“It depended upon the direction of the wind—the window selected always opened in the direction from which the breeze was blowing.”
“Yes.”
“Did that not suggest something to you?”
“It did. A signal. But,” with a gesture, “it could not have been. There was no sound.”
Ashton-Kirk turned to the harp; his long supple fingers ran over the strings, and they responded stirringly. Bat Scanlon leaned toward Miss Knowles.
“I think,” said he, “I’ve got just one more question to ask you, and here it is: What about that package that came the other day—the one with the blank paper in it?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” The girl seemed weary with the things which she did not understand. “It was like the other packages that came here. Always blank paper; never a single thing which would lead me to even guess at what they meant.”
“When you saw the man Alva in the moonlight,” spoke Ashton-Kirk, addressing Scanlon, his fingers still gently plucking at the harp strings, “did you pay particular attention to the hill he had selected?”
“It was a high one,” said Bat. “But I think that’s all.”
“There was another advantage,” said the special detective. “There were no intervening trees. From that hilltop to Schwartzberg there is one clear sweep.”