foot longer than the other--_i.e._,
it was a succession of beats in rapid sequence, each alternate beat
being louder than the one immediately before it.

"It appeared to me (1) to be produced outside my room; (2) to be on a
higher level; and (3) to be moving in the direction of my bed--_i.e._,
going as from No. 5 past No. 4, in which I was, towards No. 3. I at
once jumped out of bed, opened my door and looked out. I saw nothing,
and the noise stopped. I then struck a light, and found that it was
only 4.45. I lay awake till I heard the servants obviously moving
about, and then went to sleep again. At breakfast I asked, 'Has
anybody ever heard this kind of noise?' reproducing it as well as I
could by a series of thumps on the table. 'Oh yes,' was the answer,
'that is what we call the 'limping' or 'scuttering' noise. Of course I
had heard the phrases used, but thought they referred to two separate
noises. I had also formed quite distinct ideas as to the kind of
noises these epithets were intended to describe--both entirely
different from the kind of noise I had heard--and I showed what I
meant. 'Oh no,' said Miss Freer, 'what you heard is what we have been
calling indiscriminately the _limping_ or _scuttering_ noise, and we
have not heard the kinds of noise these words suggested to you.' I
emphasise this as showing clearly that I cannot have been expecting to
hear the particular noise in question.

"The next thing was to account for the noise, if possible, and we
spent some time experimenting. First of all the servants were
interrogated as to whether any of them had been moving about at 4.45.
Answer, 'No.' Next we asked who got up first. This was a maid who
slept in X, and went into Y to call the kitchenmaid, who slept there.
To do so she had, of course, to go through the narrow room which was
over part of my bedroom.

"This, she said, was a good bit later than 4.45. But we thought it
well to make her go from X to Y while I lay down on my bed and
listened. We made her walk backwards and forwards, both with her
slippers on and also in her stocking soles. I and some of the others
who came into my room heard her quite distinctly. But (1) the noise of
her steps was in a different place--near my window, and exactly in
the line of her progress; (2) it was an entirely different kind of
noise. She walked now fast, and now slowly, but both footsteps seemed
always of the same weight; and (3), and this, to my mind, was most
impor