"Were the orders received by mail, as in the other cases?"
"Did you get any of the original papers? And have you preserved them?"
"No, I didn't preserve them," said Dr. Underwood. "You see, the disturbance was only a sporadic one. It stopped, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. I didn't realize that Leslie had stored so many of the details in her memory. I think she attaches too much importance to them."
"I am not at all sure that she does," said Burton promptly. "They certainly constitute a curious series of incidents. Was there anything more, Miss Underwood?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. One morning we could not get out of the house. During the night, every door and every window had been barred across from the outside. Strips of board had been fastened across all of them with screws so there had been no noise that would waken us. On the front door was a piece of paper, and written on it in big letters was 'This is a prison.' Henry found it when he came home,--he had been spending the night with a friend,--and tore it down, and unscrewed the bars on the front door and let us out of our prison."
"You could have got down all right from the second story by the big oak on the east side," said Henry. It was the first time he had contributed anything to the recital, and he spoke now in an impatient tone, as though the whole conversation bored him.
"Has it occurred to you," asked Burton thoughtfully, "that all these incidents bear the same marks of freakishness and mischief rather than of venomous malice? They are like the tricks a schoolboy might play to get even with some one he had a grudge against. They are not like the revenge a man would take for a real injury or a deep-felt grievance."
He glanced up at Dr. Underwood as he spoke, and caught the tail end of a scrutinizing look which that careless gentleman was just withdrawing from Henry's unconscious face. The furtive watchfulness of that look was wholly at variance with the offhand tone in which he answered Burton.
"I have not the slightest doubt you are right about that. It was mere foolishness on the part of some ignorant person, who wanted to do something irritating, and probably enjoyed the feeling that he was keeping us all agog over his tomfoolery."
