"Somebody outside trying to get in," he chattered. "I see knob turn, so," he illustrated with the butcher knife, "and so—three times."
The detective's hand went at once to his revolver.
"You're sure of that, are you?" he said roughly to Billy.
"Sure, I sure!"
"Where's that hysterical woman Lizzie?" queried Anderson. "She may get a bullet in her if she's not careful."
"She see too. She shut in closet—say prayers, maybe," said Billy, without a smile.
The picture was a ludicrous one but not one of the little group laughed.
"Doctor, have you a revolver?" Anderson seemed to be going over the possible means of defense against this new peril.
"No."
"How about you, Beresford?"
Beresford hesitated.
"Yes," he admitted finally. "Always carry one at night in the country." The statement seemed reasonable enough but Miss Cornelia gave him a sharp glance of mistrust, nevertheless.
The detective seemed to have more confidence in the young idler.
"Beresford, will you go with this Jap to the kitchen?" as Billy, grimly clutching his butcher knife, retraced his steps toward the hall. "If anyone's working at the knob—shoot through the door. I'm going round to take a look outside."
Beresford started to obey. Then he paused.
"I advise you not to turn the doorknob yourself, then," he said flippantly.
The detective nodded. "Much obliged," he said, with a grin. He ran lightly into the alcove and tiptoed out of the terrace door, closing the door behind him. Beresford and Billy departed to take up their posts in the kitchen. "I'll go with you, if you don't mind—" and Jack Bailey had followed them, leaving Miss Cornelia and Dale alone with the Doctor. Miss Cornelia, glad of the opportunity to get the Doctor's theories on the mystery without Anderson's interference, started to question him at once.
"Doctor."
"Yes." The Doctor turned, politely.
"Have you any theory about this occurrence to-night?" She watched him eagerly as she asked the question.
He made a gesture of bafflement.
"None whatever—it's beyond me," he confessed.
"And yet you warned me to leave this house," said Miss Cornelia cannily. "You didn't have any reason to believe that the situation was even as serious as it has proved to be?"
"I did the perfectly obvious thing when I warned you," said the Doctor easily. "Those letters made a distinct threat."
Miss Cornelia could not deny the truth in his words. And yet she felt decidedly unsatisfied with the way things were progressing.
"You said Fleming had probably been shot from above?" she queried, thinking hard.
The Doctor nodded. "Yes."
"Have you a pocket-flash, Doctor?" she asked him suddenly.
"Why—yes—" The Doctor did not seem to perceive the significance of the query. "A flashlight is more important to a country Doctor than—castor oil," he added, with a little smile.
Miss Cornelia decided upon an experiment. She turned to Dale.
"Dale, you said you saw a white light shining down from above?"
"Yes," said Dale in a minor voice.
Miss Cornelia rose.
"May I borrow your flashlight, Doctor? Now that fool detective is out of the way," she continued some what acidly, "I want to do something."
The Doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of bewilderment. She took it and moved into the alcove.
"Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the small staircase, facing up."
"Now?" queried the Doctor with some reluctance.
"Now, please."
The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position she assigned him at the foot of the stairs.
"Now, Dale," said Miss Cornelia briskly, "when I give the word, you put out the lights here—and then tell me when I have reached the point on the staircase from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?"
Two silent nods gave assent. Miss Cornelia left the room to seek the second floor by the main staircase and then slowly return by the alcove stairs, her flashlight poised, in her reconstruction of the events of the crime. At the foot of the alcove stairs the Doctor waited uneasily for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs—were those her footsteps now? He peered more closely into the darkness.
An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face.
He glanced swiftly at Dale—was she watching him? No—she sat in her chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic, insistent gesture—"Go back, go back!" it said, plainer than words, to—Something—in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his face relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief.
Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia's signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another glance at her—had his gestures been observed?—apparently not.
Unobserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia's signal, a hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French window behind their backs and fumbled for the knob which unlocked the window-door. It found the catch—unlocked it—the window-door swung open, noiselessly—just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped itself uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had placed to barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself, unperceived, in its lurking place—the Hand stole out again—closed the window-door, relocked it.
Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of God—whose hand?
Miss Cornelia's voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence.
"All right! Put out the lights!"
Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound of her own breathing. A mutter from the Doctor. Then, abruptly, a white, piercing shaft of light cut the darkness of the stairs—horribly reminiscent of that other light-shaft that had signaled Fleming's doom.
"Was it here?" Miss Cornelia's voice came muffledly from the head of the stairs.
Dale considered. "Come down a little," she said. The white spot of light wavered, settled on the Doctor's face.
"I hope you haven't a weapon," the Doctor called up the stairs with an unsuccessful attempt at jocularity.
Miss Cornelia descended another step.
"How's this?"
"That's about right," said Dale uncertainly. Miss Cornelia was satisfied.
"Lights, please." She went up the stairs again to see if she could puzzle out what course of escape the man who had shot Fleming had taken after his crime—if it had been a man.
Dale switched on the living-room lights with a sense of relief. The reconstruction of the crime had tried her sorely. She sat down to recover her poise.
"Doctor! I'm so frightened!" she confessed.
The Doctor at once assumed his best manner of professional reassurance.
"Why, my dear child?" he asked lightly. "Because you happened to be in the room when a crime was committed?"
"But he has a perfect case against me," sighed Dale.
"That's absurd!"
"No."
"You