"Why, I hadn't got the trunk just right on me shoulders, and I stopped a second to shift it over. By the time I'd got it good, she'd come into the hall from the front end, and she didn't waste no time getting the door open for me. She seemed in an awful hurry and excited like. She went on down the stairs a few steps to be out of the way of me'n the trunk, and then she stopped on a sudden, and says, 'Oh, I didn't think! You can't shut the door, can you?' And me bein' proud of me strength, says, 'Sure I can,' and I backs around sidewise and starts to shut the door, and darned if there wasn't a long trail of some kind of a lady's white silk dingbat caught onto the bottom of the trunk and been draggin' after me all the way down the hall, like a cat's tail." Peter, hearing Morris draw in a sharp breath, cast a warning glance in his direction. The cabman, unobserving, went on-- "I thought I was going to have to get the lady back to pull it off and shut the door, but I give it a back kick and it landed free, and I shut the door by my own self. The lady was standin' part way down the stairs, awful impatient to be off (I guess, maybe, she was late for her train), and she looks back and says, 'Try the door, if you will, please, and see that it's fast.' So I did, and I guess that's about all, except that I took her and the trunk to the Penn. Station, and that's the last I seen of her." "The Penn. Station. Good-night!" muttered Peter, disgustedly. "You can go anywhere in the country, almost, from the Penn. Station." Then, after an instant's thought, he said aloud: "That was funny, what you said about the white silk thing following you along the hall like a cat's tail, Bill. Where do you suppose you picked the thing up?" "Must have come from the storeroom where the trunk was," said Bill, readily. "Otherwise I'd 'a' seen it before I got to the door, if it'd been layin' on the floor of the hall, I mean. Must have been behind the trunk, too, down in the corner, where it was dark." "Are you sure it fell entirely inside the door when you kicked it loose?" asked Peter. "Try to remember, Bill. I have a particular reason for wanting to know." The man looked at him curiously, but replied at once-- "Why, it must have, I should think, but I can't be exactly sure. To tell you the truth," with a note of apology, "I didn't care so much where it went, s'long as it didn't trail along and make me ridiculous, and I didn't look so very careful. The trunk was bearin' down on me shoulders, and the lady was in a hurry." "Yes," said Peter, absently, thoughtfully, and added, "How far down the stairs was the lady when you shut the door, Bill? Two or three steps, or more? Was she far enough up, I mean, to see the scarf drop?" "No, she wasn't. I'm sure." This time the driver answered with certainty: "She was half way down the first flight anyway, and me just able to see her head over the rail." "H'm--yes," said Peter, slowly. "Yes."