rug, without
warning, slid over the railing and fell to the floor below.

"Man or woman?" Hotchkiss inquired in his most professional tone.

"Neither--that is, I don't know. I didn't notice anything but the eyes,"
I muttered. "They were looking a hole in me. If you'd seen that cat you
would realize my state of mind. That was a traditional graveyard yowl."

"I don't think you saw anything at all," he lied cheerfully. "You dozed
off, and the rest is the natural result of a meal on a buffet car."

Nevertheless, he examined the Bokhara carefully when we went down,
and when I finally went to sleep he was reading the only book in
sight--Elwell on Bridge. The first rays of daylight were coming mistily
into the room when he roused me. He had his finger on his lips, and he
whispered sibilantly while I tried to draw on my distorted boots.

"I think we have him," he said triumphantly. "I've been looking around
some, and I can tell you this much. Just before we came in through the
window last night, another man came. Only--he did not drop, as you
did. He swung over to the stair railing, and then down. The rail is
scratched. He was long enough ahead of us to go into the dining-room
and get a decanter out of the sideboard. He poured out the liquor into
a glass, left the decanter there, and took the whisky into the library
across the hall. Then--he broke into a desk, using a paper knife for a
jimmy."

"Good Lord, Hotchkiss," I exclaimed; "why, it may have been Sullivan
himself! Confound your theories--he's getting farther away every
minute."

"It was Sullivan," Hotchkiss returned imperturbably. "And he has not
gone. His boots are by the library fire."

"He probably had a dozen pairs where he could get them," I scoffed. "And
while you and I sat and slept, the very man we want to get our hands on
leered at us over that railing."

"Softly, softly, my friend," Hotchkiss said, as I stamped into my other
shoe. "I did not say he was gone. Don't jump at conclusions. It is
fatal to reasoning. As a matter of fact, he didn't relish a night on the
mountains any more than we did. After he had unintentionally frightened
you almost into paralysis, what would my gentleman naturally do? Go out
in the storm again? Not if I know the Alice-sit-by-the-fire type. He
went up-stairs, well up near the roof, locked himself in and went to
bed."

"And he is there now?"

"He is there now."

We had no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is