ight happen.

The whole situation was terrible: had the issues been less vital, it
would have been absurd. Here we were, guarded day and night by private
detectives, with an extra man to watch the grounds, and yet we might as
well have lived in a Japanese paper house, for all the protection we
had.

And there was something else: the man I had met in the darkness had
been even more startled than I, and about his voice, when he muttered
his muffled exclamation, there was something vaguely familiar. All
that morning, while Gertrude read aloud, and Liddy watched for the
doctor, I was puzzling over that voice, without result.

And there were other things, too. I wondered what Gertrude's absence
from her room had to do with it all, or if it had any connection. I
tried to think that she had heard the rapping noises before I did and
gone to investigate, but I'm afraid I was a moral coward that day. I
could not ask her.

Perhaps the diversion was good for me. It took my mind from Halsey,
and the story we had heard the night before. The day, however, was a
long vigil, with every ring of the telephone full of possibilities.
Doctor Walker came up, some time just after luncheon, and asked for me.

"Go down and see him," I instructed Gertrude. "Tell him I am out--for
mercy's sake don't say I'm sick. Find out what he wants, and from this
time on, instruct the servants that he is not to be admitted. I loathe
that man."

Gertrude came back very soon, her face rather flushed.

"He came to ask us to get out," she said, picking up her book with a
jerk. "He says Louise Armstrong wants to come here, now that she is
recovering."

"And what did you say?"

"I said we were very sorry we could not leave, but we would be
delighted to have Louise come up here with us. He looked daggers at
me. And he wanted to know if we would recommend Eliza as a cook. He
has brought a patient, a man, out from town, and is increasing his
establishment--that's the way he put it."

"I wish him joy of Eliza," I said tartly. "Did he ask for Halsey?"

"Yes. I told him that we were on the track last night, and that it was
only a question of time. He said he was glad, although he didn't
appear to be, but he said not to be too sanguine."

"Do you know what I believe?" I asked. "I believe, as firmly as I
believe anything, that Doctor Walker knows something about Halsey, and
that he could put his finger on him, if he wanted to."

There were