“After another half hour of keen expectancy, during which she had not dozed, I warrant, there came the almost inaudible sound of the knob turning in the upper door. Had she been alone, she would have screamed, but the Inspector’s hand was on her arm and he made his presence felt to such a purpose that she simply shuddered, but that so violently that her teeth chattered. A fire had been lit on the hearth, for it was by the light thus given that she had seen what she said she had seen that night. Also, the curtains of the bed had been drawn back as they had not been then but must be now for her to see through to the shelf where the glass of medicine had been standing. Her face, as she waited for whomever might appear there, was one of bewilderment mingled with horror. But no one appeared. The door had been locked and all that answered that look was the impression she received of some one endeavoring to open it.
“As shaken by these terrors, she turned to face the Inspector, he pressed her arm again and drew her towards the door by which they had entered and from which she had seen the shadow she had testified to before the Coroner. Stepping the length of the passage-way intervening between the room and the door itself, he waited a moment, then threw the latter open just as the shadow of a man shot through the semi-darkness across the opposite wall.
“‘Do you recognize it?’ the Inspector whispered in her ear. ‘Is it the same?’
“She nodded wildly and drew back, suppressing the sob which gurgled in her throat.
“‘The Englishman?’ he asked again.
“Again she nodded.
“Carefully he closed the door; he was himself a trifle affected. The figure which had fled down the hall was that of the man who had just been told that you were ill in your room. I need not name him.”
XXXVII
Slowly I rose to my feet. The agitation caused by these words was uncontrollable. How much did he mean by them and why should I be so much more moved by hearing them spoken than by the suppressed thought?
He made no move to enlighten me, and, walking again to the window, I affected to look out. When I turned back it was to ask: