ridiculous things Liddy had said about a
ghost--I am not at all superstitious, except, perhaps, in the middle of
the night, with everything dark--things like that came back to me.
Almost beside me was the clothes chute. I could feel it, but I could
see nothing. As I stood, listening intently, I heard a sound near me.
It was vague, indefinite. Then it ceased; there was an uneasy movement
and a grunt from the foot of the circular staircase, and silence again.

I stood perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe.

Then I knew I had been right. Some one was stealthily-passing the head
of the staircase and coming toward me in the dark. I leaned against
the wall for support--my knees were giving way. The steps were close
now, and suddenly I thought of Gertrude. Of course it was Gertrude. I
put out one hand in front of me, but I touched nothing. My voice
almost refused me, but I managed to gasp out, "Gertrude!"

"Good Lord!" a man's voice exclaimed, just beside me. And then I
collapsed. I felt myself going, felt some one catch me, a horrible
nausea--that was all I remembered.

When I came to it was dawn. I was lying on the bed in Louise's room,
with the cherub on the ceiling staring down at me, and there was a
blanket from my own bed thrown over me. I felt weak and dizzy, but I
managed to get up and totter to the door. At the foot of the circular
staircase Mr. Winters was still asleep. Hardly able to stand, I crept
back to my room. The door into Gertrude's room was no longer locked:
she was sleeping like a tired child. And in my dressing-room Liddy
hugged a cold hot-water bottle, and mumbled in her sleep.

"There's some things you can't hold with hand cuffs," she was muttering
thickly.

CHAPTER XXIX

A SCRAP OF PAPER

For the first time in twenty years, I kept my bed that day. Liddy was
alarmed to the point of hysteria, and sent for Doctor Stewart just
after breakfast. Gertrude spent the morning with me, reading
something--I forget what. I was too busy with my thoughts to listen.
I had said nothing to the two detectives. If Mr. Jamieson had been
there, I should have told him everything, but I could not go to these
strange men and tell them my niece had been missing in the middle of
the night; that she had not gone to bed at all; that while I was
searching for her through the house, I had met a stranger who, when I
fainted, had carried me into a room and left me there, to get better or
not, as it m