"Oh! I don't quite know what I do mean, Dr. Petrie. What does it ALL mean? Vernon has
been explaining to me that some awful Chinaman is seeking the life of Mr. Nayland
Smith. But if the same man wants to kill my father, why has he not done so?"
"I am afraid you puzzle me."
"Of course, I must do so. But--the man in the train. He could have killed us both quite
easily! And--last night someone was in father's room."
"I could not sleep, and I heard something moving. My room is the next one. I knocked on
the wall and woke father. There was nothing; so I said it was the howling of the dog that
had frightened me."
"How, could anyone get into his room?"
"I cannot imagine. But I am not sure it was a man."
"Miss Eltham, you alarm me. What do you suspect?"
"You must think me hysterical and silly, but whilst father and I have been away from
Redmoat perhaps the usual precautions have been neglected. Is there any creature, any
large creature, which could climb up the wall to the window? Do you know of anything
with a long, thin body?"
For a moment I offered no reply, studying the girl's pretty face, her eager, blue-gray eyes
widely opened and fixed upon mine. She was not of the neurotic type, with her clear
complexion and sun-kissed neck; her arms, healthily toned by exposure to the country
airs, were rounded and firm, and she had the agile shape of a young Diana with none of
the anaemic languor which breeds morbid dreams. She was frightened; yes, who would
not have been? But the mere idea of this thing which she believed to be in Redmoat,
without the apparition of the green eyes, must have prostrated a victim of "nerves."
"Have you seen such a creature, Miss Eltham?"
She hesitated again, glancing down and pressing her finger-tips together.
"As father awoke and called out to know why I knocked, I glanced from my window. The
moonlight threw half the lawn into shadow, and just disappearing in this shadow was
something-- something of a brown color, marked with sections!"
"It moved so quickly I could form no idea of its shape; but I saw quite six feet of it flash
across the grass!"
