Peace at last returned to the house—and Barry returned to his room, locked the door and observed on his pad the same angular scrawl, “Leave this house tonight!” which had frightened her away. Then he went to bed and slept soundly until after sunrise.
He was up and dressed at seven o’clock; and when the Peytons came downstairs about eight he had an appetizing breakfast awaiting them. As soon as her husband had left for his office, Mrs. Peyton, returning from the front door, looked at the detective with anxious inquiry in her large brown eyes.
“Have you discovered anything at all, Mr. Barry?”
Barry took a crumpled napkin from the breakfast table and folded it thoughtfully between his long fingers. He was thinking: “Yes, Mrs. Peyton; I’ve discovered the identity of your ‘ghost,’ and you alone have the power to ‘kill’ it.” Aloud, however:
“I’ll make a report today,” he promised, and left the room with a stack of dishes and the folded napkin.
He deposited the dishes in the kitchen sink. The napkin went into his hip pocket. Then he started upstairs for his other clothes. At her bedroom door he paused, listening. The door stood open. Mrs. Peyton, downstairs, was sitting at the breakfast table, absently crumbling a bit of toast in her fingers, a faraway look in her eyes. Barry, at her bedroom door, was remarking the small mahogany desk, where, two nights ago, the “ghost” had written his warning to her.
In three swift strides he crossed to the desk, searched hurriedly among the papers there and neatly pocketed one of these. Then he continued to his room. Mrs. Peyton still sat at the breakfast table in a pensive reverie, her wistful brown gaze lost in the morning sunshine beyond the leaded casements.
An hour later Barry alighted from a train in Chicago and forthwith called on a colleague, whose skill in analyzing handwriting and identifying finger prints had earned him the title of “expert.” He spent considerable time with this man; and then he went to his office and wrote his report for Mrs. Peyton.
And when the report was finished he sat gazing at it musingly—somewhat as Mrs. Peyton had gazed from her breakfast-room window this morning.