ither my politeness nor the woman's
heightened color could save me, bought the cat and ordered the rat-trap
without delay.

That night, when Miss Fellows had "retired,"--she never "went to bed" in
simple English like other people,--I stole softly out in my stockings
and screwed a little brass button outside of her door. I had made a
gimlet-hole for it in the morning when our guest was out shopping; it
fitted into place without noise. Without noise I turned it, and went
back to my own room.

"You suspect her, then?" said Alison.

"One is always justified in suspecting a Spiritualistic medium."

"I don't know about that," Allis said, decidedly. "It may have been
mice that I heard last night, or the wind in a bottle, or any of the
other proper and natural causes that explain away the ghost stories in
the children's papers; but it was not Gertrude. Women know something
about one another, my dear; and I tell you it was not Gertrude."

"I don't assert that it was; but with the bolt on Gertrude's door, the
cat in the kitchen, and the rat-trap on the garret stairs, I am strongly
inclined to anticipate a peaceful night. I will watch for a while,
however, and you can go to sleep."

She went to sleep, and I watched. I lay till half past eleven with my
eyes staring at the dark, wide awake and undisturbed and triumphant.

At half past eleven I must confess that I heard a singular sound.

Something whistled at the keyhole. It could not have been the wind, by
the way, for there was no wind that night. Something else than the wind
whistled in at the keyhole, sighed through into the room as much like a
long-drawn breath as anything, and fell with a slight clink upon the
floor.

I lighted my candle and got up. I searched the floor of the room, and
opened the door and searched the entry. Nothing was visible or audible,
and I went back to bed. For about ten minutes I heard no further
disturbance, and was concluding myself to be in some undefined manner
the victim of my own imagination, when there suddenly fell upon the
headboard of my bed a blow so distinct and loud that I involuntarily
sprang at the sound of it. It wakened Alison, and I had the satisfaction
of hearing her sleepily inquire if I had caught that rat yet? By way of
reply I relighted the candle, and gave the bed a shove which sent it
rolling half across the room. I examined the wall; I examined the floor;
I examined the headboard; I made Alison get up, so that I coul