the bed. The mattress, then, was a living lie.

With infinite caution he had moved so that he could see her,
arriving at a coign of vantage just as she closed the book. She
locked it, wrapped it in an oilskin cover which lay beside it on
the table, hung the key-chain round her neck, rose, yawned, and,
to his violent chagrin, put out the light. He heard her moving but
could not tell where, except that it was not in his part of the
room. Then a faint shuffling warned him that she was approaching
the bed, and he withdrew his head to avoid being stepped upon. The
next moment the world seemed to cave in upon him.

Laura's flight had given him opportunity to escape to his own room
unobserved; there to examine, bathe and bind his wounds, and to
rectify his first hasty impression that he had been fatally
mangled.

Hedrick glared at "The Mystery of the Count's Bedroom."

By and by he got up, brought the book to the sofa and began to
read it over.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The influence of a familiar and sequestered place is not only
soothing; the bruised mind may often find it restorative. Thus
Hedrick, in his studio, surrounded by his own loved bric-a-brac,
began to feel once more the stir of impulse. Two hours' reading
inspired him. What a French reporter (in the Count's bedroom)
could do, an American youth in full possession of his
powers--except for a strained knee and other injuries--could do.
Yes, and would!

He evolved a new chain of reasoning. The ledger had been seen in
Laura's room; it had been heard in her room; it appeared to be
kept in her room. But it was in no single part of the room. All
the parts make a whole. Therefore, the book was not in the room.

On the other hand, Laura had not left the room when she took the
book from its hiding-place. This was confusing; therefore he
determined to concentrate logic solely upon what she had done with
the ledger when she finished writing in it. It was dangerous to
assume that she had restored it to the place whence she obtained
it, because he had already proved that place to be both in the
room and out of the room. No; the question he must keep in was:
What did she do with it?

Laura had not left the room. But the book had left the room.

Arrived at this inevitable deduction, he sprang to his feet in a
state of repressed excitement and began to pace the floor--like a
hound on the trail. Laura had not left the room, but the book had
left the room: he must kee