He thought a while, and then he again went the rounds of the room, only to find no more sign of a secret entrance than he had before discovered.
What was the explanation? Must he accept the foolish Poltergeist? He knew,—his reason told him, no supernatural agency could have pulled off those bedclothes and thrown them back over his face, but his reason failed to inform him who or what could have done it,—and above all how.
The door was still securely locked and bolted. The windows were untouched,—Coe knew this, for he had taken the precaution to sprinkle a little talcum powder beneath them, and this showed no marks of foot-prints. He looked up the chimney, where he had pasted across a strip of paper, just before he got into bed. The paper was intact.
In the brownest of brown studies he sat till morning, but he could imagine or invent no theory that would work. He knew,—he positively knew the semi-luminous ghost was a fake,—he knew, he positively knew human hands had pulled off his sheets, and a human throat had sounded that low laugh, but how?—HOW?
At breakfast time he dressed and went down stairs.
He met Miss Webb’s eager questions as to what had happened with a denial that anything had. He wanted to see if a look of surprise or incredulity came to her face, but it didn’t. She only said,
“I scarcely thought it would. Are you satisfied, or do you want to try it again?”
“I may try it again later,” he thanked her, “but not at present.”
To Mrs. Webb who soon appeared he also denied that he had had any queer or inexplicable experience, having resolved to keep the matter strictly secret as the best chance of finding out who did it.
But at breakfast, the subject of Kimball’s past experiences in that room was mentioned.