l."

"What did you do then?"

"I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the rat-traps and kept
the library shut. Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when
she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped."

"And you think it was the animal that's been frightening the maids?"

"Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was--you'll excuse me, sir--a
hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs.
She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit
was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about
anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of
the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel,
when she found that she was drying someone else's hand as well, only
colder than hers."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Saunders.

"Exactly, sir; that's what I told her; but we couldn't get her to stop."

"You don't believe all this?" said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the
butler.

"Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I've not seen anything."

"Nor heard anything?"

"Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and
there's nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds
of a night, as often as not somebody's been there before us. But as I
says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we
all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the
place."

"Very well, Morton, that will do."

"What do you make of it?" asked Saunders when they were alone. "I mean
of the letter he said you wrote."

"Oh, that's simple enough," said Eustace. "See the paper it's written
on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were a few odd sheets and
envelopes left in the old desk. We never fastened up the lid of the box
before locking it in. The hand got out, found a pencil, wrote this note,
and shoved it through a crack on to the floor where Morton found it.
That's plain as daylight."

"But the hand couldn't write?"

"Couldn't it? You've not seen it do the things I've seen," and he told
Saunders more of what had happened at Eastbourne.

"Well," said Saunders, "in that case we have at least an explanation of
the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown to your uncle that
letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself to you. Your uncle had no
more to do with that request than I. In fact, it would seem that he had
some idea of this automatic writing, and feared it