“Don’t you hear it?” he gasped, and he pointed upward.
“Upstairs?” I stammered. “Is there somebody upstairs?”
I strained my ears, and at last I fancied I could hear a fugitive sound
like the light tapping of footsteps.
“It must be somebody walking about up there,” I suggested.
But at these words Arthur seemed to stiffen. The excitement died out of
his face.
“No!” he cried in a sharp rasping voice. “No! It is nobody walking about
up there!”
And he fled into his room.
For a long time I lay trembling, afraid to move. But at last, fearing for
Arthur, I got up and crept to his door. He was lying on the couch, with
his face in the moonlight, apparently asleep.
* * * * *
October 6.—I had a talk with Arthur today. Yesterday I could not bring
myself to speak of the previous night’s happening, but all of this
nonsense must be cleared away.
We were in the library. A fire was burning in the grate, and Arthur
had his feet on the fender. The slippers he wears, by the way, are as
objectionable to me as his dressing-gown. They are felt slippers, old and
worn, and frayed around the edges as if they had been gnawed by rats. I
cannot imagine why he does not get a new pair.
“Say, old man,” I began abruptly, “do you own this house?”
He nodded.
“Don’t you rent any of it?”
“Downstairs—to Mrs. Harlan.”
“But upstairs?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
“No, it’s inconvenient. There’s only a peculiar way to get upstairs.”