V. Again the Moving Figure 261

BOOK V--THE MAN WITH THE WHITE TEETH

I. Blades of Grass 283

II. In the Painted Garden 292

BOOK VI--A PUPPET OF THE PASSIONS

I. The Vanished Dream 301

II. Mary Vance 312

III. The Ghost 323

BOOK VII--THE PANELED DOOR

I. The Scratching Sound 337

BOOK VIII--FROM THE WOMAN'S HAND

I. The Voice of the Blood 351

II. This New Thing 362

BOOK IX--BEHIND THE WALL

I. An Answer to MacMechem 371

II. "Why Care?" 378

ILLUSTRATIONS

A picture there among the law-books Frontispiece

"Listen to me, Estabrook" 120

"It must be Julianna!" 238

She did not speak. She seemed in doubt 372

From drawings by Harold J. Cue.

BOOK I

THE PROBLEM OF MACMECHEM

THE BLUE WALL

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR

What's behind this wall?

As I write, here in my surgeon's study, I ask myself that question.
What's behind it? My neighbors? Then what do I know--really know--of
them? After all, this wall which rises beyond my desk, the wall against
which my glass case of instruments rests, symbolizes the boundary of
knowledge--seemingly an opaque barrier. I am called a man of science, a
man with a passion for accuracies. I seek to define a part of the
limitless and undefined mysteries of the body. But what is behind the
wall? Are we sensitive to it? You smile. Give your attention then to a
narrative of facts.

How little we know what influence the other side has upon us or we upon
the human beings beyond this boundary. We think it is opaque,
impassable. I am writing of the other wall. _There_ was a puzzle! The
wall of the Marburys!...

Here I risk my reputation as a scientific observer. But that is all; I
offer no conclusions. I set down in cold blood the b