Bill planned to spend the intervening time in the comfortable alcove which formed a little lounge below the staircase in the hall. Here he could at once be aware of the slightest movement from any part of the house. And with the curtains drawn, he was shut off like a monk in his cell.
But instead of settling down to his book, he grew restless. Twice he got up and examined the shutters on that floor to make sure they were barred. Each time he went back to his curtained retreat, ashamed of himself. This house was giving him the creeps. For some reason, he could not tell why, his nerves were on edge.
As ten o’clock chimed faintly from the mantel timepiece, he thought he heard footsteps. He started up, reviling himself for his folly. The house was old, and it was only the stairs above him that creaked softly. With calm deliberation he brushed past the curtain into the hall, determined to pull himself together.
Standing at the foot of the staircase, a hand on the great oak balustrade, he could hear the quiet patter of a mouse behind the panelling. The tick of the little clock in the alcove, and the hiss and sigh of the wind without, were all that broke the silence of the night. No human being save himself seemed to be stirring for miles around.
Slowly, in stocking feet, he walked down the kitchen passage, paused, and slowly returned. Then he mounted the stairs. All was quiet above. An impulse took him up the narrow stairway to the third story, where he looked out a window at the end of the corridor. The night was dark and only a grayish glimmer marked the sea. The island was invisible. Up there, with the still house below him, he felt like an onlooker in some mysterious play where life and death were casual matters and any means were fair if they led to triumph.
But there was nothing to be gained by pursuing such thoughts—and far from being an onlooker, Bill was very much in the thick of it all. He descended, made another tour of the ground floor, and returned to the alcove. Feeling distinctly more cheerful, he ate a couple of cookies, took up his book and began to read. Perhaps five minutes later, he heard a gentle tap—
It was not imagination this time. Of that he was quite certain. Bill was perfectly calm. He had got over his bout of restlessness that had kept him on the jump. The only disturbing point about the sound was whether it came from within or without the house.