“I want nothing from him,” Thalassa rejoined, “a damned black scoundrel.”
Mr. Brimsdown was shocked at this savage outburst, but there was something so implacable in the old man’s air that the rebuke he wished to utter died unspoken. Thalassa regarded him for a moment in silence, and then went on—
“Thank’ee for letting me stop on here a bit. Now I’ll tell you something—about him.” Again his thumb indicated the next room. “It was the night after.”
“Do you mean the night after he met his death?”
“Yes. Some one was upstairs in his room—in this room.”
Mr. Brimsdown gave a startled glance around him, as though seeking a lurking form in the shadows. “Here?” he breathed.
“Here, sure enough. I woke up in my bed downstairs, staring wide awake, as though somebody had touched me on the shoulder. I was just turning over to go to sleep again, when I heered a noise up here.”
“What sort of a noise?”
“Like the rustling of paper. I listened for a bit, then it stopped. I heard a board creak in the next room, where we’d carried him. Then the rustling started in the other room again, right over my head. The dog downstairs started to bark. I got up, and went upstairs as quickly as I could, but there was nobody—except him. The dog frightened whoever it was, I suppose. Next morning I found the front room window wide open.”
“Were there any footprints outside the window?”