Here we were, guarded day and night
by private detectives, with an extra man to watch the
grounds, and yet we might as well have lived in a Japanese paper
house, for all the protection we had.
And there was something else: the man I had met in the darkness
had been even more startled than I, and about his voice, when he
muttered his muffled exclamation, there was something vaguely
familiar. All that morning, while Gertrude read aloud, and Liddy
watched for the doctor, I was puzzling over that voice, without
result.
And there were other things, too. I wondered what Gertrude's
absence from her room had to do with it all, or if it had any
connection. I tried to think that she had heard the rapping
noises before I did and gone to investigate, but I'm afraid I was
a moral coward that day. I could not ask her.
Perhaps the diversion was good for me. It took my mind from
Halsey, and the story we had heard the night before. The day,
however, was a long vigil, with every ring of the telephone full
of possibilities. Doctor Walker came up, some time just after
luncheon, and asked for me.
"Go down and see him," I instructed Gertrude. "Tell him I am
out--for mercy's sake don't say I'm sick. Find out what he
wants, and from this time on, instruct the servants that he is
not to be admitted. I loathe that man."
Gertrude came back very soon, her face rather flushed.
"He came to ask us to get out," she said, picking up her book
with a jerk.
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