"
"What about him?"
"Act very strange." Again Billy's slim hands trembled.
Beresford broke in. "The man who fell into the room downstairs?"
Billy nodded.
"Yes. On second floor, walking around."
Beresford smiled, a bit smugly.
"I told you!" he said to Miss Cornelia. "I didn't think he was as
dazed as he pretended to be."
Miss Cornelia, too, had been pondering the problem of the Unknown.
She reached a swift decision. If he were what he pretended to be--
a dazed wanderer, he could do them no harm. If he were not--a
little strategy properly employed might unravel the whole mystery.
"Bring him up here, Billy," she said, turning to the butler.
Billy started to obey. But the darkness of the corridor seemed to
appall him anew the moment he took a step toward it.
"You give candle, please?" he asked with a pleading expression.
"Don't like dark."
Miss Cornelia handed him one of the two precious candles. Then
his present terror reminded her of that one other occasion when
she had seen him lose completely his stoic Oriental calm.
"Billy," she queried, "what did you see when you came running down
the stairs before we were locked in, down below?"
The candle shook like a reed in Billy's grasp.
"Nothing!" he gasped with obvious untruth, though it did not seem
so much as if he wished to conceal what he had seen as that he was
trying to convince himself he had seen nothing.
"Nothing!" said Lizzie scornfully. "It was some nothing that would
make him drop a bottle of whisky!"
But Billy only backed toward the door, smiling apologetically.
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