"Well," continued the Captain, reflectively, pursing his mouth, and lifting his right eyebrow at the young man, "I don't believe anybody could have made less noise than I did in there"—he nodded his head toward the partition—"nor more than I made in the hall. And you heard nothing until the door began to open—h-m-m!" He looked around the laboratory,—at the shelves of bottles, at the partition not reaching quite to the ceiling; he stepped to the window, and, leaning out, contemplated the hall window. "It's confoundedly queer," he concluded.
"What is?"
"Why, the way noises act here. You know, that man—Mr. Ferdinand Howe—was standing at this window, and heard nothing in the hall. I almost believe, if the deceased had been shot instead of stabbed he would not have heard it..... But let us have a look at the other side of the hall.... Let me see," he went on, in a meditative way, "Room 4; that must be Mr. Nettleton's private office; as my friend Mr. Follett would say,—his 'lair.' He has no use for lawyers." He pushed open the door directly opposite the Doctor's suite.
The room was large and had three windows opening into the light-well. Through these windows sufficient light from the arc lamp beneath the skylight found its way to cause the furnishings to loom shadowy and ghost-like in a sort of feeble twilight, and to make it easy to find an incandescent lamp, which Mr. Converse turned on, illuminating the apartment with a brighter and more cheerful radiance. He surveyed the room, and looked at Lynden.
"I suppose," said he, "the door has not been locked this evening?"
The young man merely shook his head. For some reason since passing to this side of the hall, he had become strangely taciturn, though he watched the Captain's every movement eagerly, and cast many furtive glances toward the denser shadows.
Converse, knelt and examined the floor closely on either side of the door. Lynden's nerves were at such a tension that he actually started at a whispered ejaculation from the Captain as he picked up a tiny hairpin,—the kind a woman would have specified as "invisible."
So, then, there had been some one behind this door—and that one a woman!
Why should this circumstance affect Lynden so strangely? for it would seem that, in the undisturbed stillness of these deserted chambers, there was a potent, disquieting influence which kept him in a qui vive of nervous expectancy,—an invisible something in the atmosphere of the place filling him with an apprehensive dread. It was really remarkable that his observant companion did not notice his agitation; and still it was difficult to imagine how he could, for he was crossing the floor in a crouching attitude, apparently directing his entire attention to the floor with a concentration that permitted no individual thread of the heavy carpet to escape his earnest scrutiny.
Mr. Nettleton was a lawyer, and he occupied two rooms, both of which opened directly into the hall. The two men were now in the one that the lawyer used as his consultation room, and the course being pursued by Mr. Converse would soon take him to the connecting door between the two offices. Arriving at that point, he stood erect and paused a moment, plunged in thought. He said nothing, and seemingly had become oblivious of his companion's attendance.