For if Nadia, Sydney and Crawford, by a bare chance, were all innocent, who was left? Joel, himself,—and of course that mysterious Dorn. Why couldn’t they find Dorn? Talk about the ineffectiveness of the police! The one thing you’d think they might accomplish would be the finding of a human being who had had less than twelve hours’ start. Particularly if he was, as began to seem more than likely, hanging around Thorngate. If it wasn’t for this blasted fog he’d go hunting himself, even if it meant a hand-to-hand encounter. Anything was better than waiting for Dorn to move. What was that noise now—like a finger-nail on glass? A twig rubbed on the window by the wind? But there wasn’t a wind. Wind and fog don’t go hand in hand. The thing to do was to find Berry and get down to work. It was this terrible inactivity that was beginning to tell on his nerves.
He hated to leave Joel, even for a moment. Looking at her sad, white face as she lay there sleeping (she had fallen into a restless sleep) his heart ached for her. Forgive her her murder! He had scarcely thought of it since she had told him of it. He would protect her against the past as well as against the future. He prayed the future had nothing worse in store for her. He touched her hand.
“I _will_ come back soon this time, my darling,” he whispered.
Joel stirred, shifted. Her lips moved, though her eyes were closed. She whispered something, and Julian bent down quickly to listen.
“Violet Mowbray, that’s the name. You see I _did_ remember. Violet—Violet—Violet—” She trailed off into indistinguishable sounds.
Julian waited, hoping she might, while she was about this opportune sleep-talking, give away more important matters. But she didn’t speak again, and Julian, pleased as Punch anyway with what she had revealed, went off to find Berry.
Then, very suddenly, Joel woke up. She came wide, staring wide, awake. The library was dark. It hadn’t been dark when she fell asleep. _Something_ had waked her. Was it the snapping of the electric switch? Was it the closing of a door—the door must be shut for there wasn’t a glimmer of light? Was it the Presence by its mere presence? For there _was_ a Presence. As sure as death there was Someone in the room with her. She could almost, her nerves were so tense, so painfully sensitive, tell exactly at what spot the Someone was. Her nerves were like the antennæ of a beetle or the searchlight rays of a battleship, reaching out and feeling It somewhere between her and the terrace windows. She couldn’t move her eyeballs in that direction—not that she could have seen It if she had. But without hearing It she knew It moved, and without hearing It she knew It breathed. Her flesh experienced such a pain of terror that it stung even the inner membrane of her nostrils, like intense cold, and brought the tears of intense cold under her eyelids. If she could scream or move! But she was incapable of either. Except for the waves of fear that went over her in pain, her body was detached and subject to no sweating exertion of the will. Her brain alone was active, in a strangely shrunken but vivid way. Like a little cornered rodent, very small but very much alive, it tore quivering about in a tiny brightly lighted trap. It had static, feverish, stricken eyes and it ran up one side of its cage only to fall back and hysterically attempt the other. If something would mercifully happen—instantaneous death instead of waiting for it in a condemned cell.