t I always
carried with me and had never yet used, I crossed the hall into the room
opposite, carrying with me some extra coverings for my bed. I did not
feel at all sleepy, so, after closing the door and climbing, not without
difficulty, into the high poster bed, I lay back comfortably upon the
pillows and proceeded to occupy myself in reading a magazine which I had
found lying upon the table in my own room.

CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT OF HORROR

The night that I spent in the green room was in many ways like the one
which Robert Ashton spent there. A heavy rain had set in, and the wind
from the southwest was driving it against the windows of the room, just
as it had done that other night. I had attempted to raise one of the
windows before turning in, but it was impossible to keep it open for any
length of time as the rain drove in fiercely and threatened to flood the
room. As I lay in bed, unable to concentrate my thoughts upon the
magazine I had picked up, I began to reconstruct in my mind the scene
which had been enacted in this room but a few nights before. I pictured
Robert Ashton, sitting at the small, marble-topped table, laboriously
copying the inscription upon the base of the emerald figure, for what
purpose I could not imagine. I saw him as he opened the door for Miss
Temple, his painful interview with her, and his anger at its conclusion.
Then, no doubt, he sat down and thought the whole thing over. He
remembered Major Temple's threat that he should never leave the house
and take the emerald with him. Possibly he may have supposed that Muriel
and her father were in league in some way to obtain possession of the
jewel and thus defraud him, he felt, of the fruits of his labors. No
doubt the question of where to place the stone, during the night, to
insure its absolute safety, became in his mind an important one. He
determined to hide it, and cast about for a place of concealment. To
secrete it about the room would be impracticable: it must be so situated
that he could instantly remove it if necessary. Yet to place it in his
bag among his other belongings would be no concealment at all. Probably
he gave a quick glance about the room, and then the cake of soap, green
like the emerald itself, lying upon the washstand, suggested a
hiding-place which, because of its very conspicuousness, would be
thought of by no one. To cut the cake in half, lengthways, with a knife
or more probably a piece of thread, was the