ded to enter and close the door carefully behind me.
As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky and a
few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came whirling in,
biting my cheeks and stinging my forehead.

Once inside, I stopped short, possibly to listen again, possibly to
assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound.
Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as I
stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few
steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to wake
the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was no
answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. Yet not
quite absolute darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the place, I found
it possible to discern the outlines of the windows and locate the stairs
and the arches where the side halls opened. I was even able to pick out
the exact spot where the great antlers spread themselves above the
hatrack, and presently the rack itself came into view, with its row of
empty pegs, yesterday so full, to-day quite empty. That rack interested
me,--I hardly knew why,--and regardless of the noise I made, I crossed
over to it and ran my hand along the wall underneath. The result was
startling. A man's coat and hat hung from one of the pegs.

I knew my business as president of this club. I also knew that no one
should be in the house at this time--that no one could be in it on any
honest errand. Some secret and sinister business must be at the bottom of
this mysterious intrusion immediately after the place had been shut for
the winter. Would this hat and coat identify the intruder? I would strike
a light and see. But this involved difficulties. The gas had been turned
off that very morning and I had no matches in my pocket. But I remembered
where they could be found. I had seen them when I passed through the
kitchen earlier in the day. They were very accessible from the end of the
hall where I stood. I had but to feel my way through a passage or two and
I should come to the kitchen door.

I began to move that way, and presently came creeping back, with a
match-box half full of matches in my hand. But I did not strike one then.
I had just made a move to do so, when the unmistakable sound of a door
opening somewhere in the house made me draw back into as quiet and dark a
place as I could find. This lay in the rear and a