Before leaving the apartment he made another examination of the marks upon the bedclothes, then closed and fastened both windows, and locked the door of the room.
Mr. Baker left him at the corner.
"You will come to the studio to-morrow, of course."
"By all means. I shall come down with Miss Morton and her mother. That will give us an opportunity to investigate further the matter of the missing photograph, and also to talk over that plan I had in mind concerning the new film you are to show at the Grand to-morrow night. It is barely possible that, by means of a plan I have in mind, we may be able to locate the person or persons responsible for all this trouble."
"I certainly hope so," said Baker, as he took his leave. "This thing is getting on my nerves, too."
Duvall made his way back to his hotel, as much mystified as ever. He had thought for a moment of spending the night on the sidewalk in front of the Mortons' apartment, watching the windows facing on the court, but his experience told him that it would be useless. The alarm which Ruth had made, the closing of the windows of her bedroom, the locking of the door, all made it highly improbable that any further attempt would be made to annoy her during the night. He walked along in a state of intense preoccupation, trying to discover some reasonable explanation of the astonishing events of the day.
Once he had an impression, a feeling, that he was being followed, but when he turned around, there was no one in sight but a slightly tipsy man, and a couple of young girls, far down the street. He dismissed the thought from his mind, and proceeded to his hotel.
It was not yet eleven o'clock, and Grace was waiting for him in the little parlor of their suite.
"Well, Richard," she remarked, as he came in, "you've had quite a day of it."
"Yes, quite," he replied, throwing himself into a chair. "What have you been doing with yourself?"