“May I borrow your flashlight, Doctor? Now that fool detective is out of the way,” she continued some what acidly, “I want to do something.” The Doctor gave her his flashlight with a stare of bewilderment. She took it and moved into the alcove. “Doctor, I shall ask you to stand at the foot of the small staircase, facing up.” “Now?” queried the Doctor with some reluctance. “Now, please.” The Doctor slowly followed her into the alcove and took up the position she assigned him at the foot of the stairs. “Now, Dale,” said Miss Cornelia briskly, “when I give the word, you put out the lights here—and then tell me when I have reached the point on the staircase from which the flashlight seemed to come. All ready?” Two silent nods gave assent. Miss Cornelia left the room to seek the second floor by the main staircase and then slowly return by the alcove stairs, her flashlight poised, in her reconstruction of the events of the crime. At the foot of the alcove stairs the Doctor waited uneasily for her arrival. He glanced up the stairs—were those her footsteps now? He peered more closely into the darkness. An expression of surprise and apprehension came over his face. He glanced swiftly at Dale—was she watching him? No—she sat in her chair, musing. He turned back toward the stairs and made a frantic, insistent gesture—“Go back, go back!” it said, plainer than words, to—Something—in the darkness by the head of the stairs. Then his face relaxed, he gave a noiseless sigh of relief. Dale, rousing from her brown study, turned out the floor lamp by the table and went over to the main light switch, awaiting Miss Cornelia’s signal to plunge the room in darkness. The Doctor stole, another glance at her—had his gestures been observed?—apparently not. Unobserved by either, as both waited tensely for Miss Cornelia’s signal, a Hand stole through the broken pane of the shattered French window behind their backs and fumbled for the knob which unlocked the window-door. It found the catch—unlocked it—the window-door swung open, noiselessly—just enough to admit a crouching figure that cramped itself uncomfortably behind the settee which Dale and the Doctor had placed to barricade those very doors. When it had settled itself, unperceived, in its lurking place—the Hand stole out again—closed the window-door, relocked it. Hand or claw? Hand of man or woman or paw of beast? In the name of God—_whose hand?_ Miss Cornelia’s voice from the head of the stairs broke the silence. “All right! Put out the lights!” Dale pressed the switch. Heavy darkness. The sound of her own breathing. A mutter from the Doctor. Then, abruptly, a white, piercing shaft of light cut the darkness of the stairs—horribly reminiscent of that other light-shaft that had signaled Fleming’s doom. “Was it here?” Miss Cornelia’s voice came muffledly from the head of the stairs. Dale considered. “Come down a little,” she said. The white spot of light wavered, settled on the Doctor’s face.