"No hysteria," I said firmly. "Every second may count. Tell me quickly what has happened." "Yes, sir," she said, bracing herself. "I've done as you told me--very faithful. I went this morning to get my orders from her. I don't say the voice that answered me weren't hers." "Well, would you say it was?" I asked savagely. "I think I would, sir," she replied. "It was strange and changed and soft. I could hardly hear it. She said she didn't require anything. So I came away." "And then--?" "And then I did as you told me. I went to her door often enough and listened. You told me not to call to her unless there wasn't any sound. But there was a sound--a dreadful sound after a body had listened to it a bit." "A sound?" "Yes, a scratching sound. Sometimes it would stop and then it would go on again. And all the time it seemed to me more than ever that she wasn't alone in that room." "Wasn't alone! What made you think so?" I exclaimed. "I couldn't just say," answered Margaret. "I've never been able to say. It's just a feeling--a strange and terrible feeling, sir, that somebody else is there. But the scratching sound I heard with my two ears. And you never heard so worrying a sound before!" "It has stopped?" I said. "Yes, it has stopped. It stopped just before I telephoned. I thought I heard something touch the door and I went up and listened. I couldn't hear anything. I knocked. I got no answer. I remembered your orders. I wasn't sure whether I could hear breathing or not inside, but I didn't dare to wait. I called your office, sir. And I thank God you're here!" "And you didn't break open the door? You didn't even try the knob?" She looked at me dumbly. Her mouth twitched with her terror. "I didn't dare. I've had courage for everything in this world, sir," she said. "But I didn't dare to open that door! I'm glad somebody else has come into this dreadful house!" "Which is the room?" I asked. "Come with me," she replied, beginning her climb of the broad stairs. Her feet made no noise on the soft carpeting; nor did mine. The whole house, indeed, seemed stuffy with motionless air, as if not even sound vibrations had disturbed the deathlike fixity of that interior. As we turned at the top toward the paneled white door, which I knew as by instinct was the one we sought, for the first time I became conscious of the faint ticking of a clock somewhere on the floor above us. "I've forgot to wind the rest," whispered the old servant, as if she had divined my thought. "They were driving me mad." I nodded to show her that now I, too, was beginning to feel the effect of the strange state of affairs which I had first sensed from the other side of the blue wall. "Leave me here," I said to her softly. "Go down to Mr. Estabrook. He is in the vestibule. He has a message for you from long ago."