Our special attention was devoted to the room where Greaves had been found dead. It was substantially furnished, mid-Victorian in character. The lock on the door, which had been broken open, had been mended, and the window was fastened. Systematically we examined every article of furniture and the innocent-looking cupboard. The walls were substantial, but we did not subject them to tapping. I did not want to arouse the neighbors to the fact that No. 7 was not empty to-night. "We have a long vigil before us, Burroughs," I said. "What do you expect to discover, sir?" "I don't know, nothing most likely; but if anything does happen it is going to happen in this room. I am going to take up my position in this chair by the bed, and I want you to keep watch on the landing. If you hear any one about the house come in to me at once, but if you only hear me move don't come in unless I call. I shall not fasten the door, but I shall put it to. If in some way it is possible to find out that this room is occupied, I want to appear as if I were quite alone. Do you understand?" "Perfectly." I saw Burroughs settled in a chair on the landing; then I entered the room and closed the door without latching it, and there was a certain feeling down my spine, in spite of the knowledge that I had a comrade near at hand. It was quite beyond me how Quarles could undertake to stay there all alone. I could have done it had I been convinced that danger could only come from a material foe; it was the idea of the supernatural which beat me. I was not skeptic enough to be unmoved. I had determined to sit beside the bed; but remembering that Greaves had been found on the bed I first of all lay down for a minute or two. The bed was not made up, but the mattresses were there with blankets over them, and the hangings were in place. The key to the mystery might lie in some hidden mechanism in the bed. Then I settled myself in the chair beside the bed, my hand in my pocket on my revolver. This kind of waiting is always a trial. The silence, the bodily inactivity while the mind is strained to be keenly alert, have a sort of hypnotic influence. An untrained man will certainly fancy he hears and sees things, and even a trained man has to light hard against the desire to sleep. There comes a longing for something, anything, to happen. I think I got into a condition at last in which I should have welcomed a ghost. There was no church clock near to break the monotony with its striking; time seemed non-existent. Once I thought I heard Burroughs shift his position on the landing outside, and there presently came to me an uncontrollable desire to move. I stood up. Just to walk to the window and back would make all the difference. My journey across the room was noiseless, and, coming back, I stopped suddenly.