"Nor can I," said Duvall. "At one time, because of certain indentations on the letters found in this room, I had thought that they might have been introduced through the partly opened window by means of a long rod, a fishing pole, perhaps. This mark on the counterpane appears to bear out that theory. The smudges which look like finger prints may have been merely the points at which the end of the pole, or whatever was attached to the end of the pole, came in contact with the bed. All that is perfectly supposable. But you can see for yourself that if a long pole were thrust through the window, raised as the latter was but a trifle above the level of the bed, the other end of such a pole must of necessity have been held at approximately the same level, and the only point outside the window from which it could have been so held is _in the air, forty feet above the bottom of the court_! The thing is absurd." "There is, of course, the window of the apartment below," Baker suggested. "Might not it have been used?" "I thought of that," Duvall replied. "You can see for yourself that even a tall man standing on the window sill below, would find not only his hands, but even his head, far below the sill of this window, nor could anyone so support themselves, without something to hold on to. But all that is beside the question. The people in the apartment below are friends of Mrs. Morton's, a middle-aged man and his wife, with two young children. They are eminently respectable people, and quite above suspicion." "Then I give the thing up," exclaimed Baker. "Suppose we have a talk with Miss Morton." They found the girl lying on a couch in the library, with her mother sitting beside her. She seemed very weak and quiet, but in full possession of her faculties. Duvall drew up a chair, and asked her if she felt able to tell them what had occurred. "Yes," she replied in a faint voice, her face still showing evidences of her fright. "I will try to tell you exactly what happened." "I had taken some medicine to make me sleep, before I got into bed, because I was very nervous and upset. When mother came back to fix the windows I was already drowsy, and just remember that she turned out the lights, and then I must have dozed. "All of a sudden I heard a strange rasping noise, and I woke up, with the feeling that there was someone in the room. I don't know just why I felt so sure of that, whether it was merely a sense of someone's presence, or the sound of someone moving about near my bed. I think, however, that it was the latter. "The room was dark, of course, but enough light came through the windows to make a moving object distinguishable. I looked about, terribly frightened, but for a moment I saw nothing. The noise I had heard at first continued. Then without the least warning, a hand seemed to clutch at the bedclothes, and I saw above me, bending over me, a terrible dark face, exactly like the grinning death's head on those letters I've been getting.