“Only four days ago,” she murmured, and choked back a sob. Again she looked at Craig. He lay rigidly on his back, his eyes half closed, and she wondered if he could be asleep or unconscious. The only indication of life was the moving finger plucking always at the sheet drawn across his chest. Dorothy’s thoughts again reverted to Vera and Detective Mitchell. What was transpiring in the library? It was cruel to keep her in such suspense. In her extreme nervousness she drummed the pencil which she still held against the footboard of the bed, and her eyes resting still on Craig’s hand, she unconsciously beat time to his slow-moving finger. Painfully, laboriously the finger moved back a longer distance, then a shorter distance, then longer--and Dorothy’s pencil beat out each stroke: -- · -- · -- The tap of her pencil penetrated her absent-mindedness, and Dorothy stared at Craig--what had possessed her to spell out “KA,” the wireless “attention” call which precedes every transmission? Again her eyes traveled to Craig’s hand, and the moving finger in contrast to his motionless figure and expressionless face fascinated her. Again she spelled out the “attention” signal, her pencil tapping off each short or long movement of his finger. But this time the “KA” signal was followed by her initials, and the signal: · -- ···, “wait.” Dorothy, half doubting her senses, tapped off: -- · -- “K,” the official call to “go ahead.” Craig’s finger remained motionless for a longer period, then once again it spelled a message to her, and as she caught its full significance, she with difficulty checked a scream. With shaking fingers she tapped out the question: “Who murdered Bruce Brainard?” Breathlessly she waited for the response. Slowly, very slowly Craig’s finger checked off the answer, and Dorothy, her senses reeling, leaned far over the bed and looked into Craig’s eyes. They held the light of reason. With a choking sob she sank senseless to the floor. CHAPTER XXI BLIND MAN’S BUFF VERA glanced neither to the right nor to the left as she walked with firm steps toward the library, and thereby missed seeing a face peering at her from behind the folds of the portières which hung in front of the reception-room entrance. Her fixed resolve to get the interview with Detective Mitchell over and done with aided her in suppressing all sign of agitation, and her demeanor was calm and collected when she approached Mrs. Porter, who occupied her customary seat before the library table. Mitchell had planted himself at the opposite side of the table and spread several typewritten sheets before him. He did not rise on Vera’s entrance. Mrs. Porter, who sat with one eye on the door, was the first to address Vera. “Detective Mitchell desires to question you, Vera,” she said. “Sit here by me.” And she touched the girl reassuringly.