I, Spy - 6 Espionage & Detective Books in One Edition. Frederic Arnold Kummer
both, presented a picture of perfect quiet and order. The bed clothing was slightly disarranged, but this of course was but natural, since Ruth had sprung up under the influence of some terrible fear, and rushed from the room. Everything else seemed in its place.
Duvall's first act was to examine the window. The one fronting on the fire escape was closed and tightly fastened. It was perfectly clear that no one had entered the room in that way.
The other window, facing on the court, was raised a few inches, just as Mrs. Morton had left it half an hour before. Duvall turned to his companion with a puzzled frown.
"I had supposed, Mr. Baker," he said, "that someone had entered this room, and frightened Miss Morton while she was asleep, but that is impossible. The windows have not been disturbed."
Baker glanced at the one which faced the court.
"That one may have been," he said, indicating it with a nod. "Someone may have come in that way, raising the window to effect an entrance, and lowering it again after leaving."
"I admit that what you say would be possible, were there any way in which the window might be reached from outside," Duvall replied, "but if you will look out, and tell me how anyone could make an entrance from the court, I will agree to the possibility you suggest."
Baker raised the window, and glanced out.
"The apartment above," Duvall went on, "is unoccupied, and the window above is closed and fastened. The little attic in the adjoining house is unused, although that is not important, since no one could reach this window from it, in any event. Can you suggest any other way?"
Mr. Baker shook his head.
"She must have been frightened by some terrible nightmare," he said. "I do not wonder at it. She has gone through enough to upset anybody's nerves. Suppose we go back and question her."
"Just a moment," exclaimed Duvall. Then he dropped upon his knees beside the disordered bed, and began to examine the surface of the counterpane with minute care.
"What is it?" Baker asked, joining him.
"I don't know—yet," returned Duvall, as he took a magnifying glass from his pocket and proceeded to scrutinize with the greatest interest some marks upon the counterpane's surface. Presently he rose, replaced the glass in his pocket, and turned to his companion.
"There is something very astonishing about this whole affair," he exclaimed. "What do you make of those?" He indicated a series of dark smudges upon the bedspread, arranged in little groups.
Baker bent over and examined the marks with an exclamation of surprise.
"Why—they look like finger prints," he cried. "Large finger prints."
"It is impossible to say whether they are finger prints or not," Duvall replied. "As you see, there are a great many of them, very confusingly arranged. But there is something else, that you have not noticed. What do you suppose could have made a mark like this?" He pointed to a long straight dark line, which extended half way across the counterpane, and pointed directly toward the window which faced upon the court. The line was very faint, but clearly defined, as though someone had laid a thin dusty stick across the bed.
"I can't make anything of it," Baker exclaimed, gazing toward the window.
"Nor can I," said Duvall. "At one time, because of certain indentations on the letters found in this room, I had thought that they might have been introduced through the partly opened window by means of a long rod, a fishing pole, perhaps. This mark on the counterpane appears to bear out that theory. The smudges which look like finger prints may have been merely the points at which the end of the pole, or whatever was attached to the end of the pole, came in contact with the bed. All that is perfectly supposable. But you can see for yourself that if a long pole were thrust through the window, raised as the latter was but a trifle above the level of the bed, the other end of such a pole must of necessity have been held at approximately the same level, and the only point outside the window from which it could have been so held is in the air, forty feet above the bottom of the court! The thing is absurd."
"There is, of course, the window of the apartment below," Baker suggested. "Might not it have been used?"
"I thought of that," Duvall replied. "You can see for yourself that even a tall man standing on the window sill below, would find not only his hands, but even his head, far below the sill of this window, nor could anyone so support themselves, without something to hold on to. But all that is beside the question. The people in the apartment below are friends of Mrs. Morton's, a middle-aged man and his wife, with two young children. They are eminently respectable people, and quite above suspicion."
"Then I give the thing up," exclaimed Baker. "Suppose we have a talk with Miss Morton."
They found the girl lying on a couch in the library, with her mother sitting beside her. She seemed very weak and quiet, but in full possession of her faculties. Duvall drew up a chair, and asked her if she felt able to tell them what had occurred.
"Yes," she replied in a faint voice, her face still showing evidences of her fright. "I will try to tell you exactly what happened."
"I had taken some medicine to make me sleep, before I got into bed, because I was very nervous and upset. When mother came back to fix the windows I was already drowsy, and just remember that she turned out the lights, and then I must have dozed.
"All of a sudden I heard a strange rasping noise, and I woke up, with the feeling that there was someone in the room. I don't know just why I felt so sure of that, whether it was merely a sense of someone's presence, or the sound of someone moving about near my bed. I think, however, that it was the latter.
"The room was dark, of course, but enough light came through the windows to make a moving object distinguishable. I looked about, terribly frightened, but for a moment I saw nothing. The noise I had heard at first continued. Then without the least warning, a hand seemed to clutch at the bedclothes, and I saw above me, bending over me, a terrible dark face, exactly like the grinning death's head on those letters I've been getting.
"I lay perfectly still, frozen with horror, and in a moment the face had disappeared, and then I began to scream. Right after that I sprang from the bed and threw open the door, and found mother and Mr. Baker and yourself standing in the hall. That is all I know."
Duvall looked at her for a moment, puzzled.
"Are you sure you really saw someone leaning over you? Might it not have been an illusion, the result of your nervous condition?"
"No. I am certain someone was there—someone quite tall, I should say, and with a terrible, evil face."
"It might have been a mask, of course," Duvall suggested. "Someone wearing a mask."
"Yes. It might have been. It was too dark for me to tell, of course. But I remember the eyes, for I saw them distinctly. They were only a few inches from my own." She put her hands to her face and shuddered. "It was terrible, terrible. I shall never sleep in that room again."
"There—there, dearie," Mrs. Morton whispered in a soothing voice. "You need not sleep there. You can lie right here, for the rest of the night, and I will stay with you and see that no one harms you."
"That would be best, Mrs. Morton," Duvall remarked. "And to-morrow I suggest that you and your daughter move, temporarily at least, to another location. Some quiet hotel, where you will not be subject to these terrible annoyances. I cannot imagine how it is done, but in some way, some almost superhuman way, it seems, someone can apparently either enter your daughter's room, or at least reach it from without, at will."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Ruth, somewhat mystified.
"I mean this, Miss Morton. I do not believe that there was anyone in your room to-night. I do not believe that there has ever been anyone there. But I do believe that the two letters we found there were introduced from without, in some mysterious way, at the end of a long pole, or rod. And I think that what frightened you so to-night was merely a mask, a grotesque representation of the seal used on the letters, and pushed toward you