"No doubt of it," assented Follansbee gravely.
He put the book down and examined the instruments on the bench. He chuckled oddly to himself, held up a magical diagram made on a sheet of stiff paper, and smiled at it with Tenny. Then he turned away, looked once more about the room, and said, "If you brought the lunch kit, we'll eat. The sun'll go down in about three-quarters of an hour, and the moon'll be up shortly after. We might as well be ready."
"What's the procedure?"
"We sleep here—nice, comfortable double bed, as far as I can see," replied Follansbee.
Lunch eaten, the two investigators returned to the bedroom where they were to sleep. The moon had already risen, so long had they sat in the kitchen, but it was not yet throwing its light through the single window to the south. Follansbee and Tenny sat talking for the better part of an hour.
It was the older man who first noticed that the moonlight had reached the counterpane of the bed. "There we are," he said. "Now for the shadow."
They sat for a few minutes in silence, while the light of the moon crept in a parallelogram across the counterpane. But there was no shadow save the shadow of a tree, a few branches of which dipped into the moonlight.
Presently Follansbee rose and went in some irritation over to the bed and stood looking down at the patch of moonlight. "Batty as can be," he murmured, obviously referring to Miss Harriet Sears.
Tenny, who had drifted to his side, said suddenly, "what a funny angle those branches have!"
Follansbee bent abruptly closer. "As if they were coming from above," he murmured. "But look here—they're not just branches—they're like a forest of little trees, and what odd spines for leaves!"