“Anything else happen last night?”
“Nothing—except that I passed the rest of the night trying to solve the riddle. The first thing I did, after finding the note, was to try the door and windows again—and I again made sure they hadn’t been touched. I knew positively that nobody could get in the room except through the door or windows, so how had the old man entered?
“I was still hunting an answer to that question, and growing more perplexed than ever, when I heard a heavy footfall on the front porch; then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and my husband came bounding noisily upstairs. I knew from this he had seen the light at my window, even before he called to me reprovingly through the bedroom door: ‘Haven’t you turned in yet? It’s ’way after one o’clock.’
“It was then I decided to say nothing to him about what happened. And I haven’t.
“But this morning, as soon as he’d left for the office, I called on Mrs. Parker and told her everything. She suggested that I see you. I hesitated at first to do this, because only yesterday I spoke to Mr. Peyton about calling in the police or employing a detective to investigate the mystery, and he vigorously objected. He really believed the thing was supernatural and declared that no living person could overcome it. The only thing to do, he said, was to leave the house as the ‘spirit’ commanded.
“I finally decided, however, to follow Mrs. Parker’s suggestion, particularly as she recommended you so highly—and so, quite unknown to my husband, here I am!
“And now, Mr. Barry,” said Mrs. Peyton, sitting back in her chair for the first time and moving her white hands in a pretty gesture of relief, “what do you make of it all?”
Barry, examining the feeble handwriting beneath a reading-glass, discerned what appeared to be a startling solution of the mystery; but, deeming it best for the moment to say nothing of this, he offered an obvious answer to her question:
“From what you have told me, Mrs. Peyton, it would seem that an unknown person, concealed in your house, is bent on frightening you away.”