Betty reached the house in safety but there an unforeseen difficulty confronted her. In her haste to obey the summons, she had given no thought as to how she might gain re-entrance, if Welch had made his rounds and locked up for the night. She knew with what caution the house was guarded and if she encountered one of the alarm wires all would be lost. Even that would presuppose a window or door left unfastened and that was a contingency too remote to be considered.
The lower floor was still lighted and moving shadows blurred against the curtains of the windows as she skirted the side of the house on which the music room was located. Betty had taken no account of time but she felt that it must be very late and it was with a forlorn hope that she tried the kitchen door.
To her surprise it yielded against her hand and she pushed it slowly open, halting upon the threshold in sudden dread. A low light was still burning in the room and she saw a man seated at the table. His head rested upon his outflung arms and from where the girl stood she could hear his heavy stertorous breathing. The face was turned sidewise toward her and she had no difficulty in recognizing Welch, although his expression was oddly distorted and his heavy jowls were tinged a mottled purplish hue.
Betty tiptoed past him, scarcely daring to breathe, but he did not awaken and his rasping snore followed her as she fled silently up the stair. Her own room was reached at last and bolting the door she removed her damp, chilling garments, heavy with the night's dew and prepared for the task which remained to her when the household should finally retire.
The slender chain clung reassuringly to her neck and she drew out the little whistle and examined it. It was of silver, delicately chased, and bore upon a plain oval shield the initials H. R. It seemed incredible that so fragile and toylike an instrument could summon aid and yet upon it might sometime depend life or death for her. It was Ross's own that he had given to her, and she pressed it to her breast fervently as though it were a talisman to keep all danger and evil from her.
The hour dragged, but at length she heard the rustle of feet upon the stair and a murmur of voices which grew less and less as doors closed until silence fell once more.
Betty was in a fever of impatience, but she resolutely fixed her eyes upon the tiny clock on the mantel and waited in an excess of caution until the hands pointed to half-past one. Then with her dark robe girded about her and her felt-covered feet making no sound, she opened her door.
The next moment she started back in amazement. A chair had been placed a short distance down the hall near the entrance to Mrs. Atterbury's bedroom but it was empty and an oddly huddled figure lay beside it upon the floor. It was a woman, collapsed as though she had been overcome by slumber and slipped from her chair, but there was something about the inert, helpless figure and hoarse stertorous breath not unlike that of the other downstairs which warned Betty that this was no ordinary sleep.
Holding her breath she drew near the recumbent form and recognized Caroline. The woman's face was empurpled like that of Welch and her relaxed chin had fallen upon her breast giving her an expression of repellant brutish vacuity. Betty had always considered her a stolid unintelligent creature whose chief virtue was faithfulness, but now it was as if something malevolent and bestial had made itself manifest, betraying her real nature in her unconsciousness.
Hesitating no longer, Betty stole to the stairs and was descending as on the previous night, when again a light in the music room warned her of an alien presence. This time, however, it was not dim and flickering but a slender, dazzlingly brilliant ray, like the dart of a rapier, which swept the doorway in a flash and was gone, leaving behind a shimmering hazy glow.