At that very instant, outdoors on the front porch, Mr. Caduggan and Joe Baskerville, after a mighty effort and some strong language, managed to force the great front door to open at last. It swung in heavily, rustily, with a slow reluctant groan, and as it gave way, the March wind entered, blew in a current through the hall and the dining room, finally reached the pantry, and firmly slammed the dumb-waiter door. Total blackness in the shaft. The giggles stopped abruptly. "_Hey!_" yelled Davey. "Ma-a-a!" yelled Foster. "_Daddy!_" They called and called, but no one heard them. After a while, because it seemed the only thing to do, they began to cry. * * * * * Portia, coming upstairs to refresh herself with a look at her beloved round room, heard most curious noises: a keening and wailing and then some thumps. But where were they coming from? Where in the world? She listened a moment, then hurried into her parents' room: the big one that had belonged to Mrs. Brace-Gideon herself. But the room was empty. Empty of people, that is. Otherwise, it was occupied by large furniture, large mirrors, and on the wall opposite the door a large square oil painting of a motherly-looking barefoot lady wearing a Grecian robe and balancing a sort of pitcher on her shoulder. In the background, above an arrangement of sheep and ruins, fat pink sunset clouds swam in a school. "Ma-a-a! Boo-hoo!" came the wail, directly it seemed, from the picture itself or from the wall behind it. Portia felt her scalp creep and, turning, ran from the room, through the hall, and down the stairs, calling in her turn. "Mother! Daddy! Mother! Daddy!" Oh, I don't want it to be a ghost, she thought. Oh, I don't want our lovely house to be haunted! Her mother, holding a ruler and a pair of pliers, emerged from the drawing room. Her father, holding a monkey wrench and a can of machine oil, came bounding up from the cellar stairs. "What is it, Portia?" "Upstairs, upstairs--oh, I hope it isn't a ghost--somebody's crying in the wall!" "_What?_" "Listen! Just listen!" With their faces turned toward the ceiling they listened. Faintly they heard the wailing. "That's not a ghost; that's Foster!" declared Mrs. Blake, running for the stairs. Her husband and daughter were close behind. "In your room," Portia directed, and when they entered it, her father and mother were as puzzled as she had been. "But there's nobody.... _Foster!_" called Mrs. Blake. "Where are you, darling? Can you hear me?" "We--we're in here. In the elevator thing," gulped Foster's voice, right behind the sheep-lady's picture. "Oho!" said Mr. Blake, with the tone of one who is inspired. He leaped across the room to the picture and ran his fingers along the heavy gilt frame. "Fake!" he exclaimed. "I thought so! It's not a picture hanging on a wall; it's a door!"