“Then I crossed to my desk and lit the lamp there and found—this!” Mrs. Peyton offered the sheet of note paper, which she had been nervously fingering.
Barry unfolded it and read the words scrawled upon its blue surface:
“Again I warn you to leave this house. This is the last—”
“When I interrupted him,” explained Mrs. Peyton, “he apparently had just written the word, ‘last.’”
Barry nodded and narrowly examined the handwriting. It was old-style script, angular and shaky, indicative of a very aged and infirm person.
“Have you the notes received by Mr. Peyton and the cook?”
“No; but I saw them. Both were written in the same hand as that,” indicating the sheet of blue paper.
Barry again looked at the photograph, holding it to the light and inspecting it closely. Suddenly he asked:
“What sort of clothing did your visitor wear?”
“Why, as I remember, he wore a sort of long gray robe and a queer little cap—a skullcap, maybe. But it was all very blurred and indistinct. He seemed to be enveloped in a kind of gray mist. With his white hair and beard, the effect was quite ‘creepy.’”