“Perhaps, after all, it’s nothing but a mouse.”
If it was a mouse, it was a curious one. The sound became plainer. It seemed to Mr. Fletcher that it was coming nearer.
“It’s someone moving. I hope to goodness it isn’t that old i***t, madame.”
But it did not seem as if it proceeded from the stairs. Surely, if she came at all, she would come that way.
“It strikes me that it is someone in the other room. For all I know there may be someone sleeping there. Halloa! what’s that?”
It was a ray of light the merest pencil; it gleamed, like a streak of molten metal, across the floor.
“As I’m a Dutchman it’s shining through the wall!”
It was, there could be no doubt of it; it came through a crevice in the wainscot.
“I have it! I spot it all! Now for the next card in the game – it’ll be a call
