“Moreover, if she had been the person who peered at you over the gallery railing last night, don’t you suppose, with her—er—belligerent disposition, she could have filled you as full of lead as a window weight?”
“I do,” I assented. “It wasn’t Alice-sit-by-the-fire. I grant you that. Then who was it?”
Hotchkiss felt certain that it had been Sullivan, but I was not so sure. Why would he have crawled like a thief into his own house? If he had crossed the park, as seemed probable, when we did, he had not made any attempt to use the knocker. I gave it up finally, and made an effort to conciliate the young woman in the tower.
We had heard no sound since our spectacular entrance into her room. I was distinctly uncomfortable as, alone this time, I climbed to the tower staircase. Reasoning from before, she would probably throw a chair at me. I stopped at the foot of the staircase and called.
“Hello up there,” I said, in as debonair a manner as I could summon. “Good morning. Wie geht es bei ihnen?”
No reply.
“Bon jour, mademoiselle,” I tried again. This time there was a movement of some sort from above, but nothing fell on me.
“I—we want to apologize for rousing you so—er—unexpectedly this morning,” I went on. “The fact is, we wanted to talk to you, and you—you were hard to waken. We are travelers, lost in your mountains, and we crave a breakfast and an audience.”
She came to the door then. I could feel that she was investigating the top of my head from above. “Is Mr. Sullivan with you?” she asked. It was the first word from her, and she was not sure of her voice.
“No. We are alone. If you will come down and look at us you will find us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse—curses on him—departed without leave last night and left us at your gate.”