about ten o'clock, and I told
him Ladley was back. He was almost wild with excitement; wanted to
have the back parlor, so he could watch him through the keyhole, and
was terribly upset when I told him there was no keyhole, that the
door fastened with a thumb bolt. On learning that the room was to
be papered the next morning, he grew calmer, however, and got the
paper-hanger's address from me. He went out just after that.

Friday, as I say, was very quiet. Mr. Ladley moved to the back parlor
to let the paper-hanger in the front room, smoked and fussed with
his papers all day, and Mr. Holcombe stayed in his room, which was
unusual. In the afternoon Molly Maguire put on the striped fur coat
and went out, going slowly past the house so that I would be sure to
see her. Beyond banging the window down, I gave her no satisfaction.

At four o'clock Mr. Holcombe came to my kitchen, rubbing his hands
together. He had a pasteboard tube in his hand about a foot long, with
an arrangement of small mirrors in it. He said it was modeled after
the something or other that is used on a submarine, and that he and
the paper-hanger had fixed a place for it between his floor and the
ceiling of Mr. Ladley's room, so that the chandelier would hide it
from below. He thought he could watch Mr. Ladley through it; and as it
turned out, he could.

"I want to find his weak moment," he said excitedly. "I want to know
what he does when the door is closed and he can take off his mask. And
I want to know if he sleeps with a light."

"If he does," I replied, "I hope you'll let me know, Mr. Holcombe. The
gas bills are a horror to me as it is. I think he kept it on all last
night. I turned off all the other lights and went to the cellar. The
meter was going around."

"Fine!" he said. "Every murderer fears the dark. And our friend of the
parlor bedroom is a murderer, Mrs. Pitman. Whether he hangs or not,
he's a murderer."

The mirror affair, which Mr. Holcombe called a periscope, was put in
that day and worked amazingly well. I went with him to try it out, and
I distinctly saw the paper-hanger take a cigarette from Mr. Ladley's
case and put it in his pocket. Just after that, Mr. Ladley sauntered
into the room and looked at the new paper. I could both see and hear
him. It was rather weird.

"God, what a wall-paper!" he said.

CHAPTER VIII

That was Friday afternoon. All that evening, and most of Saturday and
Sunday, Mr. Holcombe sat on the f