Ellery hung up.
“What does the lady want?” asked Keats.
“She says she’s just found another cardboard box. It was in the Priam mailbox on the road, apparently left there a short time ago. Priam’s name handprinted on it. She hasn’t told Priam about it, asked what she ought to do. You heard what I told her.”
“Another warning!”
Keats ran for his car.
Chapter Ten
Keats stopped his car fifty feet from the Priam mailbox and they got out and walked slowly toward it, examining the road. There were tire marks in profusion, illegibly intermingled. Near the box they found several heelmarks of a woman’s shoe, but that was all.
The door of the box hung open and the box was empty.
They walked up the driveway to the house. Keats neither rang nor knocked. The maid with the tic came hurrying toward them as he closed the door.
“Mrs. Priam said to come upstairs,” she whispered. “To her room.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door of Roger Priam’s den. “And not to make any noise, she said, because he’s got ears like a dog.”