"Was the door into the hall shut?" I interrupted quickly, remembering that Stodger believed it to be open.
"Yes. I entered a bit timidly; all my assurance had somehow evaporated. Then—then, before I had time to make another move, two hands seized me.
"I was thrown violently against the wall, and one of the hands tried to grasp my throat. I was fighting as hard as I could; but—I was helpless.
"Then I screamed. I put my whole soul into it. Everything slipped away from me, and I knew nothing more until Belle was holding me in her arms and I felt her dabbing my face with water.… Dear girl, don't look so tragic; I'm all right now."
While Genevieve hung close at my side, the inquest waited until I had searched the place from cellar to garret. But never a trace of the mysterious intruder did I find. When I became satisfied that he had safely made his escape I asked Genevieve to describe the face.
"I 'm afraid I can't," she returned hesitatingly. "I had such a lightning-like glimpse of it. Still, in a general way, it was very swarthy and wrinkled—quite ape-like. The lower part was covered with a short, curling, sparse black beard; the eyes were like"—she searched for a simile—"like a snake's."
"That's graphic enough," I said; "but the description fits no countenance that I can now call to mind."
"What can it mean?" she asked wonderingly.
"It means," I grimly replied, "that I guessed right: the ruby is in this house. And I 'm going to have a time keeping it here, too, until I find it myself."
The one mistake of the intruder, whoever he might be, had been in peeping between the alcove curtains; of course he had been reconnoitring only; but a person who could move through the house so noiselessly might easily have accomplished, without discovery, whatever errand brought him there.