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.
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