger brought a small box, -registered. It contained a St. Luke’s badge of gold and blue enamel. - -At four o’clock my telephone rang. I was packing my suitcase according -to the list I keep pasted in the lid. Under the list, which was of -uniforms, aprons, thermometer, instruments, a nurse’s simple set of -probe, forceps and bandage scissors, was the word “box.” This always -went in first—a wooden box with a lock, the key of which was round my -neck. It contained skeleton keys, a small black revolver of which I was -in deadly fear, a pair of handcuffs, a pocket flashlight, and my badge -from the chief of police. I was examining the revolver nervously when -the telephone rang, and I came within an ace of sending a bullet into -the flat below. - -Did you ever notice how much you get out of a telephone voice? We can -dissemble with our faces, but under stress the vocal cords seem to draw -up tight and the voice comes thin and colorless. There’s a little woman -in the flat beneath—the one I nearly bombarded—who sings like a bird at -her piano half the day, scaling vocal heights that make me dizzy. Now -and then she has a visitor, a nice young man, and she disgraces herself, -flats F, fogs E even, finally takes cowardly refuge in a wretched -mezzo-soprano and cries herself to sleep, doubtless, later on. - -The man who called me had the thin-drawn voice of extreme strain—a -youngish voice. - -“Miss Adams,” he said, “this is Francis Reed speaking. I have called St. -Luke’s and they referred me to you. Are you free to take a case this -afternoon?” - -I fenced. I was trying to read the voice. - -“This afternoon?” - -“Well, before night anyhow; as—as early this evening as possible.” - -The voice was strained and tired, desperately tired. It was not peevish. -It was even rather pleasant. - -“What is the case, Mr. Reed?” - -He hesitated. “It is not illness. It is merely—the governess has gone -and there are two small children. We want some one to give her undivided -attention to the children.” - -“I see.” - -“Are you a heavy sleeper, Miss Adams?” - -“A very light one.” I fancied he breathed freer. - -“I hope you are not tired from a previous case?” I was beginning to like -the voice. - -“I’m quite fresh,” I replied almost gayly. “Even if I were not, I like -children, especially well ones. I shan’t find looking after them very -wearying, I’m sure.” - -Again the odd little pause. Then he gave me the address on Beauregard -Square, and asked me to be sure not to be late. - -“I must warn you,” he added; “we are living in a sort of casual way. Our -servants left us without warning. Mrs. Reed has been getting along as -best she could. Most of our meals are being sent in.” - -I was thinking fast. No servants! A good many people think a trained -nurse is a sort of upper servant. I’ve been in houses where they were -amazed to discover that I was a college woman and, finding the two -things irreconcilable, have openly accused me of having been driven to -such a desperate course as a hospital training by an unfortunate love -affair. - -“Of course you understand that I will look after the children to the -best of my ability, but that I will not replace the servants.” - -I fancied he smiled grimly. - -“That of course. Will you ring twice when you come?” - -“Ring twice?” - -“The doorbell,” he replied impatiently. - -I said I would ring the doorbell twice. - -The young woman below was caroling gayly, ignorant of the six-barreled -menace over her head. I knelt again by my suitcase, but packed little -and thought a great deal. I was to arrive before dusk at a house where -there were no servants and to ring the doorbell twice. I was to be a -light sleeper, although I was to look after two healthy children. It was -not much in itself, but, taken in connection with the previous nurse’s -appeal to the police, it took on new possibilities. - -At six I started out to dinner. It was early spring and cold, but quite -light. At the first corner I saw Mr. Patton waiting for a street car, -and at his quick nod I saw I was to get in also. He did not pay my fare -or speak to me. It was a part of the game that we were never seen -together except at the remote restaurant I mentioned before. The car -thinned out and I could watch him easily. Far downtown he alighted and -so did I. The restaurant was near. I went in alone and sat down at a -table in a recess, and very soon he joined me. We were in the main -dining room but not of it, a sop at once to the conventions and to the -necessity, where he was so well known, for caution. - -“I got a little information—on—the affair we were talking of,” he said -as he sat down. “I’m not so sure I want you to take the case after all.” - -“Certainly I shall take it,” I retorted with some sharpness. “I’ve -promised to go.” - -“Tut! I’m not going to send you into danger unnecessarily.” - -“I am not afraid.” - -“Exactly. A lot of generals were lost in the Civil War because they were -not afraid and wanted to lead their troops instead of saving themselves -and their expensive West Point training by sitting back in a safe spot -and directing the fight. Any fool can run into danger. It takes -intellect to keep out.” - -I felt my color rising indignantly. - -“Then you brought me here to tell me I am not to go?” - -“Will you let me read you two reports?” - -“You could have told me that at the corner!” - -“Will you let me read you two reports?” - -“If you don’t mind I’ll first order something to eat. I’m to be there -before dark.” - -“Will you let me——” - -“I’m going, and you know I’m going. If you don’t want me to represent -you I’ll go on my own. They want a nurse, and they’re in trouble.” - -I think he was really angry. I know I was. If there is anything that -takes the very soul out of a woman, it is to be kept from doing a thing -she has set her heart on, because some man thinks it dangerous. If she -has any spirit, that rouses it. - -Mr. Patton quietly replaced the reports in his wallet and his wallet in -the inside pocket of his coat, and fell to a judicial survey of the -menu. But although he did not even glance at me he must have felt the -determination in my face, for he ordered things that were quickly -prepared and told the waiter to hurry. - -“I have wondered lately,” he said slowly, “whether the mildness of your -manner at the hospital was acting, or the chastening effect of three -years under an order book.” - -“A man always likes a woman to be a sheep.” - -“Not at all. But it is rather disconcerting to have a pet lamb turn -round and take a bite out of one.” - -“Will you read the reports now?” - -“I think,” he said quietly, “they would better wait until we have eaten. -We will probably both feel calmer. Suppose we arrange that nothing said -before the oysters counts?” - -I agreed, rather sulkily, and the meal went off well enough. I was -anxious enough to hurry but he ate deliberately, drank his demi-tasse, -paid the waiter, and at last met my impatient eyes and smiled. - -“After all,” he said, “since you are determined to go anyhow, what’s the -use of reading the reports? Inside of an hour you’ll know all you need -to know.” But he saw that I did not take his teasing well, and drew out -his pocketbook. - -They were two typewritten papers clamped together. - -They are on my desk before me now. The first one is indorsed: - - -Statement by Laura J. Bosworth, nurse, of St. Luke’s Home for Graduate -Nurses. - - Miss Bosworth says: - - I do not know just why I came here. But I know I’m frightened. That’s - the fact. I think there is something terribly wrong in the house of - Francis M. Reed, 71 Beauregard Square. I think a crime of some sort - has been committed. There are four people in the family, Mr. and Mrs. - Reed and two children. I was to look after the children. - - I was there four days and the children were never allowed out of the - room. At night we were locked in. I kept wondering what I would do if - there was a fire. The telephone wires are cut so no one can call the - house, and I believe the doorbell is disconnected too. But that’s - fixed now. Mrs. Reed went round all the time with a face like chalk - and her eyes staring. At all hours of the night she’d unlock the - bedroom door and come in and look at the children. - - Almost all the doors through the house were locked. If I wanted to get - to the kitchen to boil eggs for the children’s breakfast—for there - were no servants, and Mrs. Reed was young and didn’t know anything - about cooking—Mr. Reed had to unlock about four doors for me. - - If Mrs. Reed looked bad, he was dreadful—sunken eyed and white and - wouldn’t eat. I think he has killed somebody and is making away with - the body. - - Last night I said I had to have air, and they let me go out. I called - up a friend from a pay-station, another nurse. This morning she sent - me a special-delivery letter that I was needed on another case, and I - got away. That’s all; it sounds foolish, but try it and see if it - doesn’t get on your nerves. - -Mr. Patton looked up at me as he finished reading. - -“Now you see what I mean,” he said. “That woman was there four days, and -she is as temperamental as a cow, but in those four days her nervous -system went to smash.” - -“Doors locked!” I reflected. “Servants gone; state of fear—it looks like -a siege!” - -“But why a trained nurse? Why not a policeman, if there is danger? Why -any one at all, if there is something that the police are not to know?” - -“That is what I intend to find out,” I replied. He shrugged his -shoulders and read the other paper: - - Report of Detective Bennett on Francis M. Reed, April 5, 1913: - - Francis M. Reed is thirty-six years of age, married, a chemist at the - Olympic Paint Works. He has two children, both boys. Has a small - independent income and owns the house on Beauregard Square, which was - built by his grandfather, General F. R. Reed. Is supposed to be living - beyond his means. House is usually full of servants, and grocer in the - neighborhood has had to wait for money several times. - - On March twenty-ninth he dismissed all servants without warning. No - reason given, but a week’s wages instead of notice. - - On March thirtieth he applied to the owners of the paint factory for - two weeks’ vacation. Gave as his reason nervousness and insomnia. He - said he was “going to lay off and get some sleep.” Has not been back - at the works since. House under surveillance this afternoon. No - visitors. - - Mr. Reed telephoned for a nurse at four o’clock from a store on - Eleventh Street. Explained that his telephone was out of order. - -Mr. Patton folded up the papers and thrust them back into his pocket. -Evidently he saw I was determined, for he only said: - -“Have you got your revolver?” - -“Yes.” - -“Do you know anything about telephones? Could you repair that one in an -emergency?” - -“In an emergency,” I retorted, “there is no time to repair a telephone. -But I’ve got a voice and there are windows. If I really put my mind to -it you will hear me yell at headquarters.” - -He smiled grimly. - - - - - II - - -The Reed house is on Beauregard Square. It is a small, exclusive -community, the Beauregard neighborhood; a dozen or more solid citizens -built their homes there in the early 70’s, occupying large lots, the -houses flush with the streets and with gardens behind. Six on one -street, six on another, back to back with the gardens in the center, -they occupied the whole block. And the gardens were not fenced off, but -made a sort of small park unsuspected from the streets. Here and there -bits of flowering shrubbery sketchily outlined a property, but the -general impression was of lawn and trees, free of access to all the -owners. Thus with the square in front and the gardens in the rear, the -Reed house faced in two directions on the early spring green. - -In the gardens the old tar walks were still there, and a fountain which -no longer played, but on whose stone coping I believe the young -Beauregard Squarites made their first climbing ventures. - -The gardens were always alive with birds, and later on from my windows I -learned the reason. It seems to have been a custom sanctified by years, -that the crumbs from the twelve tables should be thrown into the dry -basin of the fountain for the birds. It was a common sight to see -stately butlers and _chic_ little waitresses in black and white coming -out after luncheon or dinner with silver trays of crumbs. Many a scrap -of gossip, as well as scrap of food, has been passed along at the old -stone fountain, I believe. I know that it was there that I heard of the -“basement ghost” of Beauregard Square—a whisper at first, a panic later. - -I arrived at eight o’clock and rang the doorbell twice. The door was -opened at once by Mr. Reed, a tall, blond young man carefully dressed. -He threw away his cigarette when he saw me and shook hands. The hall was -brightly lighted and most cheerful; in fact the whole house was ablaze -with light. Certainly nothing could be less mysterious than the house, -or than the debonair young man who motioned me into the library. - -“I told Mrs. Reed I would talk to you before you go upstairs,” he said. -“Will you sit down?” - -I sat down. The library was even brighter than the hall, and now I saw -that although he smiled as cheerfully as ever his face was almost -colorless, and his eyes, which looked frankly enough into mine for a -moment, went wandering off round the room. I had the impression somehow -that Mr. Patton had had of the nurse at headquarters that morning—that -he looked as if he expected a knife in his back. It seemed to me that he -wanted to look over his shoulder and by sheer will-power did not. - -“You know the rule, Miss Adams,” he said: “When there’s an emergency get -a trained nurse. I told you our emergency—no servants and two small -children.” - -“This should be a good time to secure servants,” I said briskly. “City -houses are being deserted for country places, and a percentage of -servants won’t leave town.” - -He hesitated. - -“We’ve been doing very nicely, although of course it’s hardly more than -just living. Our meals are sent in from a hotel, and—well, we thought, -since we are going away so soon, that perhaps we could manage.” - -The impulse was too strong for him at that moment. He wheeled and looked -behind him, not a hasty glance, but a deliberate inspection that took in -every part of that end of the room. It was so unexpected that it left me -gasping. - -The next moment he was himself again. - -“When I say that there is no illness,” he said, “I am hardly exact. -There is no illness, but there has been an epidemic of children’s -diseases among the Beauregard Square children and we are keeping the -youngsters indoors.” - -“Don’t you think they could be safeguarded without being shut up in the -house?” - -He responded eagerly - -“If I only thought——” he checked himself. “No,” he said decidedly; “for -a time at least I believe it is not wise.” - -I did not argue with him. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing -him. And as Mrs. Reed came in just then, the subject was dropped. She -was hardly more than a girl, almost as blond as her husband, very -pretty, and with the weariest eyes I have ever seen, unless perhaps the -eyes of a man who has waited a long time for deathly tuberculosis. - -I liked her at once. She did not attempt to smile. She rather clung to -my hand when I held it out. - -“I am glad St. Luke’s still trusts us,” she said. “I was afraid the -other nurse—— Frank, will you take Miss Adams’ suitcase upstairs?” - -She held out a key. He took it, but he turned at the door: - -“I wish you wouldn’t wear those things, Anne. You gave me your promise -yesterday, you remember.” - -“I can’t work round the children in anything else,” she protested. - -“Those things” were charming. She wore a rose silk negligee trimmed with -soft bands of lace and blue satin flowers, a petticoat to match that -garment, and a lace cap. - -He hesitated in the doorway and looked at her—a curious glance, I -thought, full of tenderness, reproof—apprehension perhaps. - -“I’ll take it off, dear,” she replied to the glance. “I wanted Miss -Adams to know that, even if we haven’t a servant in the house, we are at -least civilized. I—I haven’t taken cold.” This last was clearly an -afterthought. - -He went out then and left us together. She came over to me swiftly. - -“What did the other nurse say?” she demanded. - -“I do not know her at all. I have not seen her.” - -“Didn’t she report at the hospital that we were—queer?” - -I smiled. - -“That’s hardly likely, is it?” - -Unexpectedly she went to the door opening into the hall and closed it, -coming back swiftly. - -“Mr. Reed thinks it is not necessary, but—there are some things that -will puzzle you. Perhaps I should have spoken to the other nurse. If—if -anything strikes you as unusual, Miss Adams, just please don’t see it! -It is all right, everything is all right. But something has occurred—not -very much, but disturbing—and we are all of us doing the very best we -can.” - -She was quivering with nervousness. - -I was not the police agent then, I’m afraid. - -“Nurses are accustomed to disturbing things. Perhaps I can help.” - -“You can, by watching the children. That’s the only thing that matters -to me—the children. I don’t want them left alone. If you have to leave -them call me.” - -“Don’t you think I will be able to watch them more intelligently if I -know just what the danger is?” - -I think she very nearly told me. She was so tired, evidently so anxious -to shift her burden to fresh shoulders. - -“Mr. Reed said,” I prompted her, “that there was an epidemic of -children’s diseases. But from what you say——” - -But I was not to learn, after all, for her husband opened the hall door. - -“Yes, children’s diseases,” she said vaguely. “So many children are -down. Shall we go up, Frank?” - -The extraordinary bareness of the house had been dawning on me for some -time. It was well lighted and well furnished. But the floors were -innocent of rugs, the handsome furniture was without arrangement and, in -the library at least, stood huddled in the center of the room. The hall -and stairs were also uncarpeted, but there were marks where carpets had -recently lain and had been jerked up. - -The progress up the staircase was not calculated to soothe my nerves. -The thought of my little revolver, locked in my suitcase, was poor -comfort. For with every four steps or so Mr. Reed, who led the way, -turned automatically and peered into the hallway below; he was -listening, too, his head bent slightly forward. And each time that he -turned, his wife behind me turned also. Cold terror suddenly got me by -the spine, and yet the hall was bright with light. - -(Note: Surely fear is a contagion. Could one isolate the germ of it and -find an antitoxin? Or is it merely a form of nervous activity run amuck, -like a runaway locomotive, colliding with other nervous activities and -causing catastrophe? Take this up with Mr. Patton. But would he know? -He, I am almost sure, has never been really afraid.) - -I had a vision of my oxlike predecessor making this head-over-shoulder -journey up the staircase, and in spite of my nervousness I smiled. But -at that moment Mrs. Reed behind me put a hand on my arm, and I screamed. -I remember yet the way she dropped back against the wall and turned -white. - -Mr. Reed whirled on me instantly. - -“What did you see?” he demanded. - -“Nothing at all.” I was horribly ashamed. “Your wife touched my arm -unexpectedly. I dare say I am nervous.” - -“It’s all right, Anne,” he reassured her. And to me, almost irritably: - -“I thought you nurses had no nerves.” - -“Under ordinary circumstances I have none.” - -It was all ridiculous. We were still on the staircase. - -“Just what do you mean by that?” - -“If you will stop looking down into that hall I’ll be calm enough. You -make me jumpy.” - -He muttered something about being sorry and went on quickly. But at the -top he went through an inward struggle, evidently succumbed, and took a -final furtive survey of the hallway below. I was so wrought up that had -a door slammed anywhere just then I think I should have dropped where I -stood. - -The absolute silence of the house added to the strangeness of the -situation. Beauregard Square is not close to a trolley line, and quiet -is the neighborhood tradition. The first rubber-tired vehicles in the -city drew up before Beauregard Square houses. Beauregard Square children -speak in low voices and never bang their spoons on their plates. -Beauregard Square servants wear felt-soled shoes. And such outside -noises as venture to intrude themselves must filter through double brick -walls and doors built when lumber was selling by the thousand acres -instead of the square foot. - -Through this silence our feet echoed along the bare floor of the upper -hall, as well lighted as belowstairs and as dismantled, to the door of -the day nursery. The door was locked—double locked, in fact. For the key -had been turned in the old-fashioned lock, and in addition an ordinary -bolt had been newly fastened on the outside of the door. On the outside! -Was that to keep me in? It was certainly not to keep any one or anything -out. The feeblest touch moved the bolt. - -We were all three outside the door. We seemed to keep our compactness by -common consent. No one of us left the group willingly; or, leaving it, -we slid back again quickly. That was my impression, at least. But the -bolt rather alarmed me. - -“This is your room,” Mrs. Reed said. “It is generally the day nursery, -but we have put a bed and some other things in it. I hope you will be -comfortable.” - -I touched the bolt with my finger and smiled into Mr. Reed’s eyes. - -“I hope I am not to be fastened in!” I said. - -He looked back squarely enough, but somehow I knew he lied. - -“Certainly not,” he replied, and opened the door. - -If there had been mystery outside, and bareness, the nursery was -charming—a corner room with many windows, hung with the simplest of -nursery papers and full of glass-doored closets filled with orderly rows -of toys. In one corner a small single bed had been added without -spoiling the room. The window-sills were full of flowering plants. There -was a bowl of goldfish on a stand, and a tiny dwarf parrot in a cage was -covered against the night air by a bright afghan. A white-tiled bathroom -connected with this room and also with the night nursery beyond. - -Mr. Reed did not come in, I had an uneasy feeling, however, that he was -just beyond the door. The children were not asleep. Mrs. Reed left me to -let me put on my uniform. When she came back her face was troubled. - -“They are not sleeping well,” she complained. “I suppose it comes from -having no exercise. They are always excited.” - -“I’ll take their temperatures,” I said. “Sometimes a tepid bath and a -cup of hot milk will make them sleep.” - -The two little boys were wide awake. They sat up to look at me and both -spoke at once. - -“Can you tell fairy tales out of your head?” - -“Did you see Chang?” - -They were small, sleek-headed, fair-skinned youngsters, adorably clean -and rumpled. - -“Chang is their dog, a Pekingese,” explained the mother. “He has been -lost for several days.” - -“But he isn’t lost, mother. I can hear him crying every now and then. -You’ll look again, mother, won’t you?” - -“We heard him through the furnace pipe,” shrilled the smaller of the -two. “You said you would look.” - -“I did look, darlings. He isn’t there. And you promised not to cry about -him, Freddie.” - -Freddie, thus put on his honor, protested he was not crying for the dog. - -“I want to go out and take a walk, that’s why I’m crying,” he wailed. -“And I want Mademoiselle, and my buttons are all off. And my ear aches -when I lie on it.” - -The room was close. I threw up the windows, and turned to find Mrs. Reed -at my elbows. She was glancing out apprehensively. - -“I suppose the air is necessary,” she said, “and these windows are all -right. But—I have a reason for asking it—please do not open the others.” - -She went very soon, and I listened as she went out. I had promised to -lock the door behind her, and I did so. The bolt outside was not shot. - -After I had quieted the children with my mildest fairy story I made a -quiet inventory of my new quarters. The rough diagram of the second -floor is the one I gave Mr. Patton later. That night, of course, I -investigated only the two nurseries. But, so strangely had the fear that -hung over the house infected me, I confess that I made my little tour of -bathroom and clothes-closet with my revolver in my hand! - -I found nothing, of course. The disorder of the house had not extended -itself here. The bathroom was spotless with white tile, the large -clothes-closet which opened off the passage between the two rooms was -full of neatly folded clothing for the children. The closet was to play -its part later, a darkish little room faintly lighted by a ground glass -transom opening into the center hall, but dependent mostly on electric -light. - -Outside the windows Mrs. Reed had asked me not to open was a -porte-cochère roof almost level with the sills. Then was it an outside -intruder she feared? And in that case, why the bolts on the outside of -the two nursery doors? For the night nursery, I found, must have one -also. I turned the key, but the door would not open. - -I decided not to try to sleep that night, but to keep on watch. So -powerfully had the mother’s anxiety about her children and their -mysterious danger impressed me that I made frequent excursions into the -back room. Up to midnight there was nothing whatever to alarm me. I -darkened both rooms and sat, waiting for I know not what; for some sound -to show that the house stirred, perhaps. At a few minutes after twelve -faint noises penetrated to my room from the hall, Mr. Reed’s nervous -voice and a piece of furniture scraping over the floor. Then silence -again for half an hour or so. - -Then—I was quite certain that the bolt on my door had been shot. I did -not hear it, I think. Perhaps I felt it. Perhaps I only feared it. I -unlocked the door; it was fastened outside. - -There is a hideous feeling of helplessness about being locked in. I -pretended to myself at first that I was only interested and curious. But -I was frightened; I know that now. I sat there in the dark and wondered -what I would do if the house took fire, or if some hideous tragedy -enacted itself outside that locked door and I were helpless. - -By two o’clock I had worked myself into a panic. The house was no longer -silent. Some one was moving about downstairs, and not stealthily. The -sounds came up through the heavy joists and flooring of the old house. - -I determined to make at least a struggle to free myself. There was no -way to get at the bolts, of course. The porte-cochère roof remained and -the transom in the clothes-closet. True, I might have raised an alarm -and been freed at once, but naturally I rejected this method. The roof -of the porte-cochère proved impracticable. The tin bent and cracked -under my first step. The transom then. - -I carried a chair into the closet and found the transom easy to lower. -But it threatened to creak. I put liquid soap on the hinges—it was all I -had, and it worked very well—and lowered the transom inch by inch. Even -then I could not see over it. I had worked so far without a sound, but -in climbing to a shelf my foot slipped and I thought I heard a sharp -movement outside. It was five minutes before I stirred. I hung there, -every muscle cramped, listening and waiting. Then I lifted myself by -sheer force of muscle and looked out. The upper landing of the -staircase, brilliantly lighted, was to my right. Across the head of the -stairs had been pushed a cotbed, made up for the night, but it was -unoccupied. - -Mrs. Reed, in a long, dark ulster, was standing beside it, staring with -fixed and glassy eyes at something in the lower hall. - - - - - III - - -Some time after four o’clock my door was unlocked from without; the bolt -slipped as noiselessly as it had been shot. I got a little sleep until -seven, when the boys trotted into my room in their bathrobes and -slippers and perched on my bed. - -“It’s a nice day,” observed Harry, the elder. “Is that bump your feet?” - -I wriggled my toes and assured him he had surmised correctly. - -“You’re pretty long, aren’t you? Do you think we can play in the -fountain to-day?” - -“We’ll make a try for it, son. It will do us all good to get out into -the sunshine.” - -“We always took Chang for a walk every day, Mademoiselle and Chang and -Freddie and I.” - -Freddie had found my cap on the dressing table and had put it on his -yellow head. But now, on hearing the beloved name of his pet, he burst -into loud grief-stricken howls. - -“Want Mam’selle,” he cried. “Want Chang too. Poor Freddie!” - -The children were adorable. I bathed and dressed them and, mindful of my -predecessor’s story of crackers and milk, prepared for an excursion -kitchenward. The nights might be full of mystery, murder might romp from -room to room, but I intended to see that the youngsters breakfasted. But -before I was ready to go down breakfast arrived. - -Perhaps the other nurse had told the Reeds a few plain truths before she -left; perhaps, and this I think was the case, the cloud had lifted just -a little. Whatever it may have been, two rather flushed and blistered -young people tapped at the door that morning and were admitted, Mr. Reed -first, with a tray, Mrs. Reed following with a coffee-pot and cream. - -The little nursery table was small for five, but we made room somehow. -What if the eggs were underdone and the toast dry? The children munched -blissfully. What if Mr. Reed’s face was still drawn and haggard and his -wife a limp little huddle on the floor? She sat with her head against -his knee and her eyes on the little boys, and drank her pale coffee -slowly. She was very tired, poor thing. She dropped asleep sitting -there, and he sat for a long time, not liking to disturb her. - -It made me feel homesick for the home I didn’t have. I’ve had the same -feeling before, of being a rank outsider, a sort of defrauded feeling. -I’ve had it when I’ve seen the look in a man’s eyes when his wife -comes-to after an operation. And I’ve had it, for that matter, when I’ve -put a new baby in its mother’s arms for the first time. I had it for -sure that morning, while she slept there and he stroked her pretty hair. - -I put in my plea for the children then. - -“It’s bright and sunny,” I argued. “And if you are nervous I’ll keep -them away from other children. But if you want to keep them well you -must give them exercise.” - -It was the argument about keeping them well that influenced him, I -think. He sat silent for a long time. His wife was still asleep, her -lips parted. - -“Very well,” he said finally, “from two to three, Miss Adams. But not in -the garden back of the house. Take them on the street.” - -I agreed to that. - -“I shall want a short walk every evening myself,” I added. “That is a -rule of mine. I am a more useful person and a more agreeable one if I -have it.” - -I think he would have demurred if he dared. But one does not easily deny -so sane a request. He yielded grudgingly. - -That first day was calm and quiet enough. Had it not been for the -strange condition of the house and the necessity for keeping the -children locked in I would have smiled at my terror of the night. -Luncheon was sent in; so was dinner. The children and I lunched and -supped alone. As far as I could see, Mrs. Reed made no attempt at -housework; but the cot at the head of the stairs disappeared in the -early morning and the dog did not howl again. - -I took the boys out for an hour in the early afternoon. Two incidents -occurred, both of them significant. I bought myself a screw driver—that -was one. The other was our meeting with a slender young woman in black -who knew the boys and stopped them. She proved to be one of the -dismissed servants—the waitress, she said. - -“Why, Freddie!” she cried. “And Harry too! Aren’t you going to speak to -Nora?” - -After a moment or two she turned to me, and I felt she wanted to say -something, but hardly dared. - -“How is Mrs. Reed?” she asked. “Not sick, I hope?” - -She glanced at my St. Luke’s cloak and bonnet. - -“No, she is quite well.” - -“And Mr. Reed?” - -“Quite well also.” - -“Is Mademoiselle still there?” - -“No, there is no one there but the family. There are no maids in the -house.” - -She stared at me curiously. - -“Mademoiselle has gone? Are you cer—— Excuse me, Miss. But I thought she -would never go. The children were like her own.” - -“She is not there, Nora.” - -She stood for a moment debating, I thought. Then she burst out: - -“Mr. Reed made a mistake, miss. You can’t take a houseful of first-class -servants and dismiss them the way he did, without half an hour to get -out bag and baggage, without making talk. And there’s talk enough all -through the neighborhood.” - -“What sort of talk?” - -“Different people say different things. They say Mademoiselle is still -there, locked in her room on the third floor. There’s a light there -sometimes, but nobody sees her. And other folks say Mr. Reed is crazy. -And there is worse being said than that.” - -But she refused to tell me any more—evidently concluded she had said too -much and got away as quickly as she could, looking rather worried. - -I was a trifle over my hour getting back, but nothing was said. To leave -the clean and tidy street for the disordered house was not pleasant. But -once in the children’s suite, with the goldfish in the aquarium darting -like tongues of flame in the sunlight, with the tulips and hyacinths of -the window-boxes glowing and the orderly toys on their white shelves, I -felt comforted. After all, disorder and dust did not imply crime. - -But one thing I did that afternoon—did it with firmness and no attempt -at secrecy, and after asking permission of no one. I took the new screw -driver and unfastened the bolt from the outside of my door. - -I was prepared, if necessary, to make a stand on that issue. But -although it was noticed, I knew, no mention of it was made to me. - -Mrs. Reed pleaded a headache that evening, and I believe her husband ate -alone in the dismantled dining room. For every room on the lower floor, -I had discovered, was in the same curious disorder. - -At seven Mr. Reed relieved me to go out. The children were in bed. He -did not go into the day nursery, but placed a straight chair outside the -door of the back room and sat there, bent over, elbows on knees, chin -cupped in his palm, staring at the staircase. He roused enough to ask me -to bring an evening paper when I returned. - -When I am on a department case I always take my off-duty in the evening -by arrangement and walk round the block. Some time in my walk I am sure -to see Mr. Patton himself if the case is big enough, or one of his -agents if he cannot come. If I have nothing to communicate it resolves -itself into a bow and nothing more. - -I was nervous on this particular jaunt. For one thing my St. Luke’s -cloak and bonnet marked me at once, made me conspicuous; for another, I -was afraid Mr. Patton would think the Reed house no place for a woman -and order me home. - -It was a quarter to eight and quite dark before he fell into step beside -me. - -“Well,” I replied rather shakily; “I’m still alive, as you see.” - -“Then it is pretty bad?” - -“It’s exceedingly queer,” I admitted, and told my story. I had meant to -conceal the bolt on the outside of my door, and one or two other things, -but I blurted them all out right then and there, and felt a lot better -at once. - -He listened intently. - -“It’s fear of the deadliest sort,” I finished. - -“Fear of the police?” - -“I—I think not. It is fear of something in the house. They are always -listening and watching at the top of the front stairs. They have lifted -all the carpets, so that every footstep echoes through the whole house. -Mrs. Reed goes down to the first door, but never alone. To-day I found -that the back staircase is locked off at top and bottom. There are -doors.” - -I gave him my rough diagram of the house. It was too dark to see it. - -“It is only tentative,” I explained. “So much of the house is locked up, -and every movement of mine is under surveillance. Without baths there -are about twelve large rooms, counting the third floor. I’ve not been -able to get there, but I thought that to-night I’d try to look about.” - -“You had no sleep last night?” - -“Three hours—from four to seven this morning.” - -We had crossed into the public square and were walking slowly under the -trees. Now he stopped and faced me. - -“I don’t like the look of it, Miss Adams,” he said. “Ordinary panic goes -and hides. But here’s a fear that knows what it’s afraid of and takes -methodical steps for protection. I didn’t want you to take the case, you -know that; but now I’m not going to insult you by asking you to give it -up. But I’m going to see that you are protected. There will be some one -across the street every night as long as you are in the house.” - -“Have you any theory?” I asked him. He is not strong for theories -generally. He is very practical. “That is, do you think the other nurse -was right and there is some sort of crime being concealed?” - -“Well, think about it,” he prompted me. “If a murder has been committed, -what are they afraid of? The police? Then why a trained nurse and all -this caution about the children? A ghost? Would they lift the carpets so -that they could hear the specter tramping about?” - -“If there is no crime, but something—a lunatic perhaps?” I asked. - -“Possibly. But then why this secrecy and keeping out the police? It is, -of course, possible that your respected employers have both gone off -mentally, and the whole thing is a nightmare delusion. On my word it -sounds like it. But it’s too much for credulity to believe they’ve both -gone crazy with the same form of delusion.” - -“Perhaps I’m the lunatic,” I said despairingly. “When you reduce it like -that to an absurdity I wonder if I didn’t imagine it all, the lights -burning everywhere and the carpets up, and Mrs. Reed staring down the -staircase, and I locked in a room and hanging on by my nails to peer out -through a closet transom.” - -“Perhaps. But how about the deadly sane young woman who preceded you? -She had no imagination. Now about Reed and his wife—how do they strike -you? They get along all right and that sort of thing, I suppose?” - -“They are nice people,” I said emphatically. “He’s a gentleman and -they’re devoted. He just looks like a big boy who’s got into an awful -mess and doesn’t know how to get out. And she’s backing him up. She’s a -dear.” - -“Humph!” said Mr. Patton. “Don’t suppress any evidence because she’s a -dear and he’s a handsome big boy!” - -“I didn’t say he was handsome,” I snapped. - -“Did you ever see a ghost or think you saw one?” he inquired suddenly. - -“No, but one of my aunts has. Hers always carry their heads. She asked -one a question once and the head nodded.” - -“Then you believe in things of that sort?” - -“Not a particle—but I’m afraid of them.” - -He smiled, and shortly after that I went back to the house. I think he -was sorry about the ghost question, for he explained that he had been -trying me out, and that I looked well in my cloak and bonnet. - -“I’m afraid of your chin generally,” he said; “but the white lawn ties -have a softening effect. In view of the ties I have almost the -courage——” - -“Yes?” - -“I think not, after all.” he decided. “The chin is there, ties or no -ties. Good-night, and—for heaven’s sake don’t run any unnecessary -risks.” - -The change from his facetious tone to earnestness was so unexpected that -I was still standing there on the pavement when he plunged into the -darkness of the square and disappeared. - - - - - IV - - -At ten minutes after eight I was back in the house. Mr. Reed admitted -me, going through the tedious process of unlocking outer and inner -vestibule doors and fastening them again behind me. He inquired politely -if I had had a pleasant walk, and without waiting for my reply fell to -reading the evening paper. He seemed to have forgotten me absolutely. -First he scanned the headlines; then he turned feverishly to something -farther on and ran his fingers down along a column. His lips were -twitching, but evidently he did not find what he expected—or feared—for -he threw the paper away and did not glance at it again. I watched him -from the angle of the stairs. - -Even for that short interval Mrs. Reed had taken his place at the -children’s door. - -She wore a black dress, long sleeved and high at the throat, instead of -the silk negligee of the previous evening, and she held a book. But she -was not reading. She smiled rather wistfully when she saw me. - -“How fresh you always look!” she said. “And so self-reliant. I wish I -had your courage.” - -“I am perfectly well. I dare say that explains a lot. Kiddies asleep?” - -“Freddie isn’t. He has been crying for Chang. I hate night, Miss Adams. -I’m like Freddie. All my troubles come up about this time. I’m horribly -depressed.” - -Her blue eyes filled with tears. - -“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she confessed. - -I should think not! - -Without taking off my things I went down to Mr. Reed in the lower hall. - -“I’m going to insist on something,” I said. “Mrs. Reed is highly -nervous. She says she has not been sleeping. I think if I give her an -opiate and she gets an entire night’s sleep it may save her a -breakdown.” - -I looked straight in his eyes, and for once he did evade me. - -“I’m afraid I’ve been very selfish,” he said. “Of course she must have -sleep. I’ll give you a powder, unless you have something you prefer to -use.” - -I remembered then that he was a chemist, and said I would gladly use -whatever he gave me. - -“There is another thing I wanted to speak about, Mr. Reed,” I said. “The -children are mourning their dog. Don’t you think he may have been -accidentally shut up somewhere in the house in one of the upper floors?” - -“Why do you say that?” he demanded sharply. - -“They say they have heard him howling.” - -He hesitated for barely a moment. Then: - -“Possibly,” he said. “But they will not hear him again. The little chap -has been sick, and he—died to-day. Of course the boys are not to know.” - - -No one watched the staircase that night. I gave Mrs. Reed the opiate and -saw her comfortably into bed. When I went back fifteen minutes later she -was resting, but not asleep. Opiates sometimes make people garrulous for -a little while—sheer comfort, perhaps, and relaxed tension. I’ve had -stockbrokers and bankers in the hospital give me tips, after a -hypodermic of morphia, that would have made me wealthy had I not been -limited to my training allowance of twelve dollars a month. - -“I was just wondering,” she said as I tucked her up, “where a woman owes -the most allegiance—to her husband or to her children?” - -“Why not split it up,” I said cheerfully, “and try doing what seems best -for both?” - -“But that’s only a compromise!” she complained, and was asleep almost -immediately. I lowered the light and closed the door, and shortly after -I heard Mr. Reed locking it from the outside. - -With the bolt off my door and Mrs. Reed asleep my plan for the night was -easily carried out. I went to bed for a couple of hours and slept -calmly. I awakened once with the feeling that some one was looking at me -from the passage into the night nursery, but there was no one there. -However, so strong had been the feeling that I got up and went into the -back room. The children were asleep, and all doors opening into the hall -were locked. But the window on to the porte-cochère roof was open and -the curtain blowing. There was no one on the roof. - -It was not twelve o’clock and I still had an hour. I went back to bed. - -At one I prepared to make a thorough search of the house. Looking from -one of my windows I thought I saw the shadowy figure of a man across the -street, and I was comforted. Help was always close, I felt. And yet, as -I stood inside my door in my rubber-soled shoes, with my ulster over my -uniform and a revolver and my skeleton keys in my pockets, my heart was -going very fast. The stupid story of the ghost came back and made me -shudder, and the next instant I was remembering Mrs. Reed the night -before, staring down into the lower hall with fixed glassy eyes. - -My plan was to begin at the top of the house and work down. The thing -was the more hazardous, of course, because Mr. Reed was most certainly -somewhere about. I had no excuse for being on the third floor. Down -below I could say I wanted tea, or hot water—anything. But I did not -expect to find Mr. Reed up above. The terror, whatever it was, seemed to -lie below. - -Access to the third floor was not easy. The main staircase did not go -up. To get there I was obliged to unlock the door at the rear of the -hall with my own keys. I was working in bright light, trying my keys one -after another, and watching over my shoulder as I did so. When the door -finally gave it was a relief to slip into the darkness beyond, ghosts or -no ghosts. - -I am always a silent worker. Caution about closing doors and squeaking -hinges is second nature to me. One learns to be cautious when one’s only -chance of sleep is not to rouse a peevish patient and have to give a -body-massage, as like as not, or listen to domestic troubles—“I said” -and “he said”—until one is almost crazy. - -So I made no noise. I closed the door behind me and stood blinking in -the darkness. I listened. There was no sound above or below. Now houses -at night have no terror for me. Every nurse is obliged to do more or -less going about in the dark. But I was not easy. Suppose Mr. Reed -should call me? True, I had locked my door and had the key in my pocket. -But a dozen emergencies flew through my mind as I felt for the stair -rail. - -There was a curious odor through all the back staircase, a pungent, -aromatic scent that, with all my familiarity with drugs, was strange to -me. As I slowly climbed the stairs it grew more powerful. The air was -heavy with it, as though no windows had been opened in that part of the -house. There was no door at the top of this staircase, as there was on -the second floor. It opened into an upper hall, and across from the head -of the stairs was a door leading into a room. This door was closed. On -this staircase, as on all the others, the carpet had been newly lifted. -My electric flash showed the white boards and painted borders, the -carpet tacks, many of them still in place. One, lying loose, penetrated -my rubber sole and went into my foot. - -I sat down in the dark and took off the shoe. As I did so my flash, on -the step beside me, rolled over and down with a crash. I caught it on -the next step, but the noise had been like a pistol shot. - -Almost immediately a voice spoke above me sharply. At first I thought it -was out in the upper hall. Then I realized that the closed door was -between it and me. - -“Ees that you, Meester Reed?” - -Mademoiselle! - -“Meester Reed!” plaintively. “Eet comes up again, Meester Reed! I die! -To-morrow I die!” - -She listened. On no reply coming she began to groan rhythmically, to a -curious accompaniment of creaking. When I had gathered up my nerves -again I realized that she must be sitting in a rocking chair. The groans -were really little plaintive grunts. - -By the time I had got my shoe on she was up again, and I could hear her -pacing the room, the heavy step of a woman well fleshed and not young. -Now and then she stopped inside the door and listened; once she shook -the knob and mumbled querulously to herself. - -I recovered the flash, and with infinite caution worked my way to the -top of the stairs. Mademoiselle was locked in, doubly bolted in. Two -strong bolts, above and below, supplemented the door lock. - -Her ears must have been very quick, or else she felt my softly padding -feet on the boards outside, for suddenly she flung herself against the -door and begged for a priest, begged piteously, in jumbled French and -English. She wanted food; she was dying of hunger. She wanted a priest. - -And all the while I stood outside the door and wondered what I should -do. Should I release the woman? Should I go down to the lower floor and -get the detective across the street to come in and force the door? Was -this the terror that held the house in thrall—this babbling old -Frenchwoman calling for food and a priest in one breath? - -Surely not. This was a part of the mystery, not all. The real terror lay -below. It was not Mademoiselle, locked in her room on the upper floor, -that the Reeds waited for at the top of the stairs. But why was -Mademoiselle locked in her room? Why were the children locked in? What -was this thing that had turned a home into a jail, a barracks, that had -sent away the servants, imprisoned and probably killed the dog, sapped -the joy of life from two young people? What was it that Mademoiselle -cried “comes up again”? - -I looked toward the staircase. Was it coming up the staircase? - -I am not afraid of the thing I can see, but it seemed to me, all at -once, that if anything was going to come up the staircase I might as -well get down first. A staircase is no place to meet anything, -especially if one doesn’t know what it is. - -I listened again. Mademoiselle was quiet. I flashed my light down the -narrow stairs. They were quite empty. I shut off the flash and went -down. I tried to go slowly, to retreat with dignity, and by the time I -had reached the landing below I was heartily ashamed of myself. Was this -shivering girl the young woman Mr. Patton called his right hand? - -I dare say I should have stopped there, for that night at least. My -nerves were frayed. But I forced myself on. The mystery lay below. Well, -then, I was going down. It could not be so terrible. At least it was -nothing supernatural. There must be a natural explanation. And then that -silly story about the headless things must pop into my head and start me -down trembling. - -The lower rear staircase was black dark, like the upper, but just at the -foot a light came in through a barred window. I could see it plainly and -the shadows of the iron grating on the bare floor. I stood there -listening. There was not a sound. - -It was not easy to tell exactly what followed. I stood there with my -hand on the rail. I’d been very silent; my rubber shoes attended to -that. And one moment the staircase was clear, with a patch of light at -the bottom. The next, something was there, half way down—a head, it -seemed to be, with a pointed hood like a monk’s cowl. There was no body. -It seemed to lie at my feet. But it was living. It moved. I could tell -the moment when the eyes lifted and saw my feet, the slow back-tilting -of the head as they followed up my body. All the air was squeezed out of -my lungs; a heavy hand seemed to press on my chest. I remember raising a -shaking hand and flinging my flashlight at the head. The flash clattered -on the stair tread harmless. Then the head was gone and something living -slid over my foot. - -I stumbled back to my room and locked the door. It was two hours before -I had strength enough to get my aromatic ammonia bottle. - - - - - V - - -It seemed to me that I had hardly dropped asleep before the children -were in the room, clamoring. - -“The goldfish are dead!” Harry said, standing soberly by the bed. “They -are all dead with their stummicks turned up.” - -I sat up. My head ached violently. - -“They can’t be dead, old chap.” I was feeling about for my kimono, but I -remembered that when I had found my way back to the nursery after my -fright on the back stairs I had lain down in my uniform. I crawled out, -hardly able to stand. “We gave them fresh water yesterday, and——” - -I had got to the aquarium. Harry was right. The little darting flames of -pink and gold were still. They floated about, rolling gently as Freddie -prodded them with a forefinger, dull eyed, pale bellies upturned. In his -cage above the little parrot watched out of a crooked eye. - -I ran to the medicine closet in the bathroom. Freddie had a weakness for -administering medicine. I had only just rescued the parrot from the -result of his curiosity and a headache tablet the day before. - -“What did you give them?” I demanded. - -“Bread,” said Freddie stoutly. - -“Only bread?” - -“Dirty bread,” Harry put in. “I told him it was dirty.” - -“Where did you get it?” - -“On the roof of the porte-cochère!” - -Shade of Montessori! The rascals had been out on that sloping tin roof. -It turned me rather sick to think of it. - -Accused, they admitted it frankly. - -“I unlocked the window,” Harry said, “and Freddie got the bread. It was -out in the gutter. He slipped once.” - -“Almost went over and made a squash on the pavement,” added Freddie. “We -gave the little fishes the bread for breakfast, and now they’re gone to -God.” - -The bread had contained poison, of course. Even the two little snails -that crawled over the sand in the aquarium were motionless. I sniffed -the water. It had a slightly foreign odor. I did not recognize it. - -Panic seized me then. I wanted to get away and take the children with -me. The situation was too hideous. But it was still early. I could only -wait until the family roused. In the meantime, however, I made a -nerve-racking excursion out on to the tin roof and down to the gutter. -There was no more of the bread there. The porte-cochère was at the side -of the house. As I stood balancing myself perilously on the edge, -summoning my courage to climb back to the window above, I suddenly -remembered the guard Mr. Patton had promised and glanced toward the -square. - -The guard was still there. More than that, he was running across the -street toward me. It was Mr. Patton himself. He brought up between the -two houses with absolute fury in his face. - -“Go back!” he waved. “What are you doing out there anyhow? That roof’s -as slippery as the devil!” - -I turned meekly and crawled back with as much dignity as I could. I did -not say anything. There was nothing I could bawl from the roof. I could -only close and lock the window and hope that the people in the next -house still slept. Mr. Patton must have gone shortly after, for I did -not see him again. - -I wondered if he had relieved the night watch, or if he could possibly -have been on guard himself all that chilly April night. - -Mr. Reed did not breakfast with us. I made a point of being cheerful -before the children, and their mother was rested and brighter than I had -seen her. But more than once I found her staring at me in a puzzled way. -She asked me if I had slept. - -“I wakened only once,” she said. “I thought I heard a crash of some -sort. Did you hear it?” - -“What sort of a crash?” I evaded. - -The children had forgotten the goldfish for a time. Now they remembered -and clamored their news to her. - -“Dead?” she said, and looked at me. - -“Poisoned,” I explained. “I shall nail the windows over the -porte-cochère shut, Mrs. Reed. The boys got out there early this morning -and picked up something—bread, I believe. They fed it to the fish -and—they are dead.” - -All the light went out of her face. She looked tired and harassed as she -got up. - -“I wanted to nail the window,” she said vaguely, “but Mr. Reed—— Suppose -they had eaten that bread, Miss Adams, instead of giving it to the -fish!” - -The same thought had chilled me with horror. We gazed at each other over -the unconscious heads of the children and my heart ached for her. I made -a sudden resolution. - -“When I first came,” I said to her, “I told you I wanted to help. That’s -what I’m here for. But how am I to help either you or the children when -I do not know what danger it is that threatens? It isn’t fair to you, or -to them, or even to me.” - -She was much shaken by the poison incident. I thought she wavered. - -“Are you afraid the children will be stolen?” - -“Oh, no.” - -“Or hurt in any way?” I was thinking of the bread on the roof. - -“No.” - -“But you are afraid of something?” - -Harry looked up suddenly. - -“Mother’s never afraid,” he said stoutly. - -I sent them both in to see if the fish were still dead. - -“There is something in the house downstairs that you are afraid of?” I -persisted. - -She took a step forward and caught my arm. - -“I had no idea it would be like this, Miss Adams. I’m dying of fear!” - -I had a quick vision of the swathed head on the back staircase, and some -of my night’s terror came back to me. I believe we stared at each other -with dilated pupils for a moment. Then I asked: - -“Is it a real thing?—surely you can tell me this. Are you afraid of a -reality, or—is it something supernatural?” I was ashamed of the -question. It sounded so absurd in the broad light of that April morning. - -“It is a real danger,” she replied. Then I think she decided that she -had gone as far as she dared, and I went through the ceremony of letting -her out and of locking the door behind her. - -The day was warm. I threw up some of the windows and the boys and I -played ball, using a rolled handkerchief. My part, being to sit on the -floor with a newspaper folded into a bat and to bang at the handkerchief -as it flew past me, became automatic after a time. - -As I look back I see a pair of disordered young rascals in Russian -blouses and bare round knees doing a great deal of yelling and some very -crooked throwing; a nurse sitting tailor fashion on the floor, -alternately ducking to save her cap and making vigorous but ineffectual -passes at the ball with her newspaper bat. And I see sunshine in the -room and the dwarf parrot eating sugar out of his claw. And below, the -fish in the aquarium floating belly-up with dull eyes. - -Mr. Reed brought up our luncheon tray. He looked tired and depressed and -avoided my eyes. I watched him while I spread the bread and butter for -the children. He nailed shut the windows that opened on to the -porte-cochère roof and when he thought I was not looking he examined the -registers in the wall to see if the gratings were closed. The boys put -the dead fish in a box and made him promise a decent interment in the -garden. They called on me for an epitaph, and I scrawled on top of the -box: - - _These fish are dead - Because a boy called Fred - Went out on a porch roof when he should - Have been in bed._ - -I was much pleased with it. It seemed to me that an epitaph, which can -do no good to the departed, should at least convey a moral. But to my -horror Freddie broke into loud wails and would not be comforted. - -It was three o’clock, therefore, before they were both settled for their -afternoon naps and I was free. I had determined to do one thing, and to -do it in daylight—to examine the back staircase inch by inch. I knew I -would be courting discovery, but the thing had to be done, and no power -on earth would have made me essay such an investigation after dark. - -It was all well enough for me to say to myself that there was a natural -explanation; that this had been a human head, of a certainty; that -something living and not spectral had slid over my foot in the darkness. -I would not have gone back there again at night for youth, love or -money. But I did not investigate the staircase that day, after all. - -I made a curious discovery after the boys had settled down in their -small white beds. A venturesome fly had sailed in through an open -window, and I was immediately in pursuit of him with my paper bat. -Driven from the cornice to the chandelier, harried here, swatted there, -finally he took refuge inside the furnace register. - -Perhaps it is my training—I used to know how many million germs a fly -packed about with it, and the generous benevolence with which it -distributed them; I’ve forgotten—but the sight of a single fly maddens -me. I said that to Mr. Patton once, and he asked what the sight of a -married one would do. So I sat down by the register and waited. It was -then that I made the curious discovery that the furnace belowstairs was -burning, and burning hard. A fierce heat assailed me as I opened the -grating. I drove the fly out of cover, but I had no time for him. The -furnace going full on a warm spring day! It was strange. - -Perhaps I was stupid. Perhaps the whole thing should have been clear to -me. But it was not. I sat there bewildered and tried to figure it out. I -went over it point by point: - -The carpets up all over the house, lights going full all night and doors -locked. - -The cot at the top of the stairs and Mrs. Reed staring down. - -The bolt outside my door to lock me in. - -The death of Chang. - -Mademoiselle locked in her room upstairs and begging for a priest. - -The poison on the porch roof. - -The head without a body on the staircase and the thing that slid over my -foot. - -The furnace going, and the thing I recognized as I sat there beside the -register—the unmistakable odor of burning cloth. - -Should I have known? I wonder. It looks so clear to me now. - -I did not investigate the staircase, for the simple reason that my -skeleton key, which unfastened the lock of the door at the rear of the -second-floor hall, did not open the door. I did not understand at once -and stood stupidly working with the lock. The door was bolted on the -other side. I wandered as aimlessly as I could down the main staircase -and tried the corresponding door on the lower floor. It, too, was -locked. Here was an _impasse_ for sure. As far as I could discover the -only other entrance to the back staircase was through the window with -the iron grating. - -As I turned to go back I saw my electric flash, badly broken, lying on a -table in the hall. I did not claim it. - -The lower floor seemed entirely deserted. The drawing room and library -were in their usual disorder, undusted and bare of floor. The air -everywhere was close and heavy; there was not a window open. I sauntered -through the various rooms, picked up a book in the library as an excuse -and tried the door of the room behind. It was locked. I thought at first -that something moved behind it, but if anything lived there it did not -stir again. And yet I had a vivid impression that just on the other side -of the door ears as keen as mine were listening. It was broad day, but I -backed away from the door and out into the wide hall. My nerves were -still raw, no doubt, from the night before. - -I was to meet Mr. Patton at half after seven that night, and when Mrs. -Reed relieved me at seven I had half an hour to myself. I spent it in -Beauregard Gardens, with the dry fountain in the center. The place -itself was charming, the trees still black but lightly fringed with new -green, early spring flowers in the borders, neat paths and, bordering it -all, the solid, dignified backs of the Beauregard houses. I sat down on -the coping of the fountain and surveyed the Reed house. Those windows -above were Mademoiselle’s. The shades were drawn, but no light came -through or round them. The prisoner—for prisoner she was by every rule -of bolt and lock—must be sitting in the dark. Was she still begging for -her priest? Had she had any food? Was she still listening inside her -door for whatever it was that was “coming up”? - -In all the other houses windows were open; curtains waved gently in the -spring air; the cheerful signs of the dinner hour were evident near -by—moving servants, a gleam of stately shirt bosom as a butler mixed a -salad, a warm radiance of candle-light from dining room tables and the -reflected glow of flowers. Only the Reed house stood gloomy, unlighted, -almost sinister. - -Beauregard Place dined early. It was one of the traditions, I believe. -It liked to get to the theater or the opera early, and it believed in -allowing the servants a little time in the evenings. So, although it was -only something after seven, the evening rite of the table crumbs began -to be observed. Came a colored butler, bowed to me with a word of -apology, and dumped the contents of a silver tray into the basin; came a -pretty mulatto, flung her crumbs gracefully and smiled with a flash of -teeth at the butler. - -Then for five minutes I was alone. - -It was Nora, the girl we had met on the street, who came next. She saw -me and came round to me with a little air of triumph. - -“Well, I’m back in the square again, after all, miss,” she said. “And a -better place than the Reeds. I don’t have the doilies to do.” - -“I’m very glad you are settled again, Nora.” - -She lowered her voice. - -“I’m just trying it out,” she observed. “The girl that left said I -wouldn’t stay. She was scared off. There have been some queer doings—not -that I believe in ghosts or anything like that. But my mother in the old -country had the second-sight, and if there’s anything going on I’ll be -right sure to see it.” - -It took encouragement to get her story, and it was secondhand at that, -of course. But it appeared that a state of panic had seized the -Beauregard servants. The alarm was all belowstairs and had been started -by a cook who, coming in late and going to the basement to prepare -herself a cup of tea, had found her kitchen door locked and a light -going beyond. Suspecting another maid of violating the tea canister she -had gone soft-footed to the outside of the house and had distinctly seen -a gray figure crouching in a corner of the room. She had called the -butler, and they had made an examination of the entire basement without -result. Nothing was missing from the house. - -“And that figure has been seen again and again, miss,” Nora finished. -“McKenna’s butler Joseph saw it in this very spot, walking without a -sound and the street light beyond there shining straight through it. -Over in the Smythe house the laundress, coming in late and going down to -the basement to soak her clothes for the morning, met the thing on the -basement staircase and fainted dead away.” - -I had listened intently. - -“What do they think it is?” I asked. - -She shrugged her shoulders and picked up her tray. - -“I’m not trying to say and I guess nobody is. But if there’s been a -murder it’s pretty well known that the ghost walks about until the -burial service is read and it’s properly buried.” - -She glanced at the Reed house. - -“For instance,” she demanded, “where is Mademoiselle?” - -“She is alive,” I said rather sharply. “And even if what you say were -true, what in the world would make her wander about the basements? It -seems so silly, Nora, a ghost haunting damp cellars and laundries with -stationary tubs and all that.” - -“Well,” she contended, “it seems silly for them to sit on cold -tombstones—and yet that’s where they generally sit, isn’t it?” - - -Mr. Patton listened gravely to my story that night. - -“I don’t like it,” he said when I had finished. “Of course the head on -the staircase is nonsense. Your nerves were ragged and our eyes play -tricks on all of us. But as for the Frenchwoman——” - -“If you accept her you must accept the head,” I snapped. “It was -there—it was a head without a body and it looked up at me.” - -We were walking through a quiet street, and he bent over and caught my -wrist. - -“Pulse racing,” he commented. “I’m going to take you away, that’s -certain. I can’t afford to lose my best assistant. You’re too close, -Miss Adams; you’ve lost your perspective.” - -“I’ve lost my temper!” I retorted. “I shall not leave until I know what -this thing is, unless you choose to ring the doorbell and tell them I’m -a spy.” - -He gave in when he saw that I was firm, but not without a final protest. - -“I’m directly responsible for you to your friends,” he said. “There’s -probably a young man somewhere who will come gunning for me if anything -happens to you. And I don’t care to be gunned for. I get enough of that -in my regular line.” - -“There is no young man,” I said shortly. - -“Have you been able to see the cellars?” - -“No, everything is locked off.” - -“Do you think the rear staircase goes all the way down?” - -“I haven’t the slightest idea.” - -“You are in the house. Have you any suggestions as to the best method of -getting into the house? Is Reed on guard all night?” - -“I think he is.” - -“It may interest you to know,” he said finally, “that I sent a reliable -man to break in there last night quietly, and that he—couldn’t do it. He -got a leg through a cellar window, and came near not getting it out -again. Reed was just inside in the dark.” He laughed a little, but I -guessed that the thing galled him. - -“I do not believe that he would have found anything if he had succeeded -in getting in. There has been no crime, Mr. Patton, I am sure of that. -But there is a menace of some sort in the house.” - -“Then why does Mrs. Reed stay and keep the children if there is danger?” - -“I believe she is afraid to leave him. There are times when I think that -he is desperate.” - -“Does he ever leave the house?” - -“I think not, unless——” - -“Yes?” - -“Unless he is the basement ghost of the other houses.” - -He stopped in his slow walk and considered it. - -“It’s possible. In that case I could have him waylaid tonight in the -gardens and left there, tied. It would be a hold-up, you understand. The -police have no excuse for coming in yet. Or, if we found him breaking -into one of the other houses we could get him there. He’d be released, -of course, but it would give us time. I want to clean the thing up. I’m -not easy while you are in that house.” - -We agreed that I was to wait inside one of my windows that night, and -that on a given signal I should go down and open the front door. The -whole thing, of course, was contingent on Mr. Reed leaving the house -some time that night. It was only a chance. - -“The house is barred like a fortress,” Mr. Patton said as he left me. -“The window with the grating is hopeless. We tried it last night.” - - - - - VI - - -I find that my notes of that last night in the house on Beauregard -Square are rather confused, some written at the time, some just before. -For instance, on the edge of a newspaper clipping I find this: - -“Evidently this is the item. R—— went pale on reading it. Did not allow -wife to see paper.” - -The clipping is an account of the sudden death of an elderly gentleman -named Smythe, one of the Beauregard families. - -The next clipping is less hasty and is on a yellow symptom record. It -has been much folded—I believe I tucked it in my apron belt: - -“If the rear staircase is bolted everywhere from the inside, how did the -person who locked it, either Mr. or Mrs. Reed, get back into the body of -the house again? Or did Mademoiselle do it? In that case she is no -longer a prisoner and the bolts outside her room are not fastened. - -“At eleven o’clock tonight Harry wakened with earache. I went to the -kitchen to heat some mullein oil and laudanum. Mrs. Reed was with the -boy and Mr. Reed was not in sight. I slipped into the library and used -my skeleton keys on the locked door to the rear room. It was empty even -of furniture, but there is a huge box there, with a lid that fastens -down with steel hooks. The lid is full of small airholes. I had no time -to examine further. - -“It is one o’clock. Harry is asleep and his mother is dozing across the -foot of his bed. I have found the way to get to the rear staircase. -There are outside steps from the basement to the garden. The staircase -goes down all the way to the cellar evidently. Then the lower door in -the cellar must be only locked, not bolted from the inside. I shall try -to get to the cellar.” - -The next is a scrawl: - -“Cannot get to the outside basement steps. Mr. Reed is wandering round -lower floor. I reported Harry’s condition and came up again. I must get -to the back staircase.” - -I wonder if I have been able to convey, even faintly, the situation in -that highly respectable old house that night: The fear that hung over -it, a fear so great that even I, an outsider and stout of nerve, felt it -and grew cold; the unnatural brilliancy of light that bespoke dread of -the dark; the hushed voices, the locked doors and staring, peering eyes; -the babbling Frenchwoman on an upper floor, the dead fish, the dead dog. -And, always in my mind, that vision of dread on the back staircase and -the thing that slid over my foot. - -At two o’clock I saw Mr. Patton, or whoever was on guard in the park -across the street, walk quickly toward the house and disappear round the -corner toward the gardens in the rear. There had been no signal, but I -felt sure that Mr. Reed had left the house. His wife was still asleep -across Harry’s bed. As I went out I locked the door behind me, and I -took also the key to the night nursery. I thought that something -disagreeable, to say the least, was inevitable, and why let her in for -it? - -The lower hall was lighted as usual and empty. I listened, but there -were no restless footsteps. I did not like the lower hall. Only a thin -wooden door stood between me and the rear staircase, and any one who -thinks about the matter will realize that a door is no barrier to a head -that can move about without a body. I am afraid I looked over my -shoulder while I unlocked the front door, and I know I breathed better -when I was out in the air. - -I wore my dark ulster over my uniform and I had my revolver and keys. My -flash, of course, was useless. I missed it horribly. But to get to the -staircase was an obsession by that time, in spite of my fear of it, to -find what it guarded, to solve its mystery. I worked round the house, -keeping close to the wall, until I reached the garden. The night was the -city night, never absolutely dark. As I hesitated at the top of the -basement steps it seemed to me that figures were moving about among the -trees. - -The basement door was unlocked and open. I was not prepared for that, -and it made me, if anything, more uneasy. I had a box of matches with -me, and I wanted light as a starving man wants food. But I dared not -light them. I could only keep a tight grip on my courage and go on. A -small passage first, with whitewashed stone walls, cold and scaly under -my hand; then a large room, and still darkness. Worse than darkness, -something crawling and scratching round the floor. - -I struck my match, then, and it seemed to me that something white -flashed into a corner and disappeared. My hands were shaking, but I -managed to light a gas jet and to see that I was in the laundry. The -staircase came down here, narrower than above, and closed off with a -door. - -The door was closed and there was a heavy bolt on it but no lock. - -And now, with the staircase accessible and a gaslight to keep up my -courage, I grew brave, almost reckless. I would tell Mr. Patton all -about this cellar, which his best men had not been able to enter. I -would make a sketch for him—coal-bins, laundry tubs, everything. -Foolish, of course, but hold the gas jet responsible—the reckless -bravery of light after hideous darkness. - -So I went on, forward. The glow from the laundry followed me. I struck -matches, found potatoes and cases of mineral water, bruised my knees on -a discarded bicycle, stumbled over a box of soap. Twice out of the -corner of my eye and never there when I looked I caught the white flash -that had frightened me before. Then at last I brought up before a door -and stopped. It was a curiously barricaded door, nailed against -disturbance by a plank fastened across, and, as if to make intrusion -without discovery impossible, pasted round every crack and over the -keyhole with strips of strong yellow paper. It was an ominous door. I -wanted to run away from it, and I wanted also desperately to stand and -look at it and imagine what might lie beyond. Here again was the -strange, spicy odor that I had noticed in the back staircase. - -I think it is indicative of my state of mind that I backed away from the -door. I did not turn and run. Nothing in the world would have made me -turn my back to it. - -Somehow or other I got back into the laundry and jerked myself together. - -It was ten minutes after two. I had been just ten minutes in the -basement! - -The staircase daunted me in my shaken condition. I made excuses for -delaying my venture, looked for another box of matches, listened at the -end of the passage, finally slid the bolts and opened the door. The -silence was impressive. In the laundry there were small, familiar -sounds—the dripping of water from a faucet, the muffled measure of a gas -meter, the ticking of a clock on the shelf. To leave it all, to climb -into that silence—— - -Lying on the lower step was a curious instrument. It was a sort of tongs -made of steel, about two feet long, and fastened together like a pair of -scissors, the joint about five inches from the flattened ends. I carried -it to the light and examined it. One end was smeared with blood and -short, brownish hairs. It made me shudder, but—from that time on I think -I knew. Not the whole story, of course, but somewhere in the back of my -head, as I climbed in that hideous quiet, the explanation was developing -itself. I did not think it out. It worked itself out as, step after -step, match after match, I climbed the staircase. - -Up to the first floor there was nothing. The landing was bare of carpet. -I was on the first floor now. On each side, doors, carefully bolted, led -into the house. I opened the one into the hall and listened. I had been -gone from the children fifteen minutes and they were on my mind. But -everything was quiet. - -The sight of the lights and the familiar hall gave me courage. After -all, if I was right, what could the head on the staircase have been but -an optical delusion? And I was right. The evidence—the tongs—was in my -hand. I closed and bolted the door and felt my way back to the stairs. I -lighted no matches this time. I had only a few, and on this landing -there was a little light from the grated window, although the staircase -above was in black shadow. - -I had one foot on the lowest stair, when suddenly overhead came the -thudding of hands on a closed door. It broke the silence like an -explosion. It sent chills up and down my spine. I could not move for a -moment. It was the Frenchwoman! - -I believe I thought of fire. The idea had obsessed me in that house of -locked doors. I remember a strangling weight of fright on my chest and -of trying to breathe. Then I started up the staircase, running as fast -as I could lift my weighted feet, I remember that, and getting up -perhaps a third of the way. Then there came a plunging forward into -space, my hands out, a shriek frozen on my lips, and——quiet. - -I do not think I fainted. I know I was always conscious of my arm -doubled under me, a pain and darkness. I could hear myself moaning, but -almost as if it were some one else. There were other sounds, but they -did not concern me much. I was not even curious about my location. I -seemed to be a very small consciousness surrounded by a great deal of -pain. - -Several centuries later a light came and leaned over me from somewhere -above. Then the light said: - -“Here she is!” - -“Alive?” I knew that voice, but I could not think whose it was. - -“I’m not—— Yes, she’s moaning.” - -They got me out somewhere and I believe I still clung to the tongs. I -had fallen on them and had a cut on my chin. I could stand, I found, -although I swayed. There was plenty of light now in the back hallway, -and a man I had never seen was investigating the staircase. - -“Four steps off,” he said. “Risers and treads gone and the supports -sawed away. It’s a trap of some sort.” - -Mr. Patton was examining my broken arm and paid no attention. The man -let himself down into the pit under the staircase. When he straightened, -only his head rose above the steps. Although I was white with pain to -the very lips I laughed hysterically. - -“The head!” I cried. Mr. Patton swore under his breath. - - -They half led, half carried me into the library. Mr. Reed was there, -with a detective on guard over him. He was sitting in his old position, -bent forward, chin in palms. In the blaze of light he was a pitiable -figure, smeared with dust, disheveled from what had evidently been a -struggle. Mr. Patton put me in a chair and dispatched one of the two men -for the nearest doctor. - -“This young lady,” he said curtly to Mr. Reed, “fell into that damnable -trap you made in the rear staircase.” - -“I locked off the staircase—but I am sorry she is hurt. My—my wife will -be shocked. Only I wish you’d tell me what all this is about. You can’t -arrest me for going into a friend’s house.” - -“If I send for some member of the Smythe family will they acquit you?” - -“Certainly they will,” he said. “I—I’ve been raised with the Smythes. -You can send for any one you like.” But his tone lacked conviction. - -Mr. Patton made me as comfortable as possible, and then, sending the -remaining detective out into the hall, he turned to his prisoner. - -“Now, Mr. Reed,” he said. “I want you to be sensible. For some days a -figure has been seen in the basements of the various Beauregard houses. -Your friends, the Smythes, reported it. Tonight we are on watch, and we -see you breaking into the basement of the Smythe house. We already know -some curious things about you, such as dismissing all the servants on -half an hour’s notice and the disappearance of the French governess.” - -“Mademoiselle! Why, she——” He checked himself. - -“When we bring you here tonight, and you ask to be allowed to go -upstairs and prepare your wife, she is locked in. The nurse is missing. -We find her at last, also locked away and badly hurt, lying in a -staircase trap, where some one, probably yourself, has removed the -steps. I do not want to arrest you, but, now I’ve started, I’m going to -get to the bottom of all this.” - -Mr. Reed was ghastly, but he straightened in his chair. - -“The Smythes reported this thing, did they?” he asked. “Well, tell me -one thing. What killed the old gentleman—old Smythe?” - -“I don’t know.” - -“Well, go a little further.” His cunning was boyish, pitiful. “How did -he die? Or don’t you know that either?” - -Up to this point I had been rather a detached part of the scene, but now -my eyes fell on the tongs beside me. - -“Mr. Reed,” I said, “isn’t this thing too big for you to handle by -yourself?” - -“What thing?” - -“You know what I mean. You’ve protected yourself well enough, but even -if the—the thing you know of did not kill old Mr. Smythe you cannot tell -what will happen next.” - -“I’ve got almost all of them,” he muttered sullenly. “Another night or -two and I’d have had the lot.” - -“But even then the mischief may go on. It means a crusade; it means -rousing the city. Isn’t it the square thing now to spread the alarm?” - -Mr. Patton could stand the suspense no longer. - -“Perhaps, Miss Adams,” he said, “you will be good enough to let me know -what you are talking about.” - -Mr. Reed looked up at him with heavy eyes. - -“Rats,” he said. “They got away, twenty of them, loaded with bubonic -plague.” - - -I went to the hospital the next morning. Mr. Patton thought it best. -There was no one in my little flat to look after me, and although the -pain in my arm subsided after the fracture was set I was still shaken. - -He came the next afternoon to see me. I was propped up in bed, with my -hair braided down in two pigtails and great hollows under my eyes. - -“I’m comfortable enough,” I said, in response to his inquiry; “but I’m -feeling all of my years. This is my birthday. I am thirty today.” - -“I wonder,” he said reflectively, “if I ever reach the mature age of one -hundred, if I will carry in my head as many odds and ends of information -as you have at thirty!” - -“I?” - -“You. How in the world did you know, for instance, about those tongs?” - -“It was quite simple. I’d seen something like them in the laboratory -here. Of course I didn’t know what animals he’d used, but the grayish -brown hair looked like rats. The laboratory must be the cellar room. I -knew it had been fumigated—it was sealed with paper, even over the -keyhole.” - -So, sitting there beside me, Mr. Patton told me the story as he had got -it from Mr. Reed—a tale of the offer in an English scientific journal of -a large reward from some plague-ridden country of the East for an -anti-plague serum. Mr. Reed had been working along bacteriological lines -in his basement laboratory, mostly with guinea pigs and tuberculosis. He -was in debt; the offer loomed large. - -“He seems to think he was on the right track,” Mr. Patton said. “He had -twenty of the creatures in deep zinc cans with perforated lids. He says -the disease is spread by fleas that infest the rats. So he had muslin as -well over the lids. One can had infected rats, six of them. Then one day -the Frenchwoman tried to give the dog a bath in a laundry tub and the -dog bolted. The laboratory door was open in some way and he ran between -the cans, upsetting them. Every rat was out in an instant. The -Frenchwoman was frantic. She shut the door and tried to drive the things -back. One bit her on the foot. The dog was not bitten, but there was the -question of fleas. - -“Well, the rats got away, and Mademoiselle retired to her room to die of -plague. She was a loyal old soul; she wouldn’t let them call a doctor. -It would mean exposure, and after all what could the doctors do? Reed -used his serum and she’s alive. - -“Reed was frantic. His wife would not leave. There was the Frenchwoman -to look after, and I think she was afraid he would do something -desperate. They did the best they could, under the circumstances, for -the children. They burned most of the carpets for fear of fleas, and put -poison everywhere. Of course he had traps too. - -“He had brass tags on the necks of the rats, and he got back a few—the -uninfected ones. The other ones were probably dead. But he couldn’t stop -at that. He had to be sure that the trouble had not spread. And to add -to their horror the sewer along the street was being relaid, and they -had an influx of rats into the house. They found them everywhere in the -lower floor. They even climbed the stairs. He says that the night you -came he caught a big fellow on the front staircase. There was always the -danger that the fleas that carry the trouble had deserted the dead -creatures for new fields. They took up all the rest of the carpets and -burned them. To add to the general misery the dog Chang developed -unmistakable symptoms and had to be killed.” - -“But the broken staircase?” I asked. “And what was it that Mademoiselle -said was coming up?” - -“The steps were up for two reasons: The rats could not climb up, and -beneath the steps Reed says he caught in a trap two of the tagged ones. -As for Mademoiselle the thing that was coming up was her -temperature—pure fright. The head you saw was poor Reed himself, wrapped -in gauze against trouble and baiting his traps. He caught a lot in the -neighbors’ cellars and some in the garden.” - -“But why,” I demanded, “why didn’t he make it all known?” - -Mr. Patton laughed while he shrugged his shoulders. - -“A man hardly cares to announce that he has menaced the health of a -city.” - -“But that night when I fell—was it only last night?—some one was -pounding above. I thought there was a fire.” - -“The Frenchwoman had seen us waylay Reed from her window. She was -crazy.” - -“And the trouble is over now?” - -“Not at all,” he replied cheerfully. “The trouble may be only beginning. -We’re keeping Reed’s name out, but the Board of Health has issued a -general warning. Personally I think his six pets died without passing -anything along.” - -“But there was a big box with a lid——” - -“Ferrets,” he assured me. “Nice white ferrets with pink eyes and a taste -for rats.” He held out a thumb, carefully bandaged. “Reed had a couple -under his coat when we took him in the garden. Probably one ran over -your foot that night when you surprised him on the back staircase.” - -I went pale. “But if they are infected!” I cried; “and you are bitten——” - -“The first thing a nurse should learn,” he bent forward smiling, “is not -to alarm her patient.” - -“But you don’t understand the danger,” I said despairingly. “Oh, if only -men had a little bit of sense!” - -“I must do something desperate then? Have the thumb cut off, perhaps?” - -I did not answer. I lay back on my pillows with my eyes shut. I had -given him the plague, had seen him die and be buried, before he spoke -again. - -“The chin,” he said, “is not so firm as I had thought. The outlines are -savage, but the dimple—— You poor little thing; are you really -frightened?” - -“I don’t like you,” I said furiously. “But I’d hate to see any one -with—with that trouble.” - -“Then I’ll confess. I was trying to take your mind off your troubles. -The bite is there, but harmless. Those were new ferrets; had never been -out.” - -I did not speak to him again. I was seething with indignation. He stood -for a time looking down at me; then, unexpectedly, he bent over and -touched his lips to my bandaged arm. - -“Poor arm!” he said. “Poor, brave little arm!” Then he tiptoed out of -the room. His very back was sheepish. - - - - - * * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note: - ---Silently corrected obvious typographical errors; left non-standard - spellings and dialect unchanged. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOCKED DOORS*** - - -******* This file should be named 54273-0.txt or 54273-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/4/2/7/54273 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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text-indent:-2em; font-size:80%; } -p.dialog { margin-left:2em; text-indent:-1em; } - -div.trump p { text-indent:1em; } -div.verse p { text-indent:-3em; } -div.trump dl.toc dt { text-align:left; } -div.trump dl.toc dt a { width: 4.5em; text-align:right; display:inline-block; margin-right:.7em; } - - h2.pg { margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom:1.5em; } - h1.pg { margin-top: 0em; } - h3.pg { font-variant: normal; - margin-top: 1em; } - hr.full { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } -</style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Locked Doors, by Mary Roberts Rinehart</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world 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 <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Locked Doors</p> -<p>Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart</p> -<p>Release Date: March 3, 2017 [eBook #54273]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOCKED DOORS***</p> -<p> </p> -<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> -<p> </p> -<h2 class="pg">Transcriber’s Note</h2> -<p>This eBook contains only the story “Locked Doors”; although -the title page is from a printed omnibus edition.</p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div id="cover" class="img"> -<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Locked Doors" width="500" height="740" /> -</div> -<div class="box"> -<h1><span class="small"><span class="ss">Mary Roberts Rinehart’s</span> -<br />CRIME BOOK</span></h1> -<p class="center"><span class="large"><span class="ss"><i>Containing</i> -<br />THREE COMPLETE STORIES</span></span></p> -<p class="tbcenter"><span class="ss">THE AFTER HOUSE -<br />LOCKED DOORS -<br />THE RED LAMP</span></p> -<p class="tbcenter"><span class="ss">NEW YORK -<br />GROSSET & DUNLAP, <i>Publishers</i></span></p> -<p class="center"><span class="small"><i>By arrangement with Farrar & Rinehart</i></span></p> -</div> -<p class="center smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1925, BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART -<br />PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -<br />ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div> -<h1 title="">LOCKED DOORS</h1> -<h2 id="c1">I</h2> -<p>“You promised,” I reminded Mr. Patton, “to play with -cards on the table.”</p> -<p>“My dear young lady,” he replied, “I have no cards! -I suspect a game, that’s all.”</p> -<p>“Then—do you need me?”</p> -<p>The detective bent forward, his arms on his desk, and -looked me over carefully.</p> -<p>“What sort of shape are you in? Tired?”</p> -<p>“No.”</p> -<p>“Nervous?”</p> -<p>“Not enough to hurt.”</p> -<p>“I want you to take another case, following a nurse -who has gone to pieces,” he said, selecting his words -carefully. “I don’t want to tell you a lot—I want you to -go in with a fresh mind. It promises to be an extraordinary -case.”</p> -<p>“How long was the other nurse there?”</p> -<p>“Four days.”</p> -<p>“She went to pieces in four days!”</p> -<p>“Well, she’s pretty much unstrung. The worst is, she -hasn’t any real reason. A family chooses to live in an -unusual manner, because they like it, or perhaps they’re -afraid of something. The girl was, that’s sure. I had -never seen her until this morning, a big, healthy-looking -<span class="pb" id="Page_2">2</span> -young woman; but she came in looking back over her -shoulder as if she expected a knife in her back. She said -she was a nurse from St. Luke’s and that she’d been on -a case for four days. She’d left that morning after -about three hours’ sleep in that time, being locked in -a room most of the time, and having little but crackers -and milk for food. She thought it was a case for the -police.”</p> -<p>“Who is ill in the house? Who was her patient?”</p> -<p>“There is no illness, I believe. The French governess -had gone, and they wished the children competently cared -for until they replaced her. That was the reason given -her when she went. Afterward she—well, she was puzzled.”</p> -<p>“How are you going to get me there?”</p> -<p>He gathered acquiescence from my question and smiled -approval.</p> -<p>“Good girl!” he said. “Never mind how I’ll get -you there. You are the most dependable woman I -know.”</p> -<p>“The most curious, perhaps?” I retorted. “Four days -on the case, three hours’ sleep, locked in and yelling -‘Police’! Is it out of town?”</p> -<p>“No, in the heart of the city, on Beauregard Square. -Can you get some St. Luke’s uniforms? They want -another St. Luke’s nurse.”</p> -<p>I said I could get the uniforms, and he wrote the address -on a card.</p> -<p>“Better arrive about five,” he said.</p> -<p>“But—if they are not expecting me?”</p> -<p>“They will be expecting you,” he replied enigmatically.</p> -<p>“The doctor, if he’s a St. Luke’s man——”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_3">3</div> -<p>“There is no doctor.”</p> -<p class="tb">It was six months since I had solved, or helped to -solve, the mystery of the buckled bag for Mr. Patton. -I had had other cases for him in the interval, cases where -the police could not get close enough. As I said when -I began this record of my crusade against crime and the -criminal, a trained nurse gets under the very skin of the -soul. She finds a mind surrendered, all the crooked little -motives that have fired the guns of life revealed in their -pitifulness.</p> -<p>Gradually I had come to see that Mr. Patton’s point of -view was right; that if the criminal uses every means -against society, why not society against the criminal? At -first I had used this as a flag of truce to my nurse’s ethical -training; now I flaunted it, a mental and moral banner. The -criminal against society, and I against the criminal! And, -more than that, against misery, healing pain by augmenting -it sometimes, but working like a surgeon, for good.</p> -<p>I had had six cases in six months. Only in one had -I failed to land my criminal, and that without any suspicion -of my white uniform and rubber-soled shoes. Although -I played a double game no patient of mine had -suffered. I was a nurse first and a police agent second. -If it was a question between turpentine compresses—stupes, -professionally—and seeing what letters came in -or went out of the house, the compress went on first, and -cracking hot too. I am not boasting. That is my -method, the only way I can work, and it speaks well for -it that, as I say, only one man escaped arrest—an arson -case where the factory owner hanged himself in the bathroom -needle shower in the house he had bought with the -<span class="pb" id="Page_4">4</span> -insurance money, while I was fixing his breakfast tray. -And even he might have been saved for justice had the -cook not burned the toast and been obliged to make it -fresh.</p> -<p>I was no longer staying at a nurses’ home. I had taken -a bachelor suite of three rooms and bath, comfortably -downtown. I cooked my own breakfasts when I was off -duty and I dined at a restaurant near. Luncheon I did -not bother much about. Now and then Mr. Patton telephoned -me and we lunched together in remote places -where we would not be known. He would tell me of his -cases and sometimes he asked my advice.</p> -<p>I bought my uniforms that day and took them home -in a taxicab. The dresses were blue, and over them for -the street the St. Luke’s girls wear long cloaks, English -fashion, of navy blue serge, and a blue bonnet with a -white ruching and white lawn ties. I felt curious in it, -but it was becoming and convenient. Certainly I looked -professional.</p> -<p>At three o’clock that afternoon a messenger brought a -small box, registered. It contained a St. Luke’s badge -of gold and blue enamel.</p> -<p>At four o’clock my telephone rang. I was packing my -suitcase according to the list I keep pasted in the lid. -Under the list, which was of uniforms, aprons, thermometer, -instruments, a nurse’s simple set of probe, -forceps and bandage scissors, was the word “box.” This -always went in first—a wooden box with a lock, the key -of which was round my neck. It contained skeleton keys, -a small black revolver of which I was in deadly fear, a -pair of handcuffs, a pocket flashlight, and my badge from -the chief of police. I was examining the revolver nervously -<span class="pb" id="Page_5">5</span> -when the telephone rang, and I came within an -ace of sending a bullet into the flat below.</p> -<p>Did you ever notice how much you get out of a telephone -voice? We can dissemble with our faces, but -under stress the vocal cords seem to draw up tight and -the voice comes thin and colorless. There’s a little woman -in the flat beneath—the one I nearly bombarded—who -sings like a bird at her piano half the day, scaling vocal -heights that make me dizzy. Now and then she has a -visitor, a nice young man, and she disgraces herself, flats -F, fogs E even, finally takes cowardly refuge in a -wretched mezzo-soprano and cries herself to sleep, doubtless, -later on.</p> -<p>The man who called me had the thin-drawn voice of -extreme strain—a youngish voice.</p> -<p>“Miss Adams,” he said, “this is Francis Reed speaking. -I have called St. Luke’s and they referred me to you. -Are you free to take a case this afternoon?”</p> -<p>I fenced. I was trying to read the voice.</p> -<p>“This afternoon?”</p> -<p>“Well, before night anyhow; as—as early this evening -as possible.”</p> -<p>The voice was strained and tired, desperately tired. It -was not peevish. It was even rather pleasant.</p> -<p>“What is the case, Mr. Reed?”</p> -<p>He hesitated. “It is not illness. It is merely—the -governess has gone and there are two small children. We -want some one to give her undivided attention to the -children.”</p> -<p>“I see.”</p> -<p>“Are you a heavy sleeper, Miss Adams?”</p> -<p>“A very light one.” I fancied he breathed freer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_6">6</div> -<p>“I hope you are not tired from a previous case?” I -was beginning to like the voice.</p> -<p>“I’m quite fresh,” I replied almost gayly. “Even if -I were not, I like children, especially well ones. I shan’t -find looking after them very wearying, I’m sure.”</p> -<p>Again the odd little pause. Then he gave me the -address on Beauregard Square, and asked me to be sure -not to be late.</p> -<p>“I must warn you,” he added; “we are living in a sort -of casual way. Our servants left us without warning. -Mrs. Reed has been getting along as best she could. Most -of our meals are being sent in.”</p> -<p>I was thinking fast. No servants! A good many -people think a trained nurse is a sort of upper servant. -I’ve been in houses where they were amazed to discover -that I was a college woman and, finding the two things -irreconcilable, have openly accused me of having been -driven to such a desperate course as a hospital training -by an unfortunate love affair.</p> -<p>“Of course you understand that I will look after the -children to the best of my ability, but that I will not -replace the servants.”</p> -<p>I fancied he smiled grimly.</p> -<p>“That of course. Will you ring twice when you -come?”</p> -<p>“Ring twice?”</p> -<p>“The doorbell,” he replied impatiently.</p> -<p>I said I would ring the doorbell twice.</p> -<p>The young woman below was caroling gayly, ignorant -of the six-barreled menace over her head. I knelt again -by my suitcase, but packed little and thought a great deal. -I was to arrive before dusk at a house where there were -<span class="pb" id="Page_7">7</span> -no servants and to ring the doorbell twice. I was to -be a light sleeper, although I was to look after two healthy -children. It was not much in itself, but, taken in connection -with the previous nurse’s appeal to the police, it took -on new possibilities.</p> -<p>At six I started out to dinner. It was early spring -and cold, but quite light. At the first corner I saw Mr. -Patton waiting for a street car, and at his quick nod I -saw I was to get in also. He did not pay my fare or -speak to me. It was a part of the game that we were -never seen together except at the remote restaurant I -mentioned before. The car thinned out and I could watch -him easily. Far downtown he alighted and so did I. -The restaurant was near. I went in alone and sat down -at a table in a recess, and very soon he joined me. We -were in the main dining room but not of it, a sop at once -to the conventions and to the necessity, where he was so -well known, for caution.</p> -<p>“I got a little information—on—the affair we were -talking of,” he said as he sat down. “I’m not so sure -I want you to take the case after all.”</p> -<p>“Certainly I shall take it,” I retorted with some sharpness. -“I’ve promised to go.”</p> -<p>“Tut! I’m not going to send you into danger unnecessarily.”</p> -<p>“I am not afraid.”</p> -<p>“Exactly. A lot of generals were lost in the Civil War -because they were not afraid and wanted to lead their -troops instead of saving themselves and their expensive -West Point training by sitting back in a safe spot and -directing the fight. Any fool can run into danger. It -takes intellect to keep out.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_8">8</div> -<p>I felt my color rising indignantly.</p> -<p>“Then you brought me here to tell me I am not to go?”</p> -<p>“Will you let me read you two reports?”</p> -<p>“You could have told me that at the corner!”</p> -<p>“Will you let me read you two reports?”</p> -<p>“If you don’t mind I’ll first order something to eat. -I’m to be there before dark.”</p> -<p>“Will you let me——”</p> -<p>“I’m going, and you know I’m going. If you don’t -want me to represent you I’ll go on my own. They want -a nurse, and they’re in trouble.”</p> -<p>I think he was really angry. I know I was. If there -is anything that takes the very soul out of a woman, it -is to be kept from doing a thing she has set her heart on, -because some man thinks it dangerous. If she has any -spirit, that rouses it.</p> -<p>Mr. Patton quietly replaced the reports in his wallet -and his wallet in the inside pocket of his coat, and fell to -a judicial survey of the menu. But although he did not -even glance at me he must have felt the determination -in my face, for he ordered things that were quickly prepared -and told the waiter to hurry.</p> -<p>“I have wondered lately,” he said slowly, “whether -the mildness of your manner at the hospital was acting, -or the chastening effect of three years under an -order book.”</p> -<p>“A man always likes a woman to be a sheep.”</p> -<p>“Not at all. But it is rather disconcerting to have a -pet lamb turn round and take a bite out of one.”</p> -<p>“Will you read the reports now?”</p> -<p>“I think,” he said quietly, “they would better wait until -we have eaten. We will probably both feel calmer. Suppose -<span class="pb" id="Page_9">9</span> -we arrange that nothing said before the oysters -counts?”</p> -<p>I agreed, rather sulkily, and the meal went off well -enough. I was anxious enough to hurry but he ate deliberately, -drank his demi-tasse, paid the waiter, and at -last met my impatient eyes and smiled.</p> -<p>“After all,” he said, “since you are determined to go -anyhow, what’s the use of reading the reports? Inside -of an hour you’ll know all you need to know.” But he -saw that I did not take his teasing well, and drew out -his pocketbook.</p> -<p>They were two typewritten papers clamped together.</p> -<p>They are on my desk before me now. The first one is -indorsed:</p> -<p class="tb">Statement by Laura J. Bosworth, nurse, of St. Luke’s -Home for Graduate Nurses.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>Miss Bosworth says:</p> -<p>I do not know just why I came here. But I know -I’m frightened. That’s the fact. I think there is something -terribly wrong in the house of Francis M. Reed, -71 Beauregard Square. I think a crime of some sort has -been committed. There are four people in the family, -Mr. and Mrs. Reed and two children. I was to look after -the children.</p> -<p>I was there four days and the children were never -allowed out of the room. At night we were locked in. -I kept wondering what I would do if there was a fire. -The telephone wires are cut so no one can call the house, -and I believe the doorbell is disconnected too. But that’s -<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span> -fixed now. Mrs. Reed went round all the time with a -face like chalk and her eyes staring. At all hours of the -night she’d unlock the bedroom door and come in and -look at the children.</p> -<p>Almost all the doors through the house were locked. -If I wanted to get to the kitchen to boil eggs for the children’s -breakfast—for there were no servants, and Mrs. -Reed was young and didn’t know anything about cooking—Mr. -Reed had to unlock about four doors for -me.</p> -<p>If Mrs. Reed looked bad, he was dreadful—sunken -eyed and white and wouldn’t eat. I think he has killed -somebody and is making away with the body.</p> -<p>Last night I said I had to have air, and they let me go -out. I called up a friend from a pay-station, another -nurse. This morning she sent me a special-delivery letter -that I was needed on another case, and I got away. That’s -all; it sounds foolish, but try it and see if it doesn’t get -on your nerves.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>Mr. Patton looked up at me as he finished reading.</p> -<p>“Now you see what I mean,” he said. “That woman -was there four days, and she is as temperamental as a -cow, but in those four days her nervous system went to -smash.”</p> -<p>“Doors locked!” I reflected. “Servants gone; state -of fear—it looks like a siege!”</p> -<p>“But why a trained nurse? Why not a policeman, if -there is danger? Why any one at all, if there is something -that the police are not to know?”</p> -<p>“That is what I intend to find out,” I replied. He -shrugged his shoulders and read the other paper:</p> -<blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div> -<p>Report of Detective Bennett on Francis M. Reed, April -5, 1913:</p> -<p>Francis M. Reed is thirty-six years of age, married, -a chemist at the Olympic Paint Works. He has two children, -both boys. Has a small independent income and -owns the house on Beauregard Square, which was built -by his grandfather, General F. R. Reed. Is supposed to -be living beyond his means. House is usually full of -servants, and grocer in the neighborhood has had to -wait for money several times.</p> -<p>On March twenty-ninth he dismissed all servants without -warning. No reason given, but a week’s wages -instead of notice.</p> -<p>On March thirtieth he applied to the owners of the -paint factory for two weeks’ vacation. Gave as his reason -nervousness and insomnia. He said he was “going -to lay off and get some sleep.” Has not been back at the -works since. House under surveillance this afternoon. -No visitors.</p> -<p>Mr. Reed telephoned for a nurse at four o’clock from -a store on Eleventh Street. Explained that his telephone -was out of order.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>Mr. Patton folded up the papers and thrust them back -into his pocket. Evidently he saw I was determined, for -he only said:</p> -<p>“Have you got your revolver?”</p> -<p>“Yes.”</p> -<p>“Do you know anything about telephones? Could -you repair that one in an emergency?”</p> -<p>“In an emergency,” I retorted, “there is no time to -repair a telephone. But I’ve got a voice and there are -<span class="pb" id="Page_12">12</span> -windows. If I really put my mind to it you will hear -me yell at headquarters.”</p> -<p>He smiled grimly.</p> -<h2 id="c2">II</h2> -<p>The Reed house is on Beauregard Square. It is a -small, exclusive community, the Beauregard neighborhood; -a dozen or more solid citizens built their homes -there in the early 70’s, occupying large lots, the houses -flush with the streets and with gardens behind. Six on -one street, six on another, back to back with the gardens -in the center, they occupied the whole block. And the -gardens were not fenced off, but made a sort of small -park unsuspected from the streets. Here and there bits -of flowering shrubbery sketchily outlined a property, but -the general impression was of lawn and trees, free of -access to all the owners. Thus with the square in front -and the gardens in the rear, the Reed house faced in two -directions on the early spring green.</p> -<p>In the gardens the old tar walks were still there, and -a fountain which no longer played, but on whose stone -coping I believe the young Beauregard Squarites made -their first climbing ventures.</p> -<p>The gardens were always alive with birds, and later -on from my windows I learned the reason. It seems to -have been a custom sanctified by years, that the crumbs -from the twelve tables should be thrown into the dry -basin of the fountain for the birds. It was a common -sight to see stately butlers and <i>chic</i> little waitresses in -black and white coming out after luncheon or dinner with -silver trays of crumbs. Many a scrap of gossip, as well -<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span> -as scrap of food, has been passed along at the old stone -fountain, I believe. I know that it was there that I heard -of the “basement ghost” of Beauregard Square—a whisper -at first, a panic later.</p> -<p>I arrived at eight o’clock and rang the doorbell twice. -The door was opened at once by Mr. Reed, a tall, blond -young man carefully dressed. He threw away his cigarette -when he saw me and shook hands. The hall was -brightly lighted and most cheerful; in fact the whole -house was ablaze with light. Certainly nothing could be -less mysterious than the house, or than the debonair -young man who motioned me into the library.</p> -<p>“I told Mrs. Reed I would talk to you before you go -upstairs,” he said. “Will you sit down?”</p> -<p>I sat down. The library was even brighter than the -hall, and now I saw that although he smiled as cheerfully -as ever his face was almost colorless, and his eyes, which -looked frankly enough into mine for a moment, went -wandering off round the room. I had the impression -somehow that Mr. Patton had had of the nurse at headquarters -that morning—that he looked as if he expected -a knife in his back. It seemed to me that he wanted -to look over his shoulder and by sheer will-power -did not.</p> -<p>“You know the rule, Miss Adams,” he said: “When -there’s an emergency get a trained nurse. I told you our -emergency—no servants and two small children.”</p> -<p>“This should be a good time to secure servants,” I said -briskly. “City houses are being deserted for country -places, and a percentage of servants won’t leave town.”</p> -<p>He hesitated.</p> -<p>“We’ve been doing very nicely, although of course it’s -<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span> -hardly more than just living. Our meals are sent in from -a hotel, and—well, we thought, since we are going away -so soon, that perhaps we could manage.”</p> -<p>The impulse was too strong for him at that moment. -He wheeled and looked behind him, not a hasty glance, -but a deliberate inspection that took in every part of -that end of the room. It was so unexpected that it left -me gasping.</p> -<p>The next moment he was himself again.</p> -<p>“When I say that there is no illness,” he said, “I am -hardly exact. There is no illness, but there has been -an epidemic of children’s diseases among the Beauregard -Square children and we are keeping the youngsters -indoors.”</p> -<p>“Don’t you think they could be safeguarded without -being shut up in the house?”</p> -<p>He responded eagerly</p> -<p>“If I only thought——” he checked himself. “No,” -he said decidedly; “for a time at least I believe it is not -wise.”</p> -<p>I did not argue with him. There was nothing to be -gained by antagonizing him. And as Mrs. Reed came -in just then, the subject was dropped. She was hardly -more than a girl, almost as blond as her husband, very -pretty, and with the weariest eyes I have ever seen, unless -perhaps the eyes of a man who has waited a long time for -deathly tuberculosis.</p> -<p>I liked her at once. She did not attempt to smile. -She rather clung to my hand when I held it out.</p> -<p>“I am glad St. Luke’s still trusts us,” she said. “I -was afraid the other nurse—— Frank, will you take -Miss Adams’ suitcase upstairs?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div> -<p>She held out a key. He took it, but he turned at the -door:</p> -<p>“I wish you wouldn’t wear those things, Anne. You -gave me your promise yesterday, you remember.”</p> -<p>“I can’t work round the children in anything else,” she -protested.</p> -<p>“Those things” were charming. She wore a rose silk -negligee trimmed with soft bands of lace and blue satin -flowers, a petticoat to match that garment, and a lace cap.</p> -<p>He hesitated in the doorway and looked at her—a -curious glance, I thought, full of tenderness, reproof—apprehension -perhaps.</p> -<p>“I’ll take it off, dear,” she replied to the glance. “I -wanted Miss Adams to know that, even if we haven’t -a servant in the house, we are at least civilized. I—I -haven’t taken cold.” This last was clearly an afterthought.</p> -<p>He went out then and left us together. She came over -to me swiftly.</p> -<p>“What did the other nurse say?” she demanded.</p> -<p>“I do not know her at all. I have not seen her.”</p> -<p>“Didn’t she report at the hospital that we were—queer?”</p> -<p>I smiled.</p> -<p>“That’s hardly likely, is it?”</p> -<p>Unexpectedly she went to the door opening into the -hall and closed it, coming back swiftly.</p> -<p>“Mr. Reed thinks it is not necessary, but—there are -some things that will puzzle you. Perhaps I should have -spoken to the other nurse. If—if anything strikes you -as unusual, Miss Adams, just please don’t see it! It is -all right, everything is all right. But something has -<span class="pb" id="Page_16">16</span> -occurred—not very much, but disturbing—and we are -all of us doing the very best we can.”</p> -<p>She was quivering with nervousness.</p> -<p>I was not the police agent then, I’m afraid.</p> -<p>“Nurses are accustomed to disturbing things. Perhaps -I can help.”</p> -<p>“You can, by watching the children. That’s the only -thing that matters to me—the children. I don’t want -them left alone. If you have to leave them call me.”</p> -<p>“Don’t you think I will be able to watch them more -intelligently if I know just what the danger is?”</p> -<p>I think she very nearly told me. She was so tired, -evidently so anxious to shift her burden to fresh -shoulders.</p> -<p>“Mr. Reed said,” I prompted her, “that there was an -epidemic of children’s diseases. But from what you -say——”</p> -<p>But I was not to learn, after all, for her husband -opened the hall door.</p> -<p>“Yes, children’s diseases,” she said vaguely. “So many -children are down. Shall we go up, Frank?”</p> -<p>The extraordinary bareness of the house had been -dawning on me for some time. It was well lighted and -well furnished. But the floors were innocent of rugs, -the handsome furniture was without arrangement and, -in the library at least, stood huddled in the center of the -room. The hall and stairs were also uncarpeted, but -there were marks where carpets had recently lain and had -been jerked up.</p> -<p>The progress up the staircase was not calculated to -soothe my nerves. The thought of my little revolver, -locked in my suitcase, was poor comfort. For with every -<span class="pb" id="Page_17">17</span> -four steps or so Mr. Reed, who led the way, turned -automatically and peered into the hallway below; he was -listening, too, his head bent slightly forward. And each -time that he turned, his wife behind me turned also. Cold -terror suddenly got me by the spine, and yet the hall -was bright with light.</p> -<p>(Note: Surely fear is a contagion. Could one isolate -the germ of it and find an antitoxin? Or is it merely a -form of nervous activity run amuck, like a runaway locomotive, -colliding with other nervous activities and causing -catastrophe? Take this up with Mr. Patton. But -would he know? He, I am almost sure, has never been -really afraid.)</p> -<p>I had a vision of my oxlike predecessor making this -head-over-shoulder journey up the staircase, and in spite -of my nervousness I smiled. But at that moment Mrs. -Reed behind me put a hand on my arm, and I screamed. -I remember yet the way she dropped back against the wall -and turned white.</p> -<p>Mr. Reed whirled on me instantly.</p> -<p>“What did you see?” he demanded.</p> -<p>“Nothing at all.” I was horribly ashamed. “Your -wife touched my arm unexpectedly. I dare say I am -nervous.”</p> -<p>“It’s all right, Anne,” he reassured her. And to me, -almost irritably:</p> -<p>“I thought you nurses had no nerves.”</p> -<p>“Under ordinary circumstances I have none.”</p> -<p>It was all ridiculous. We were still on the staircase.</p> -<p>“Just what do you mean by that?”</p> -<p>“If you will stop looking down into that hall I’ll be -calm enough. You make me jumpy.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div> -<p>He muttered something about being sorry and went -on quickly. But at the top he went through an inward -struggle, evidently succumbed, and took a final furtive -survey of the hallway below. I was so wrought up that -had a door slammed anywhere just then I think I should -have dropped where I stood.</p> -<p>The absolute silence of the house added to the strangeness -of the situation. Beauregard Square is not close to -a trolley line, and quiet is the neighborhood tradition. -The first rubber-tired vehicles in the city drew up before -Beauregard Square houses. Beauregard Square children -speak in low voices and never bang their spoons on their -plates. Beauregard Square servants wear felt-soled -shoes. And such outside noises as venture to intrude -themselves must filter through double brick walls and -doors built when lumber was selling by the thousand -acres instead of the square foot.</p> -<p>Through this silence our feet echoed along the bare -floor of the upper hall, as well lighted as belowstairs and -as dismantled, to the door of the day nursery. The door -was locked—double locked, in fact. For the key had been -turned in the old-fashioned lock, and in addition an ordinary -bolt had been newly fastened on the outside of the -door. On the outside! Was that to keep me in? It -was certainly not to keep any one or anything out. The -feeblest touch moved the bolt.</p> -<p>We were all three outside the door. We seemed to -keep our compactness by common consent. No one of -us left the group willingly; or, leaving it, we slid back -again quickly. That was my impression, at least. But -the bolt rather alarmed me.</p> -<p>“This is your room,” Mrs. Reed said. “It is generally -<span class="pb" id="Page_19">19</span> -the day nursery, but we have put a bed and some other -things in it. I hope you will be comfortable.”</p> -<p>I touched the bolt with my finger and smiled into Mr. -Reed’s eyes.</p> -<p>“I hope I am not to be fastened in!” I said.</p> -<p>He looked back squarely enough, but somehow I -knew he lied.</p> -<p>“Certainly not,” he replied, and opened the door.</p> -<p>If there had been mystery outside, and bareness, the -nursery was charming—a corner room with many windows, -hung with the simplest of nursery papers and full -of glass-doored closets filled with orderly rows of toys. -In one corner a small single bed had been added without -spoiling the room. The window-sills were full of flowering -plants. There was a bowl of goldfish on a stand, and -a tiny dwarf parrot in a cage was covered against the -night air by a bright afghan. A white-tiled bathroom -connected with this room and also with the night nursery -beyond.</p> -<p>Mr. Reed did not come in, I had an uneasy feeling, -however, that he was just beyond the door. The children -were not asleep. Mrs. Reed left me to let me put on my -uniform. When she came back her face was troubled.</p> -<p>“They are not sleeping well,” she complained. “I -suppose it comes from having no exercise. They are -always excited.”</p> -<p>“I’ll take their temperatures,” I said. “Sometimes a -tepid bath and a cup of hot milk will make them sleep.”</p> -<p>The two little boys were wide awake. They sat up to -look at me and both spoke at once.</p> -<p>“Can you tell fairy tales out of your head?”</p> -<p>“Did you see Chang?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div> -<p>They were small, sleek-headed, fair-skinned youngsters, -adorably clean and rumpled.</p> -<p>“Chang is their dog, a Pekingese,” explained the -mother. “He has been lost for several days.”</p> -<p>“But he isn’t lost, mother. I can hear him crying -every now and then. You’ll look again, mother, won’t -you?”</p> -<p>“We heard him through the furnace pipe,” shrilled -the smaller of the two. “You said you would look.”</p> -<p>“I did look, darlings. He isn’t there. And you promised -not to cry about him, Freddie.”</p> -<p>Freddie, thus put on his honor, protested he was not -crying for the dog.</p> -<p>“I want to go out and take a walk, that’s why I’m -crying,” he wailed. “And I want Mademoiselle, and my -buttons are all off. And my ear aches when I lie -on it.”</p> -<p>The room was close. I threw up the windows, and -turned to find Mrs. Reed at my elbows. She was glancing -out apprehensively.</p> -<p>“I suppose the air is necessary,” she said, “and these -windows are all right. But—I have a reason for asking -it—please do not open the others.”</p> -<p>She went very soon, and I listened as she went out. I -had promised to lock the door behind her, and I did so. -The bolt outside was not shot.</p> -<p>After I had quieted the children with my mildest fairy -story I made a quiet inventory of my new quarters. The -rough diagram of the second floor is the one I gave Mr. -Patton later. That night, of course, I investigated only -the two nurseries. But, so strangely had the fear that -hung over the house infected me, I confess that I made -<span class="pb" id="Page_21">21</span> -my little tour of bathroom and clothes-closet with my -revolver in my hand!</p> -<p>I found nothing, of course. The disorder of the house -had not extended itself here. The bathroom was spotless -with white tile, the large clothes-closet which opened off -the passage between the two rooms was full of neatly -folded clothing for the children. The closet was to play -its part later, a darkish little room faintly lighted by a -ground glass transom opening into the center hall, but -dependent mostly on electric light.</p> -<p>Outside the windows Mrs. Reed had asked me not to -open was a porte-cochère roof almost level with the sills. -Then was it an outside intruder she feared? And in -that case, why the bolts on the outside of the two nursery -doors? For the night nursery, I found, must have one -also. I turned the key, but the door would not open.</p> -<p>I decided not to try to sleep that night, but to keep -on watch. So powerfully had the mother’s anxiety about -her children and their mysterious danger impressed me -that I made frequent excursions into the back room. Up -to midnight there was nothing whatever to alarm me. I -darkened both rooms and sat, waiting for I know not -what; for some sound to show that the house stirred, -perhaps. At a few minutes after twelve faint noises penetrated -to my room from the hall, Mr. Reed’s nervous -voice and a piece of furniture scraping over the floor. -Then silence again for half an hour or so.</p> -<p>Then—I was quite certain that the bolt on my door -had been shot. I did not hear it, I think. Perhaps I -felt it. Perhaps I only feared it. I unlocked the door; -it was fastened outside.</p> -<p>There is a hideous feeling of helplessness about being -<span class="pb" id="Page_22">22</span> -locked in. I pretended to myself at first that I was only -interested and curious. But I was frightened; I know -that now. I sat there in the dark and wondered what I -would do if the house took fire, or if some hideous -tragedy enacted itself outside that locked door and I were -helpless.</p> -<p>By two o’clock I had worked myself into a panic. -The house was no longer silent. Some one was moving -about downstairs, and not stealthily. The sounds came -up through the heavy joists and flooring of the old -house.</p> -<p>I determined to make at least a struggle to free myself. -There was no way to get at the bolts, of course. The -porte-cochère roof remained and the transom in the -clothes-closet. True, I might have raised an alarm and -been freed at once, but naturally I rejected this method. -The roof of the porte-cochère proved impracticable. The -tin bent and cracked under my first step. The transom -then.</p> -<p>I carried a chair into the closet and found the transom -easy to lower. But it threatened to creak. I put liquid -soap on the hinges—it was all I had, and it worked very -well—and lowered the transom inch by inch. Even then -I could not see over it. I had worked so far without a -sound, but in climbing to a shelf my foot slipped and I -thought I heard a sharp movement outside. It was five -minutes before I stirred. I hung there, every muscle -cramped, listening and waiting. Then I lifted myself -by sheer force of muscle and looked out. The upper landing -of the staircase, brilliantly lighted, was to my right. -Across the head of the stairs had been pushed a cotbed, -made up for the night, but it was unoccupied.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div> -<p>Mrs. Reed, in a long, dark ulster, was standing beside -it, staring with fixed and glassy eyes at something in the -lower hall.</p> -<h2 id="c3">III</h2> -<p>Some time after four o’clock my door was unlocked -from without; the bolt slipped as noiselessly as it had -been shot. I got a little sleep until seven, when the boys -trotted into my room in their bathrobes and slippers and -perched on my bed.</p> -<p>“It’s a nice day,” observed Harry, the elder. “Is that -bump your feet?”</p> -<p>I wriggled my toes and assured him he had surmised -correctly.</p> -<p>“You’re pretty long, aren’t you? Do you think we -can play in the fountain to-day?”</p> -<p>“We’ll make a try for it, son. It will do us all good -to get out into the sunshine.”</p> -<p>“We always took Chang for a walk every day, Mademoiselle -and Chang and Freddie and I.”</p> -<p>Freddie had found my cap on the dressing table and -had put it on his yellow head. But now, on hearing the -beloved name of his pet, he burst into loud grief-stricken -howls.</p> -<p>“Want Mam’selle,” he cried. “Want Chang too. Poor -Freddie!”</p> -<p>The children were adorable. I bathed and dressed -them and, mindful of my predecessor’s story of crackers -and milk, prepared for an excursion kitchenward. The -nights might be full of mystery, murder might romp -from room to room, but I intended to see that the youngsters -<span class="pb" id="Page_24">24</span> -breakfasted. But before I was ready to go down -breakfast arrived.</p> -<p>Perhaps the other nurse had told the Reeds a few plain -truths before she left; perhaps, and this I think was the -case, the cloud had lifted just a little. Whatever it may -have been, two rather flushed and blistered young people -tapped at the door that morning and were admitted, Mr. -Reed first, with a tray, Mrs. Reed following with a coffee-pot -and cream.</p> -<p>The little nursery table was small for five, but we made -room somehow. What if the eggs were underdone and -the toast dry? The children munched blissfully. What -if Mr. Reed’s face was still drawn and haggard and his -wife a limp little huddle on the floor? She sat with her -head against his knee and her eyes on the little boys, and -drank her pale coffee slowly. She was very tired, poor -thing. She dropped asleep sitting there, and he sat for a -long time, not liking to disturb her.</p> -<p>It made me feel homesick for the home I didn’t have. -I’ve had the same feeling before, of being a rank outsider, -a sort of defrauded feeling. I’ve had it when I’ve seen -the look in a man’s eyes when his wife comes-to after an -operation. And I’ve had it, for that matter, when I’ve -put a new baby in its mother’s arms for the first time. -I had it for sure that morning, while she slept there and -he stroked her pretty hair.</p> -<p>I put in my plea for the children then.</p> -<p>“It’s bright and sunny,” I argued. “And if you are -nervous I’ll keep them away from other children. But -if you want to keep them well you must give them -exercise.”</p> -<p>It was the argument about keeping them well that -<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span> -influenced him, I think. He sat silent for a long time. -His wife was still asleep, her lips parted.</p> -<p>“Very well,” he said finally, “from two to three, Miss -Adams. But not in the garden back of the house. Take -them on the street.”</p> -<p>I agreed to that.</p> -<p>“I shall want a short walk every evening myself,” I -added. “That is a rule of mine. I am a more useful -person and a more agreeable one if I have it.”</p> -<p>I think he would have demurred if he dared. But one -does not easily deny so sane a request. He yielded -grudgingly.</p> -<p>That first day was calm and quiet enough. Had it not -been for the strange condition of the house and the necessity -for keeping the children locked in I would have -smiled at my terror of the night. Luncheon was sent in; -so was dinner. The children and I lunched and supped -alone. As far as I could see, Mrs. Reed made no attempt -at housework; but the cot at the head of the stairs disappeared -in the early morning and the dog did not howl -again.</p> -<p>I took the boys out for an hour in the early afternoon. -Two incidents occurred, both of them significant. I -bought myself a screw driver—that was one. The other -was our meeting with a slender young woman in black -who knew the boys and stopped them. She proved to -be one of the dismissed servants—the waitress, she said.</p> -<p>“Why, Freddie!” she cried. “And Harry too! Aren’t -you going to speak to Nora?”</p> -<p>After a moment or two she turned to me, and I felt -she wanted to say something, but hardly dared.</p> -<p>“How is Mrs. Reed?” she asked. “Not sick, I hope?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div> -<p>She glanced at my St. Luke’s cloak and bonnet.</p> -<p>“No, she is quite well.”</p> -<p>“And Mr. Reed?”</p> -<p>“Quite well also.”</p> -<p>“Is Mademoiselle still there?”</p> -<p>“No, there is no one there but the family. There are -no maids in the house.”</p> -<p>She stared at me curiously.</p> -<p>“Mademoiselle has gone? Are you cer—— Excuse -me, Miss. But I thought she would never go. The -children were like her own.”</p> -<p>“She is not there, Nora.”</p> -<p>She stood for a moment debating, I thought. Then -she burst out:</p> -<p>“Mr. Reed made a mistake, miss. You can’t take a -houseful of first-class servants and dismiss them the -way he did, without half an hour to get out bag and -baggage, without making talk. And there’s talk enough -all through the neighborhood.”</p> -<p>“What sort of talk?”</p> -<p>“Different people say different things. They say -Mademoiselle is still there, locked in her room on the third -floor. There’s a light there sometimes, but nobody sees -her. And other folks say Mr. Reed is crazy. And there -is worse being said than that.”</p> -<p>But she refused to tell me any more—evidently concluded -she had said too much and got away as quickly as -she could, looking rather worried.</p> -<p>I was a trifle over my hour getting back, but nothing -was said. To leave the clean and tidy street for the -disordered house was not pleasant. But once in the children’s -suite, with the goldfish in the aquarium darting like -<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span> -tongues of flame in the sunlight, with the tulips and -hyacinths of the window-boxes glowing and the orderly -toys on their white shelves, I felt comforted. After all, -disorder and dust did not imply crime.</p> -<p>But one thing I did that afternoon—did it with firmness -and no attempt at secrecy, and after asking permission -of no one. I took the new screw driver and unfastened -the bolt from the outside of my door.</p> -<p>I was prepared, if necessary, to make a stand on that -issue. But although it was noticed, I knew, no mention -of it was made to me.</p> -<p>Mrs. Reed pleaded a headache that evening, and I -believe her husband ate alone in the dismantled dining -room. For every room on the lower floor, I had discovered, -was in the same curious disorder.</p> -<p>At seven Mr. Reed relieved me to go out. The children -were in bed. He did not go into the day nursery, -but placed a straight chair outside the door of the back -room and sat there, bent over, elbows on knees, chin -cupped in his palm, staring at the staircase. He roused -enough to ask me to bring an evening paper when I -returned.</p> -<p>When I am on a department case I always take my -off-duty in the evening by arrangement and walk round -the block. Some time in my walk I am sure to see Mr. -Patton himself if the case is big enough, or one of his -agents if he cannot come. If I have nothing to communicate -it resolves itself into a bow and nothing -more.</p> -<p>I was nervous on this particular jaunt. For one thing -my St. Luke’s cloak and bonnet marked me at once, made -me conspicuous; for another, I was afraid Mr. Patton -<span class="pb" id="Page_28">28</span> -would think the Reed house no place for a woman and -order me home.</p> -<p>It was a quarter to eight and quite dark before he -fell into step beside me.</p> -<p>“Well,” I replied rather shakily; “I’m still alive, as -you see.”</p> -<p>“Then it is pretty bad?”</p> -<p>“It’s exceedingly queer,” I admitted, and told my story. -I had meant to conceal the bolt on the outside of my door, -and one or two other things, but I blurted them all out -right then and there, and felt a lot better at once.</p> -<p>He listened intently.</p> -<p>“It’s fear of the deadliest sort,” I finished.</p> -<p>“Fear of the police?”</p> -<p>“I—I think not. It is fear of something in the house. -They are always listening and watching at the top of the -front stairs. They have lifted all the carpets, so that -every footstep echoes through the whole house. Mrs. -Reed goes down to the first door, but never alone. To-day -I found that the back staircase is locked off at top and -bottom. There are doors.”</p> -<p>I gave him my rough diagram of the house. It was -too dark to see it.</p> -<p>“It is only tentative,” I explained. “So much of the -house is locked up, and every movement of mine is under -surveillance. Without baths there are about twelve large -rooms, counting the third floor. I’ve not been able to -get there, but I thought that to-night I’d try to look -about.”</p> -<p>“You had no sleep last night?”</p> -<p>“Three hours—from four to seven this morning.”</p> -<p>We had crossed into the public square and were walking -<span class="pb" id="Page_29">29</span> -slowly under the trees. Now he stopped and faced -me.</p> -<p>“I don’t like the look of it, Miss Adams,” he said. -“Ordinary panic goes and hides. But here’s a fear that -knows what it’s afraid of and takes methodical steps for -protection. I didn’t want you to take the case, you know -that; but now I’m not going to insult you by asking you -to give it up. But I’m going to see that you are protected. -There will be some one across the street every night as -long as you are in the house.”</p> -<p>“Have you any theory?” I asked him. He is not strong -for theories generally. He is very practical. “That is, -do you think the other nurse was right and there is some -sort of crime being concealed?”</p> -<p>“Well, think about it,” he prompted me. “If a murder -has been committed, what are they afraid of? The -police? Then why a trained nurse and all this caution -about the children? A ghost? Would they lift the -carpets so that they could hear the specter tramping -about?”</p> -<p>“If there is no crime, but something—a lunatic perhaps?” -I asked.</p> -<p>“Possibly. But then why this secrecy and keeping out -the police? It is, of course, possible that your respected -employers have both gone off mentally, and the whole -thing is a nightmare delusion. On my word it sounds -like it. But it’s too much for credulity to believe they’ve -both gone crazy with the same form of delusion.”</p> -<p>“Perhaps I’m the lunatic,” I said despairingly. “When -you reduce it like that to an absurdity I wonder if I didn’t -imagine it all, the lights burning everywhere and the carpets -up, and Mrs. Reed staring down the staircase, and -<span class="pb" id="Page_30">30</span> -I locked in a room and hanging on by my nails to peer out -through a closet transom.”</p> -<p>“Perhaps. But how about the deadly sane young -woman who preceded you? She had no imagination. -Now about Reed and his wife—how do they strike -you? They get along all right and that sort of thing, I -suppose?”</p> -<p>“They are nice people,” I said emphatically. “He’s -a gentleman and they’re devoted. He just looks like a -big boy who’s got into an awful mess and doesn’t know -how to get out. And she’s backing him up. She’s a -dear.”</p> -<p>“Humph!” said Mr. Patton. “Don’t suppress any -evidence because she’s a dear and he’s a handsome big -boy!”</p> -<p>“I didn’t say he was handsome,” I snapped.</p> -<p>“Did you ever see a ghost or think you saw one?” he -inquired suddenly.</p> -<p>“No, but one of my aunts has. Hers always carry -their heads. She asked one a question once and the head -nodded.”</p> -<p>“Then you believe in things of that sort?”</p> -<p>“Not a particle—but I’m afraid of them.”</p> -<p>He smiled, and shortly after that I went back to the -house. I think he was sorry about the ghost question, -for he explained that he had been trying me out, and that -I looked well in my cloak and bonnet.</p> -<p>“I’m afraid of your chin generally,” he said; “but the -white lawn ties have a softening effect. In view of the -ties I have almost the courage——”</p> -<p>“Yes?”</p> -<p>“I think not, after all.” he decided. “The chin is there, -<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span> -ties or no ties. Good-night, and—for heaven’s sake don’t -run any unnecessary risks.”</p> -<p>The change from his facetious tone to earnestness was -so unexpected that I was still standing there on the pavement -when he plunged into the darkness of the square -and disappeared.</p> -<h2 id="c4">IV</h2> -<p>At ten minutes after eight I was back in the house. -Mr. Reed admitted me, going through the tedious process -of unlocking outer and inner vestibule doors and fastening -them again behind me. He inquired politely if I had -had a pleasant walk, and without waiting for my reply fell -to reading the evening paper. He seemed to have forgotten -me absolutely. First he scanned the headlines; -then he turned feverishly to something farther on and ran -his fingers down along a column. His lips were twitching, -but evidently he did not find what he expected—or -feared—for he threw the paper away and did not glance -at it again. I watched him from the angle of the stairs.</p> -<p>Even for that short interval Mrs. Reed had taken his -place at the children’s door.</p> -<p>She wore a black dress, long sleeved and high at the -throat, instead of the silk negligee of the previous evening, -and she held a book. But she was not reading. She -smiled rather wistfully when she saw me.</p> -<p>“How fresh you always look!” she said. “And so -self-reliant. I wish I had your courage.”</p> -<p>“I am perfectly well. I dare say that explains a lot. -Kiddies asleep?”</p> -<p>“Freddie isn’t. He has been crying for Chang. I hate -<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span> -night, Miss Adams. I’m like Freddie. All my troubles -come up about this time. I’m horribly depressed.”</p> -<p>Her blue eyes filled with tears.</p> -<p>“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she confessed.</p> -<p>I should think not!</p> -<p>Without taking off my things I went down to Mr. -Reed in the lower hall.</p> -<p>“I’m going to insist on something,” I said. “Mrs. -Reed is highly nervous. She says she has not been sleeping. -I think if I give her an opiate and she gets an -entire night’s sleep it may save her a breakdown.”</p> -<p>I looked straight in his eyes, and for once he did -evade me.</p> -<p>“I’m afraid I’ve been very selfish,” he said. “Of -course she must have sleep. I’ll give you a powder, unless -you have something you prefer to use.”</p> -<p>I remembered then that he was a chemist, and said I -would gladly use whatever he gave me.</p> -<p>“There is another thing I wanted to speak about, Mr. -Reed,” I said. “The children are mourning their dog. -Don’t you think he may have been accidentally shut up -somewhere in the house in one of the upper floors?”</p> -<p>“Why do you say that?” he demanded sharply.</p> -<p>“They say they have heard him howling.”</p> -<p>He hesitated for barely a moment. Then:</p> -<p>“Possibly,” he said. “But they will not hear him -again. The little chap has been sick, and he—died to-day. -Of course the boys are not to know.”</p> -<p class="tb">No one watched the staircase that night. I gave Mrs. -Reed the opiate and saw her comfortably into bed. When -I went back fifteen minutes later she was resting, but not -<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span> -asleep. Opiates sometimes make people garrulous for a -little while—sheer comfort, perhaps, and relaxed tension. -I’ve had stockbrokers and bankers in the hospital give me -tips, after a hypodermic of morphia, that would have -made me wealthy had I not been limited to my training -allowance of twelve dollars a month.</p> -<p>“I was just wondering,” she said as I tucked her up, -“where a woman owes the most allegiance—to her husband -or to her children?”</p> -<p>“Why not split it up,” I said cheerfully, “and try doing -what seems best for both?”</p> -<p>“But that’s only a compromise!” she complained, and -was asleep almost immediately. I lowered the light and -closed the door, and shortly after I heard Mr. Reed locking -it from the outside.</p> -<p>With the bolt off my door and Mrs. Reed asleep my -plan for the night was easily carried out. I went to bed -for a couple of hours and slept calmly. I awakened once -with the feeling that some one was looking at me from -the passage into the night nursery, but there was no one -there. However, so strong had been the feeling that I -got up and went into the back room. The children were -asleep, and all doors opening into the hall were locked. -But the window on to the porte-cochère roof was open -and the curtain blowing. There was no one on the roof.</p> -<p>It was not twelve o’clock and I still had an hour. I -went back to bed.</p> -<p>At one I prepared to make a thorough search of the -house. Looking from one of my windows I thought I -saw the shadowy figure of a man across the street, and I -was comforted. Help was always close, I felt. And yet, -as I stood inside my door in my rubber-soled shoes, with -<span class="pb" id="Page_34">34</span> -my ulster over my uniform and a revolver and my skeleton -keys in my pockets, my heart was going very fast. -The stupid story of the ghost came back and made me -shudder, and the next instant I was remembering Mrs. -Reed the night before, staring down into the lower hall -with fixed glassy eyes.</p> -<p>My plan was to begin at the top of the house and work -down. The thing was the more hazardous, of course, -because Mr. Reed was most certainly somewhere about. -I had no excuse for being on the third floor. Down -below I could say I wanted tea, or hot water—anything. -But I did not expect to find Mr. Reed up above. The -terror, whatever it was, seemed to lie below.</p> -<p>Access to the third floor was not easy. The main -staircase did not go up. To get there I was obliged to -unlock the door at the rear of the hall with my own keys. -I was working in bright light, trying my keys one after -another, and watching over my shoulder as I did so. -When the door finally gave it was a relief to slip into the -darkness beyond, ghosts or no ghosts.</p> -<p>I am always a silent worker. Caution about closing -doors and squeaking hinges is second nature to me. One -learns to be cautious when one’s only chance of sleep is -not to rouse a peevish patient and have to give a body-massage, -as like as not, or listen to domestic troubles—“I -said” and “he said”—until one is almost crazy.</p> -<p>So I made no noise. I closed the door behind me and -stood blinking in the darkness. I listened. There was -no sound above or below. Now houses at night have no -terror for me. Every nurse is obliged to do more or less -going about in the dark. But I was not easy. Suppose -Mr. Reed should call me? True, I had locked my door -<span class="pb" id="Page_35">35</span> -and had the key in my pocket. But a dozen emergencies -flew through my mind as I felt for the stair rail.</p> -<p>There was a curious odor through all the back staircase, -a pungent, aromatic scent that, with all my familiarity -with drugs, was strange to me. As I slowly -climbed the stairs it grew more powerful. The air was -heavy with it, as though no windows had been opened in -that part of the house. There was no door at the top -of this staircase, as there was on the second floor. It -opened into an upper hall, and across from the head of -the stairs was a door leading into a room. This door -was closed. On this staircase, as on all the others, the -carpet had been newly lifted. My electric flash showed -the white boards and painted borders, the carpet tacks, -many of them still in place. One, lying loose, penetrated -my rubber sole and went into my foot.</p> -<p>I sat down in the dark and took off the shoe. As I -did so my flash, on the step beside me, rolled over and -down with a crash. I caught it on the next step, but -the noise had been like a pistol shot.</p> -<p>Almost immediately a voice spoke above me sharply. -At first I thought it was out in the upper hall. Then I -realized that the closed door was between it and me.</p> -<p>“Ees that you, Meester Reed?”</p> -<p>Mademoiselle!</p> -<p>“Meester Reed!” plaintively. “Eet comes up again, -Meester Reed! I die! To-morrow I die!”</p> -<p>She listened. On no reply coming she began to groan -rhythmically, to a curious accompaniment of creaking. -When I had gathered up my nerves again I realized that -she must be sitting in a rocking chair. The groans were -really little plaintive grunts.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div> -<p>By the time I had got my shoe on she was up again, -and I could hear her pacing the room, the heavy step of -a woman well fleshed and not young. Now and then she -stopped inside the door and listened; once she shook the -knob and mumbled querulously to herself.</p> -<p>I recovered the flash, and with infinite caution worked -my way to the top of the stairs. Mademoiselle was locked -in, doubly bolted in. Two strong bolts, above and below, -supplemented the door lock.</p> -<p>Her ears must have been very quick, or else she felt -my softly padding feet on the boards outside, for suddenly -she flung herself against the door and begged for a -priest, begged piteously, in jumbled French and English. -She wanted food; she was dying of hunger. She wanted -a priest.</p> -<p>And all the while I stood outside the door and wondered -what I should do. Should I release the woman? -Should I go down to the lower floor and get the detective -across the street to come in and force the door? Was -this the terror that held the house in thrall—this babbling -old Frenchwoman calling for food and a priest in one -breath?</p> -<p>Surely not. This was a part of the mystery, not all. -The real terror lay below. It was not Mademoiselle, -locked in her room on the upper floor, that the Reeds -waited for at the top of the stairs. But why was Mademoiselle -locked in her room? Why were the children -locked in? What was this thing that had turned a home -into a jail, a barracks, that had sent away the servants, -imprisoned and probably killed the dog, sapped the joy -of life from two young people? What was it that Mademoiselle -cried “comes up again”?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_37">37</div> -<p>I looked toward the staircase. Was it coming up the -staircase?</p> -<p>I am not afraid of the thing I can see, but it seemed -to me, all at once, that if anything was going to come -up the staircase I might as well get down first. A staircase -is no place to meet anything, especially if one doesn’t -know what it is.</p> -<p>I listened again. Mademoiselle was quiet. I flashed -my light down the narrow stairs. They were quite empty. -I shut off the flash and went down. I tried to go slowly, -to retreat with dignity, and by the time I had reached -the landing below I was heartily ashamed of myself. Was -this shivering girl the young woman Mr. Patton called -his right hand?</p> -<p>I dare say I should have stopped there, for that night -at least. My nerves were frayed. But I forced myself -on. The mystery lay below. Well, then, I was going -down. It could not be so terrible. At least it was nothing -supernatural. There must be a natural explanation. -And then that silly story about the headless things must -pop into my head and start me down trembling.</p> -<p>The lower rear staircase was black dark, like the upper, -but just at the foot a light came in through a barred -window. I could see it plainly and the shadows of the -iron grating on the bare floor. I stood there listening. -There was not a sound.</p> -<p>It was not easy to tell exactly what followed. I stood -there with my hand on the rail. I’d been very silent; my -rubber shoes attended to that. And one moment the -staircase was clear, with a patch of light at the bottom. -The next, something was there, half way down—a head, -it seemed to be, with a pointed hood like a monk’s cowl. -<span class="pb" id="Page_38">38</span> -There was no body. It seemed to lie at my feet. But it -was living. It moved. I could tell the moment when -the eyes lifted and saw my feet, the slow back-tilting of -the head as they followed up my body. All the air was -squeezed out of my lungs; a heavy hand seemed to press -on my chest. I remember raising a shaking hand and -flinging my flashlight at the head. The flash clattered on -the stair tread harmless. Then the head was gone and -something living slid over my foot.</p> -<p>I stumbled back to my room and locked the door. It -was two hours before I had strength enough to get my -aromatic ammonia bottle.</p> -<h2 id="c5">V</h2> -<p>It seemed to me that I had hardly dropped asleep -before the children were in the room, clamoring.</p> -<p>“The goldfish are dead!” Harry said, standing soberly -by the bed. “They are all dead with their stummicks -turned up.”</p> -<p>I sat up. My head ached violently.</p> -<p>“They can’t be dead, old chap.” I was feeling about -for my kimono, but I remembered that when I had found -my way back to the nursery after my fright on the back -stairs I had lain down in my uniform. I crawled out, -hardly able to stand. “We gave them fresh water yesterday, -and——”</p> -<p>I had got to the aquarium. Harry was right. The -little darting flames of pink and gold were still. They -floated about, rolling gently as Freddie prodded them -with a forefinger, dull eyed, pale bellies upturned. In his -<span class="pb" id="Page_39">39</span> -cage above the little parrot watched out of a crooked -eye.</p> -<p>I ran to the medicine closet in the bathroom. Freddie -had a weakness for administering medicine. I had only -just rescued the parrot from the result of his curiosity -and a headache tablet the day before.</p> -<p>“What did you give them?” I demanded.</p> -<p>“Bread,” said Freddie stoutly.</p> -<p>“Only bread?”</p> -<p>“Dirty bread,” Harry put in. “I told him it was dirty.”</p> -<p>“Where did you get it?”</p> -<p>“On the roof of the porte-cochère!”</p> -<p>Shade of Montessori! The rascals had been out on -that sloping tin roof. It turned me rather sick to think -of it.</p> -<p>Accused, they admitted it frankly.</p> -<p>“I unlocked the window,” Harry said, “and Freddie -got the bread. It was out in the gutter. He slipped -once.”</p> -<p>“Almost went over and made a squash on the pavement,” -added Freddie. “We gave the little fishes the -bread for breakfast, and now they’re gone to God.”</p> -<p>The bread had contained poison, of course. Even the -two little snails that crawled over the sand in the aquarium -were motionless. I sniffed the water. It had a slightly -foreign odor. I did not recognize it.</p> -<p>Panic seized me then. I wanted to get away and take -the children with me. The situation was too hideous. -But it was still early. I could only wait until the family -roused. In the meantime, however, I made a nerve-racking -excursion out on to the tin roof and down to the -gutter. There was no more of the bread there. The -<span class="pb" id="Page_40">40</span> -porte-cochère was at the side of the house. As I stood -balancing myself perilously on the edge, summoning my -courage to climb back to the window above, I suddenly -remembered the guard Mr. Patton had promised and -glanced toward the square.</p> -<p>The guard was still there. More than that, he was -running across the street toward me. It was Mr. Patton -himself. He brought up between the two houses with -absolute fury in his face.</p> -<p>“Go back!” he waved. “What are you doing out there -anyhow? That roof’s as slippery as the devil!”</p> -<p>I turned meekly and crawled back with as much dignity -as I could. I did not say anything. There was nothing -I could bawl from the roof. I could only close and lock -the window and hope that the people in the next house -still slept. Mr. Patton must have gone shortly after, -for I did not see him again.</p> -<p>I wondered if he had relieved the night watch, or if -he could possibly have been on guard himself all that -chilly April night.</p> -<p>Mr. Reed did not breakfast with us. I made a point -of being cheerful before the children, and their mother -was rested and brighter than I had seen her. But more -than once I found her staring at me in a puzzled way. -She asked me if I had slept.</p> -<p>“I wakened only once,” she said. “I thought I heard -a crash of some sort. Did you hear it?”</p> -<p>“What sort of a crash?” I evaded.</p> -<p>The children had forgotten the goldfish for a time. -Now they remembered and clamored their news to her.</p> -<p>“Dead?” she said, and looked at me.</p> -<p>“Poisoned,” I explained. “I shall nail the windows -<span class="pb" id="Page_41">41</span> -over the porte-cochère shut, Mrs. Reed. The boys got -out there early this morning and picked up something—bread, -I believe. They fed it to the fish and—they are -dead.”</p> -<p>All the light went out of her face. She looked tired -and harassed as she got up.</p> -<p>“I wanted to nail the window,” she said vaguely, “but -Mr. Reed—— Suppose they had eaten that bread, Miss -Adams, instead of giving it to the fish!”</p> -<p>The same thought had chilled me with horror. We -gazed at each other over the unconscious heads of the -children and my heart ached for her. I made a sudden -resolution.</p> -<p>“When I first came,” I said to her, “I told you I -wanted to help. That’s what I’m here for. But how -am I to help either you or the children when I do not -know what danger it is that threatens? It isn’t fair to -you, or to them, or even to me.”</p> -<p>She was much shaken by the poison incident. I thought -she wavered.</p> -<p>“Are you afraid the children will be stolen?”</p> -<p>“Oh, no.”</p> -<p>“Or hurt in any way?” I was thinking of the bread -on the roof.</p> -<p>“No.”</p> -<p>“But you are afraid of something?”</p> -<p>Harry looked up suddenly.</p> -<p>“Mother’s never afraid,” he said stoutly.</p> -<p>I sent them both in to see if the fish were still dead.</p> -<p>“There is something in the house downstairs that you -are afraid of?” I persisted.</p> -<p>She took a step forward and caught my arm.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div> -<p>“I had no idea it would be like this, Miss Adams. I’m -dying of fear!”</p> -<p>I had a quick vision of the swathed head on the back -staircase, and some of my night’s terror came back to -me. I believe we stared at each other with dilated pupils -for a moment. Then I asked:</p> -<p>“Is it a real thing?—surely you can tell me this. Are -you afraid of a reality, or—is it something supernatural?” -I was ashamed of the question. It sounded so -absurd in the broad light of that April morning.</p> -<p>“It is a real danger,” she replied. Then I think she -decided that she had gone as far as she dared, and I went -through the ceremony of letting her out and of locking -the door behind her.</p> -<p>The day was warm. I threw up some of the windows -and the boys and I played ball, using a rolled handkerchief. -My part, being to sit on the floor with a newspaper -folded into a bat and to bang at the handkerchief -as it flew past me, became automatic after a time.</p> -<p>As I look back I see a pair of disordered young rascals -in Russian blouses and bare round knees doing a great -deal of yelling and some very crooked throwing; a nurse -sitting tailor fashion on the floor, alternately ducking to -save her cap and making vigorous but ineffectual passes -at the ball with her newspaper bat. And I see sunshine -in the room and the dwarf parrot eating sugar out of his -claw. And below, the fish in the aquarium floating -belly-up with dull eyes.</p> -<p>Mr. Reed brought up our luncheon tray. He looked -tired and depressed and avoided my eyes. I watched him -while I spread the bread and butter for the children. He -nailed shut the windows that opened on to the porte-cochère -<span class="pb" id="Page_43">43</span> -roof and when he thought I was not looking he -examined the registers in the wall to see if the gratings -were closed. The boys put the dead fish in a box and -made him promise a decent interment in the garden. -They called on me for an epitaph, and I scrawled on top -of the box:</p> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><i>These fish are dead</i></p> -<p class="t0"><i>Because a boy called Fred</i></p> -<p class="t"><i>Went out on a porch roof when he should</i></p> -<p class="t0"><i>Have been in bed.</i></p> -</div> -<p>I was much pleased with it. It seemed to me that an -epitaph, which can do no good to the departed, should -at least convey a moral. But to my horror Freddie broke -into loud wails and would not be comforted.</p> -<p>It was three o’clock, therefore, before they were both -settled for their afternoon naps and I was free. I had -determined to do one thing, and to do it in daylight—to -examine the back staircase inch by inch. I knew I -would be courting discovery, but the thing had to be done, -and no power on earth would have made me essay such -an investigation after dark.</p> -<p>It was all well enough for me to say to myself that -there was a natural explanation; that this had been a -human head, of a certainty; that something living and -not spectral had slid over my foot in the darkness. I -would not have gone back there again at night for youth, -love or money. But I did not investigate the staircase -that day, after all.</p> -<p>I made a curious discovery after the boys had settled -down in their small white beds. A venturesome fly had -<span class="pb" id="Page_44">44</span> -sailed in through an open window, and I was immediately -in pursuit of him with my paper bat. Driven from the -cornice to the chandelier, harried here, swatted there, -finally he took refuge inside the furnace register.</p> -<p>Perhaps it is my training—I used to know how many -million germs a fly packed about with it, and the generous -benevolence with which it distributed them; I’ve forgotten—but -the sight of a single fly maddens me. I said -that to Mr. Patton once, and he asked what the sight -of a married one would do. So I sat down by the register -and waited. It was then that I made the curious -discovery that the furnace belowstairs was burning, and -burning hard. A fierce heat assailed me as I opened the -grating. I drove the fly out of cover, but I had no time -for him. The furnace going full on a warm spring day! -It was strange.</p> -<p>Perhaps I was stupid. Perhaps the whole thing should -have been clear to me. But it was not. I sat there bewildered -and tried to figure it out. I went over it point -by point:</p> -<p>The carpets up all over the house, lights going full all -night and doors locked.</p> -<p>The cot at the top of the stairs and Mrs. Reed staring -down.</p> -<p>The bolt outside my door to lock me in.</p> -<p>The death of Chang.</p> -<p>Mademoiselle locked in her room upstairs and begging -for a priest.</p> -<p>The poison on the porch roof.</p> -<p>The head without a body on the staircase and the thing -that slid over my foot.</p> -<p>The furnace going, and the thing I recognized as I -<span class="pb" id="Page_45">45</span> -sat there beside the register—the unmistakable odor of -burning cloth.</p> -<p>Should I have known? I wonder. It looks so clear -to me now.</p> -<p>I did not investigate the staircase, for the simple reason -that my skeleton key, which unfastened the lock of -the door at the rear of the second-floor hall, did not open -the door. I did not understand at once and stood stupidly -working with the lock. The door was bolted on the -other side. I wandered as aimlessly as I could down the -main staircase and tried the corresponding door on the -lower floor. It, too, was locked. Here was an <i>impasse</i> -for sure. As far as I could discover the only other entrance -to the back staircase was through the window with -the iron grating.</p> -<p>As I turned to go back I saw my electric flash, badly -broken, lying on a table in the hall. I did not claim it.</p> -<p>The lower floor seemed entirely deserted. The drawing -room and library were in their usual disorder, undusted -and bare of floor. The air everywhere was close -and heavy; there was not a window open. I sauntered -through the various rooms, picked up a book in the library -as an excuse and tried the door of the room behind. -It was locked. I thought at first that something moved -behind it, but if anything lived there it did not stir again. -And yet I had a vivid impression that just on the other -side of the door ears as keen as mine were listening. It -was broad day, but I backed away from the door and -out into the wide hall. My nerves were still raw, no -doubt, from the night before.</p> -<p>I was to meet Mr. Patton at half after seven that -night, and when Mrs. Reed relieved me at seven I had -<span class="pb" id="Page_46">46</span> -half an hour to myself. I spent it in Beauregard Gardens, -with the dry fountain in the center. The place itself was -charming, the trees still black but lightly fringed with -new green, early spring flowers in the borders, neat paths -and, bordering it all, the solid, dignified backs of the -Beauregard houses. I sat down on the coping of the -fountain and surveyed the Reed house. Those windows -above were Mademoiselle’s. The shades were drawn, but -no light came through or round them. The prisoner—for -prisoner she was by every rule of bolt and lock—must -be sitting in the dark. Was she still begging for -her priest? Had she had any food? Was she still listening -inside her door for whatever it was that was “coming -up”?</p> -<p>In all the other houses windows were open; curtains -waved gently in the spring air; the cheerful signs of the -dinner hour were evident near by—moving servants, a -gleam of stately shirt bosom as a butler mixed a salad, a -warm radiance of candle-light from dining room tables -and the reflected glow of flowers. Only the Reed house -stood gloomy, unlighted, almost sinister.</p> -<p>Beauregard Place dined early. It was one of the traditions, -I believe. It liked to get to the theater or the opera -early, and it believed in allowing the servants a little time -in the evenings. So, although it was only something -after seven, the evening rite of the table crumbs began -to be observed. Came a colored butler, bowed to me -with a word of apology, and dumped the contents of a -silver tray into the basin; came a pretty mulatto, flung -her crumbs gracefully and smiled with a flash of teeth -at the butler.</p> -<p>Then for five minutes I was alone.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div> -<p>It was Nora, the girl we had met on the street, who -came next. She saw me and came round to me with a -little air of triumph.</p> -<p>“Well, I’m back in the square again, after all, miss,” -she said. “And a better place than the Reeds. I don’t -have the doilies to do.”</p> -<p>“I’m very glad you are settled again, Nora.”</p> -<p>She lowered her voice.</p> -<p>“I’m just trying it out,” she observed. “The girl that -left said I wouldn’t stay. She was scared off. There -have been some queer doings—not that I believe in ghosts -or anything like that. But my mother in the old country -had the second-sight, and if there’s anything going on -I’ll be right sure to see it.”</p> -<p>It took encouragement to get her story, and it was secondhand -at that, of course. But it appeared that a state -of panic had seized the Beauregard servants. The alarm -was all belowstairs and had been started by a cook who, -coming in late and going to the basement to prepare herself -a cup of tea, had found her kitchen door locked and -a light going beyond. Suspecting another maid of violating -the tea canister she had gone soft-footed to the outside -of the house and had distinctly seen a gray figure -crouching in a corner of the room. She had called the -butler, and they had made an examination of the entire -basement without result. Nothing was missing from -the house.</p> -<p>“And that figure has been seen again and again, miss,” -Nora finished. “McKenna’s butler Joseph saw it in this -very spot, walking without a sound and the street light -beyond there shining straight through it. Over in the -Smythe house the laundress, coming in late and going -<span class="pb" id="Page_48">48</span> -down to the basement to soak her clothes for the morning, -met the thing on the basement staircase and fainted -dead away.”</p> -<p>I had listened intently.</p> -<p>“What do they think it is?” I asked.</p> -<p>She shrugged her shoulders and picked up her tray.</p> -<p>“I’m not trying to say and I guess nobody is. But if -there’s been a murder it’s pretty well known that the -ghost walks about until the burial service is read and it’s -properly buried.”</p> -<p>She glanced at the Reed house.</p> -<p>“For instance,” she demanded, “where is Mademoiselle?”</p> -<p>“She is alive,” I said rather sharply. “And even if -what you say were true, what in the world would make -her wander about the basements? It seems so silly, Nora, -a ghost haunting damp cellars and laundries with stationary -tubs and all that.”</p> -<p>“Well,” she contended, “it seems silly for them to sit -on cold tombstones—and yet that’s where they generally -sit, isn’t it?”</p> -<p class="tb">Mr. Patton listened gravely to my story that night.</p> -<p>“I don’t like it,” he said when I had finished. “Of -course the head on the staircase is nonsense. Your nerves -were ragged and our eyes play tricks on all of us. But -as for the Frenchwoman——”</p> -<p>“If you accept her you must accept the head,” I -snapped. “It was there—it was a head without a body -and it looked up at me.”</p> -<p>We were walking through a quiet street, and he bent -over and caught my wrist.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div> -<p>“Pulse racing,” he commented. “I’m going to take -you away, that’s certain. I can’t afford to lose my best -assistant. You’re too close, Miss Adams; you’ve lost -your perspective.”</p> -<p>“I’ve lost my temper!” I retorted. “I shall not leave -until I know what this thing is, unless you choose to ring -the doorbell and tell them I’m a spy.”</p> -<p>He gave in when he saw that I was firm, but not without -a final protest.</p> -<p>“I’m directly responsible for you to your friends,” he -said. “There’s probably a young man somewhere who -will come gunning for me if anything happens to you. -And I don’t care to be gunned for. I get enough of that -in my regular line.”</p> -<p>“There is no young man,” I said shortly.</p> -<p>“Have you been able to see the cellars?”</p> -<p>“No, everything is locked off.”</p> -<p>“Do you think the rear staircase goes all the way -down?”</p> -<p>“I haven’t the slightest idea.”</p> -<p>“You are in the house. Have you any suggestions as -to the best method of getting into the house? Is Reed -on guard all night?”</p> -<p>“I think he is.”</p> -<p>“It may interest you to know,” he said finally, “that -I sent a reliable man to break in there last night quietly, -and that he—couldn’t do it. He got a leg through a -cellar window, and came near not getting it out again. -Reed was just inside in the dark.” He laughed a little, -but I guessed that the thing galled him.</p> -<p>“I do not believe that he would have found anything -if he had succeeded in getting in. There has been no -<span class="pb" id="Page_50">50</span> -crime, Mr. Patton, I am sure of that. But there is a -menace of some sort in the house.”</p> -<p>“Then why does Mrs. Reed stay and keep the children -if there is danger?”</p> -<p>“I believe she is afraid to leave him. There are times -when I think that he is desperate.”</p> -<p>“Does he ever leave the house?”</p> -<p>“I think not, unless——”</p> -<p>“Yes?”</p> -<p>“Unless he is the basement ghost of the other houses.”</p> -<p>He stopped in his slow walk and considered it.</p> -<p>“It’s possible. In that case I could have him waylaid -tonight in the gardens and left there, tied. It would be -a hold-up, you understand. The police have no excuse -for coming in yet. Or, if we found him breaking into -one of the other houses we could get him there. He’d -be released, of course, but it would give us time. I want -to clean the thing up. I’m not easy while you are in -that house.”</p> -<p>We agreed that I was to wait inside one of my windows -that night, and that on a given signal I should go -down and open the front door. The whole thing, of -course, was contingent on Mr. Reed leaving the house -some time that night. It was only a chance.</p> -<p>“The house is barred like a fortress,” Mr. Patton said -as he left me. “The window with the grating is hopeless. -We tried it last night.”</p> -<h2 id="c6">VI</h2> -<p>I find that my notes of that last night in the house on -Beauregard Square are rather confused, some written -<span class="pb" id="Page_51">51</span> -at the time, some just before. For instance, on the edge -of a newspaper clipping I find this:</p> -<p>“Evidently this is the item. R—— went pale on reading -it. Did not allow wife to see paper.”</p> -<p>The clipping is an account of the sudden death of an -elderly gentleman named Smythe, one of the Beauregard -families.</p> -<p>The next clipping is less hasty and is on a yellow symptom -record. It has been much folded—I believe I tucked -it in my apron belt:</p> -<p>“If the rear staircase is bolted everywhere from the -inside, how did the person who locked it, either Mr. or -Mrs. Reed, get back into the body of the house again? -Or did Mademoiselle do it? In that case she is no longer -a prisoner and the bolts outside her room are not fastened.</p> -<p>“At eleven o’clock tonight Harry wakened with earache. -I went to the kitchen to heat some mullein oil and -laudanum. Mrs. Reed was with the boy and Mr. Reed -was not in sight. I slipped into the library and used my -skeleton keys on the locked door to the rear room. It -was empty even of furniture, but there is a huge box -there, with a lid that fastens down with steel hooks. The -lid is full of small airholes. I had no time to examine -further.</p> -<p>“It is one o’clock. Harry is asleep and his mother -is dozing across the foot of his bed. I have found the -way to get to the rear staircase. There are outside -steps from the basement to the garden. The staircase -goes down all the way to the cellar evidently. Then the -lower door in the cellar must be only locked, not bolted -from the inside. I shall try to get to the cellar.”</p> -<p>The next is a scrawl:</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div> -<p>“Cannot get to the outside basement steps. Mr. Reed -is wandering round lower floor. I reported Harry’s condition -and came up again. I must get to the back staircase.”</p> -<p>I wonder if I have been able to convey, even faintly, -the situation in that highly respectable old house that -night: The fear that hung over it, a fear so great that -even I, an outsider and stout of nerve, felt it and grew -cold; the unnatural brilliancy of light that bespoke dread -of the dark; the hushed voices, the locked doors and -staring, peering eyes; the babbling Frenchwoman on an -upper floor, the dead fish, the dead dog. And, always -in my mind, that vision of dread on the back staircase -and the thing that slid over my foot.</p> -<p>At two o’clock I saw Mr. Patton, or whoever was on -guard in the park across the street, walk quickly toward -the house and disappear round the corner toward the -gardens in the rear. There had been no signal, but I -felt sure that Mr. Reed had left the house. His wife was -still asleep across Harry’s bed. As I went out I locked -the door behind me, and I took also the key to the night -nursery. I thought that something disagreeable, to say -the least, was inevitable, and why let her in for it?</p> -<p>The lower hall was lighted as usual and empty. I -listened, but there were no restless footsteps. I did not -like the lower hall. Only a thin wooden door stood between -me and the rear staircase, and any one who thinks -about the matter will realize that a door is no barrier to -a head that can move about without a body. I am afraid -I looked over my shoulder while I unlocked the front -door, and I know I breathed better when I was out in -the air.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_53">53</div> -<p>I wore my dark ulster over my uniform and I had -my revolver and keys. My flash, of course, was useless. -I missed it horribly. But to get to the staircase was an -obsession by that time, in spite of my fear of it, to find -what it guarded, to solve its mystery. I worked round -the house, keeping close to the wall, until I reached the -garden. The night was the city night, never absolutely -dark. As I hesitated at the top of the basement steps it -seemed to me that figures were moving about among the -trees.</p> -<p>The basement door was unlocked and open. I was not -prepared for that, and it made me, if anything, more -uneasy. I had a box of matches with me, and I wanted -light as a starving man wants food. But I dared not -light them. I could only keep a tight grip on my courage -and go on. A small passage first, with whitewashed -stone walls, cold and scaly under my hand; then a large -room, and still darkness. Worse than darkness, something -crawling and scratching round the floor.</p> -<p>I struck my match, then, and it seemed to me that -something white flashed into a corner and disappeared. -My hands were shaking, but I managed to light a gas jet -and to see that I was in the laundry. The staircase came -down here, narrower than above, and closed off with a -door.</p> -<p>The door was closed and there was a heavy bolt on it -but no lock.</p> -<p>And now, with the staircase accessible and a gaslight -to keep up my courage, I grew brave, almost reckless. I -would tell Mr. Patton all about this cellar, which his best -men had not been able to enter. I would make a sketch -for him—coal-bins, laundry tubs, everything. Foolish, -<span class="pb" id="Page_54">54</span> -of course, but hold the gas jet responsible—the reckless -bravery of light after hideous darkness.</p> -<p>So I went on, forward. The glow from the laundry -followed me. I struck matches, found potatoes and cases -of mineral water, bruised my knees on a discarded bicycle, -stumbled over a box of soap. Twice out of the corner -of my eye and never there when I looked I caught the -white flash that had frightened me before. Then at last -I brought up before a door and stopped. It was a curiously -barricaded door, nailed against disturbance by a -plank fastened across, and, as if to make intrusion without -discovery impossible, pasted round every crack and -over the keyhole with strips of strong yellow paper. It -was an ominous door. I wanted to run away from it, and -I wanted also desperately to stand and look at it and -imagine what might lie beyond. Here again was the -strange, spicy odor that I had noticed in the back staircase.</p> -<p>I think it is indicative of my state of mind that I -backed away from the door. I did not turn and run. -Nothing in the world would have made me turn my back -to it.</p> -<p>Somehow or other I got back into the laundry and -jerked myself together.</p> -<p>It was ten minutes after two. I had been just ten -minutes in the basement!</p> -<p>The staircase daunted me in my shaken condition. I -made excuses for delaying my venture, looked for another -box of matches, listened at the end of the passage, finally -slid the bolts and opened the door. The silence was impressive. -In the laundry there were small, familiar -sounds—the dripping of water from a faucet, the muffled -<span class="pb" id="Page_55">55</span> -measure of a gas meter, the ticking of a clock on the shelf. -To leave it all, to climb into that silence——</p> -<p>Lying on the lower step was a curious instrument. -It was a sort of tongs made of steel, about two feet long, -and fastened together like a pair of scissors, the joint -about five inches from the flattened ends. I carried it -to the light and examined it. One end was smeared with -blood and short, brownish hairs. It made me shudder, -but—from that time on I think I knew. Not the whole -story, of course, but somewhere in the back of my head, -as I climbed in that hideous quiet, the explanation was -developing itself. I did not think it out. It worked -itself out as, step after step, match after match, I climbed -the staircase.</p> -<p>Up to the first floor there was nothing. The landing -was bare of carpet. I was on the first floor now. On -each side, doors, carefully bolted, led into the house. I -opened the one into the hall and listened. I had been -gone from the children fifteen minutes and they were on -my mind. But everything was quiet.</p> -<p>The sight of the lights and the familiar hall gave me -courage. After all, if I was right, what could the head -on the staircase have been but an optical delusion? And -I was right. The evidence—the tongs—was in my hand. -I closed and bolted the door and felt my way back to the -stairs. I lighted no matches this time. I had only a few, -and on this landing there was a little light from the grated -window, although the staircase above was in black -shadow.</p> -<p>I had one foot on the lowest stair, when suddenly overhead -came the thudding of hands on a closed door. It -broke the silence like an explosion. It sent chills up and -<span class="pb" id="Page_56">56</span> -down my spine. I could not move for a moment. It -was the Frenchwoman!</p> -<p>I believe I thought of fire. The idea had obsessed me -in that house of locked doors. I remember a strangling -weight of fright on my chest and of trying to breathe. -Then I started up the staircase, running as fast as I could -lift my weighted feet, I remember that, and getting up -perhaps a third of the way. Then there came a plunging -forward into space, my hands out, a shriek frozen on -my lips, and——quiet.</p> -<p>I do not think I fainted. I know I was always conscious -of my arm doubled under me, a pain and darkness. -I could hear myself moaning, but almost as if it were -some one else. There were other sounds, but they did -not concern me much. I was not even curious about my -location. I seemed to be a very small consciousness surrounded -by a great deal of pain.</p> -<p>Several centuries later a light came and leaned over -me from somewhere above. Then the light said:</p> -<p>“Here she is!”</p> -<p>“Alive?” I knew that voice, but I could not think -whose it was.</p> -<p>“I’m not—— Yes, she’s moaning.”</p> -<p>They got me out somewhere and I believe I still clung -to the tongs. I had fallen on them and had a cut on -my chin. I could stand, I found, although I swayed. -There was plenty of light now in the back hallway, and -a man I had never seen was investigating the staircase.</p> -<p>“Four steps off,” he said. “Risers and treads gone -and the supports sawed away. It’s a trap of some sort.”</p> -<p>Mr. Patton was examining my broken arm and paid -no attention. The man let himself down into the pit -<span class="pb" id="Page_57">57</span> -under the staircase. When he straightened, only his head -rose above the steps. Although I was white with pain -to the very lips I laughed hysterically.</p> -<p>“The head!” I cried. Mr. Patton swore under his -breath.</p> -<p class="tb">They half led, half carried me into the library. Mr. -Reed was there, with a detective on guard over him. He -was sitting in his old position, bent forward, chin in -palms. In the blaze of light he was a pitiable figure, -smeared with dust, disheveled from what had evidently -been a struggle. Mr. Patton put me in a chair and dispatched -one of the two men for the nearest doctor.</p> -<p>“This young lady,” he said curtly to Mr. Reed, “fell -into that damnable trap you made in the rear staircase.”</p> -<p>“I locked off the staircase—but I am sorry she is hurt. -My—my wife will be shocked. Only I wish you’d tell -me what all this is about. You can’t arrest me for going -into a friend’s house.”</p> -<p>“If I send for some member of the Smythe family will -they acquit you?”</p> -<p>“Certainly they will,” he said. “I—I’ve been raised -with the Smythes. You can send for any one you like.” -But his tone lacked conviction.</p> -<p>Mr. Patton made me as comfortable as possible, and -then, sending the remaining detective out into the hall, -he turned to his prisoner.</p> -<p>“Now, Mr. Reed,” he said. “I want you to be sensible. -For some days a figure has been seen in the basements of -the various Beauregard houses. Your friends, the -Smythes, reported it. Tonight we are on watch, and we -see you breaking into the basement of the Smythe house. -<span class="pb" id="Page_58">58</span> -We already know some curious things about you, such -as dismissing all the servants on half an hour’s notice -and the disappearance of the French governess.”</p> -<p>“Mademoiselle! Why, she——” He checked himself.</p> -<p>“When we bring you here tonight, and you ask to be -allowed to go upstairs and prepare your wife, she is -locked in. The nurse is missing. We find her at last, -also locked away and badly hurt, lying in a staircase -trap, where some one, probably yourself, has removed -the steps. I do not want to arrest you, but, now I’ve -started, I’m going to get to the bottom of all this.”</p> -<p>Mr. Reed was ghastly, but he straightened in his chair.</p> -<p>“The Smythes reported this thing, did they?” he -asked. “Well, tell me one thing. What killed the old -gentleman—old Smythe?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> -<p>“Well, go a little further.” His cunning was boyish, -pitiful. “How did he die? Or don’t you know that -either?”</p> -<p>Up to this point I had been rather a detached part -of the scene, but now my eyes fell on the tongs beside -me.</p> -<p>“Mr. Reed,” I said, “isn’t this thing too big for you -to handle by yourself?”</p> -<p>“What thing?”</p> -<p>“You know what I mean. You’ve protected yourself -well enough, but even if the—the thing you know of did -not kill old Mr. Smythe you cannot tell what will happen -next.”</p> -<p>“I’ve got almost all of them,” he muttered sullenly. -“Another night or two and I’d have had the lot.”</p> -<p>“But even then the mischief may go on. It means a -<span class="pb" id="Page_59">59</span> -crusade; it means rousing the city. Isn’t it the square -thing now to spread the alarm?”</p> -<p>Mr. Patton could stand the suspense no longer.</p> -<p>“Perhaps, Miss Adams,” he said, “you will be good -enough to let me know what you are talking about.”</p> -<p>Mr. Reed looked up at him with heavy eyes.</p> -<p>“Rats,” he said. “They got away, twenty of them, -loaded with bubonic plague.”</p> -<p class="tb">I went to the hospital the next morning. Mr. Patton -thought it best. There was no one in my little flat to -look after me, and although the pain in my arm subsided -after the fracture was set I was still shaken.</p> -<p>He came the next afternoon to see me. I was propped -up in bed, with my hair braided down in two pigtails -and great hollows under my eyes.</p> -<p>“I’m comfortable enough,” I said, in response to his -inquiry; “but I’m feeling all of my years. This is my -birthday. I am thirty today.”</p> -<p>“I wonder,” he said reflectively, “if I ever reach the -mature age of one hundred, if I will carry in my head as -many odds and ends of information as you have at -thirty!”</p> -<p>“I?”</p> -<p>“You. How in the world did you know, for instance, -about those tongs?”</p> -<p>“It was quite simple. I’d seen something like them in -the laboratory here. Of course I didn’t know what animals -he’d used, but the grayish brown hair looked like -rats. The laboratory must be the cellar room. I knew -it had been fumigated—it was sealed with paper, even -over the keyhole.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_60">60</div> -<p>So, sitting there beside me, Mr. Patton told me the -story as he had got it from Mr. Reed—a tale of the offer -in an English scientific journal of a large reward from -some plague-ridden country of the East for an anti-plague -serum. Mr. Reed had been working along bacteriological -lines in his basement laboratory, mostly with -guinea pigs and tuberculosis. He was in debt; the offer -loomed large.</p> -<p>“He seems to think he was on the right track,” Mr. -Patton said. “He had twenty of the creatures in deep -zinc cans with perforated lids. He says the disease is -spread by fleas that infest the rats. So he had muslin -as well over the lids. One can had infected rats, six of -them. Then one day the Frenchwoman tried to give the -dog a bath in a laundry tub and the dog bolted. The -laboratory door was open in some way and he ran between -the cans, upsetting them. Every rat was out in an instant. -The Frenchwoman was frantic. She shut the -door and tried to drive the things back. One bit her on -the foot. The dog was not bitten, but there was the -question of fleas.</p> -<p>“Well, the rats got away, and Mademoiselle retired to -her room to die of plague. She was a loyal old soul; -she wouldn’t let them call a doctor. It would mean exposure, -and after all what could the doctors do? Reed -used his serum and she’s alive.</p> -<p>“Reed was frantic. His wife would not leave. There -was the Frenchwoman to look after, and I think she was -afraid he would do something desperate. They did the -best they could, under the circumstances, for the children. -They burned most of the carpets for fear of fleas, and -put poison everywhere. Of course he had traps too.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_61">61</div> -<p>“He had brass tags on the necks of the rats, and he -got back a few—the uninfected ones. The other ones -were probably dead. But he couldn’t stop at that. He -had to be sure that the trouble had not spread. And to -add to their horror the sewer along the street was being -relaid, and they had an influx of rats into the house. -They found them everywhere in the lower floor. They -even climbed the stairs. He says that the night you -came he caught a big fellow on the front staircase. There -was always the danger that the fleas that carry the trouble -had deserted the dead creatures for new fields. They -took up all the rest of the carpets and burned them. To -add to the general misery the dog Chang developed unmistakable -symptoms and had to be killed.”</p> -<p>“But the broken staircase?” I asked. “And what -was it that Mademoiselle said was coming up?”</p> -<p>“The steps were up for two reasons: The rats could -not climb up, and beneath the steps Reed says he caught -in a trap two of the tagged ones. As for Mademoiselle -the thing that was coming up was her temperature—pure -fright. The head you saw was poor Reed himself, -wrapped in gauze against trouble and baiting his traps. -He caught a lot in the neighbors’ cellars and some in the -garden.”</p> -<p>“But why,” I demanded, “why didn’t he make it all -known?”</p> -<p>Mr. Patton laughed while he shrugged his shoulders.</p> -<p>“A man hardly cares to announce that he has menaced -the health of a city.”</p> -<p>“But that night when I fell—was it only last night?—some -one was pounding above. I thought there was a -fire.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_62">62</div> -<p>“The Frenchwoman had seen us waylay Reed from -her window. She was crazy.”</p> -<p>“And the trouble is over now?”</p> -<p>“Not at all,” he replied cheerfully. “The trouble may -be only beginning. We’re keeping Reed’s name out, but -the Board of Health has issued a general warning. Personally -I think his six pets died without passing anything -along.”</p> -<p>“But there was a big box with a lid——”</p> -<p>“Ferrets,” he assured me. “Nice white ferrets with -pink eyes and a taste for rats.” He held out a thumb, -carefully bandaged. “Reed had a couple under his coat -when we took him in the garden. Probably one ran over -your foot that night when you surprised him on the back -staircase.”</p> -<p>I went pale. “But if they are infected!” I cried; “and -you are bitten——”</p> -<p>“The first thing a nurse should learn,” he bent forward -smiling, “is not to alarm her patient.”</p> -<p>“But you don’t understand the danger,” I said despairingly. -“Oh, if only men had a little bit of sense!”</p> -<p>“I must do something desperate then? Have the -thumb cut off, perhaps?”</p> -<p>I did not answer. I lay back on my pillows with my -eyes shut. I had given him the plague, had seen him die -and be buried, before he spoke again.</p> -<p>“The chin,” he said, “is not so firm as I had thought. -The outlines are savage, but the dimple—— You poor -little thing; are you really frightened?”</p> -<p>“I don’t like you,” I said furiously. “But I’d hate to -see any one with—with that trouble.”</p> -<p>“Then I’ll confess. I was trying to take your mind -<span class="pb" id="Page_63">63</span> -off your troubles. The bite is there, but harmless. Those -were new ferrets; had never been out.”</p> -<p>I did not speak to him again. I was seething with -indignation. He stood for a time looking down at me; -then, unexpectedly, he bent over and touched his lips to -my bandaged arm.</p> -<p>“Poor arm!” he said. “Poor, brave little arm!” Then -he tiptoed out of the room. 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