"Was there a light in the room?" Ralston pressed his questions.
"Yes, the gas was lit."
"Well, it seems perfectly clear that some one has climbed up by the vine to the open window, entered while you were asleep, lit the gas after first bandaging your eyes so that you could not see, and then, after tying you up, made his escape in the same way. Now let's see if we can get any clue as to his identity. Of course it was no burglar. A burglar doesn't indulge in fancy work of this sort. There must have been personal enmity back of it. Did he leave anything in the room?"
Burton had been standing by the fireplace, listening. His eye had already caught sight of a folded paper on the mantel which had a curiously familiar look. Surely he had no interest in preventing the truth from being known; yet he was on the point of moving nearer and getting quiet possession of the paper when some one else noticed it and picked it up.
"Here's a message from him," he shouted, and then read aloud:
"If you keep on accusing me, and slandering me in public, worse things will happen to you next.
"Dr. Underwood."
"I knew it was Dr. Underwood," gasped Hadley. "Oh, Lord, I knew he would get even with me for saying that we would not be safe in our beds. I didn't mean it. I always knew I was perfectly safe in my bed."
Ralston came quickly over and took the paper from the hand of the man who had picked it up. As he did so he glanced at Burton, as though recognizing that he was the one man here who might be expected to speak for Dr. Underwood.
"Where was it?"