Madge pursed her lips and frowned.
"I've been thinking about that since, and I don't at all see why we should take it for granted. One thing's certain, the room is honeycombed with possible hiding-places. There are hollows behind the wainscot, the walls themselves sound hollow. That unhappy man can hardly have found a part of the house better adapted to his purpose."
"See there--what's that?" Ella was pointing to a kind of plaster cornice which ran round the room. "What are those things which are cut or moulded on that strip of beading, if it is beading, under the ceiling?"
"They look to me like some sort of ornamental bosses," said Graham.
"They certainly are neither cats or dogs," decided Madge.
"I'm not so sure of that; you know what extraordinary things they tell you are intended to represent things which are not in the least bit like them. Where's that paper? Jack, give me that paper."
Jack gave it her. She glanced at it.
"'Right'--I'll take up a position like you did last night, Mr. Graham, to the right of the door; 'cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--' now----"
"Well?" queried Madge, for Ella had stopped. "Now what?"
"I think," continued Ella, with evident dubitation, "that I'll again do what you did last night, Mr. Graham, and cross right over; though it says nothing about it here, but perhaps that was omitted on purpose." She marched straight across the room. "Now we'll take the first thing upon the beading, or whatever it is, to be a cat, and we'll count them alternately--cat--dog--the fifth dog."