"Yes. 'There's a queer shadow on the bed in his room when the moon
shines,' she writes. 'I can't understand it. It shouldn't be there.'
That's all."
"Very lucid," commented Tenny laconically.
The inn itself was a quiet little house of stone, hugging the ground in
the middle of a clearing not very far from the heavily wooded roadside.
A flagstone walk led up to a low stone porch, where the key to the
front door lay under the mat, just where Miss Harriet Sears had said it
would be in her letter to Follansbee.
As he bent to unlock the door, Follansbee said, "At least we can thank
goodness we're alone. Miss Sears isn't likely to come bursting in on us
at all hours of the night--she vowed she'd never set foot inside the
building until we'd settled that shadow business."
He threw the door open on a short hallway leading directly into a
low, raftered sitting-room, into which Follansbee immediately strode,
followed by his companion. The room was comfortably and well furnished
with antique pieces. The chairs were curiously carved and obviously
hand-made. Follansbee, however, wasted no time in the sitting-room, but
led the way into another, smaller room, and around into a large bedroom
in the southeast corner of the building.
This was the room which had been occupied by Uriah Kroll, prior to his
disappearance, as described in Miss Sears' letter. It was a large,
oddly furnished room, with a bed against the south wall, and a single
chair next to it, the north wall of the room next the door being
occupied by what appeared to be a work-bench. Follansbee, having looked
cursorily at the bed, went over to the bench and bent above it.
Tenny came over and stood at his side.
"What do you make of it?" Follansbee asked.
"Queer outfit," Tenny replied. "Looks as if he might have been blowing
glass, doesn't it?"
Follansbee bent and took up a book. "Well, look at this," he said in
surprise. "Arbatel's _Treatise on Magic_."
"Yes," supplemented Tenny excitedly, "and see here--he's got a trident,
and incense, and oils--why, he dabbled in magic!"
"No doubt of it," assented Follansbee gravely.
He put the book down and examined the instruments on the bench. He
chuckled oddly to himself, held up a magical diagram made on a sheet of
stiff paper, and smiled at it with Tenny. Then he turned away, looked
once more about the room, and said, "If you brought the lunch kit,
we'll eat. The sun'll go down in about three-quarters of an hour, and
the moon'll be up shortly after. We might as well be ready."
"What's the procedure?"
"We sleep here--nice, comfortable double bed, as far as I can see,"
replied Follansbee.
Lunch eaten, the two investigators returned to the bedroom where they
were to sleep. The moon had already risen, so long had they sat in
the kitchen, but it was not yet throwing its light through the single
window to the south. Follansbee and Tenny sat talking for the better
part of an hour.
It was the older man who first noticed that the moonlight had reached
the counterpane of the bed. "There we are," he said. "Now for the
shadow."
They sat for a few minutes in silence, while the light of the moon
crept in a parallelogram across the counterpane. But there was no
shadow save the shadow of a tree, a few branches of which dipped into
the moonlight.
Presently Follansbee rose and went in some irritation over to the bed
and stood looking down at the patch of moonlight. "Batty as can be," he
murmured, obviously referring to Miss Harriet Sears.
Tenny, who had drifted to his side, said suddenly, "what a funny angle
those branches have!"
Follansbee bent abruptly closer. "As if they were coming from above,"
he murmured. "But look here--they're not just branches--they're like a
forest of little trees, and what odd spines for leaves!"
Suddenly he whirled to the window. "Oh, now I see," he said harshly.
"_There's no tree of any kind beyond the window!_"
"Nor anything to make that shadow," added Tenny.
They stood for a few moments scrutinizing the glass and looking through
it into the clearing outside. The line of trees to the south was too
far for any shadow to reach the house; the trees were shadowed in an
uneven line across the clearing below. Then they returned to the bed
and stood looking down at the counterpane.
"Well, there has to be some explanation," said Tenny.
Follansbee nodded. "But I don't get it," he said. Then he stopped
abruptly, staring down at the parallelogram of moonlight widening eyes.
Tenny followed the older man's startled gaze.
There, in the moonlight, was a tiny, moving shadow--a shadow only
slightly over two inches in height, moving with incredible rapidity,
yet achieving no distance in the parallelogram of moonlight--the figure
of a man!
Back and forth it ran within a space so small that it might have been
covered by the extended palm of a hand. The two men stared in growing
amazement. Then Follansbee turned to the window again. But there was
nothing there--nothing on the glass, nothing against the glass outside,
nothing flying against the moonlight in the sky.
He turned back to the bed. The shadow was still there. He bent, peering
intently. The incredible shadow was running wildly, this way and that,
its tiny arms outflung, its spindle-legs moving rapidly upon the
counterpane, a thing alive, yet without substance.
"Good God," muttered Tenny at last. "It's a man--it's a live man. But
where is he?"
"I don't know," Follansbee jerked out.
He stood for a few moments more, his fascination for the unbelievable
shadow holding him there; then he swung away and went over to the
work-bench, where he lit a lamp and began to thumb swiftly through a
group of the old books lying carelessly abandoned there.