“Here, too,” grunted Allyne, with a nervous shrug of his shoulders. “What a creepy, deuced idiotic thing to bring us up here tonight! The house feels like a tomb! By George, I wouldn’t stop here alone for the world. Did you see that man across the way when we came in? He watched us as if we were a gang of coiners. Lord! If they were to— What was that?” Travers, also, had heard the noise, whatever it was, and both men turned nervously toward the door and listened. It was repeated, but faintly. “It sounded like footsteps on the floor above,” said Travers. “But Fair said there is nobody in the house,” answered Allyne, adding, with a return of his usual spirits: “I say, Travers, just run upstairs and have a look round, will you, that’s a good fellow?” “You go,” replied Travers, smiling, but more in earnest than he would have cared to admit. “You are younger than I, and—but here’s Fair.” Fair came in, carrying a tray on which were a number of decanters and glasses, which he placed on the table before he saw with surprise that the others were evidently acting under a strain of some sort. “I say, old man, were you upstairs a moment ago?” asked Travers, with a disquietingly anxious look. “Upstairs?” asked Fair, with growing uneasiness. “Why, no. I was below—ever since I left you. Why?” “Nothing,” answered Travers, trying to throw a careless tone into his words. “Allyne thought he heard—There it is again!” All three had heard it this time—and all belied with their eyes the smile which they forced to their lips. “Wind in the chimney,” muttered Fair, disavowing all belief in his own words by going, not to the fireplace, but to the door to listen. “There is nobody in the house, anyway,” he added, still listening at the door. “It sounded like bare feet—Ugh—give us a drop of brandy,” growled Allyne, pretending to more alarm than he really felt. Fair returned to the table after closing the door into the passage, and pouring a stiff drink for each of them, said, with a laugh: “Here you go. That will hearten you up a bit, Allyne. Why, you look as though you expected to see a ghost. Never fear, old chap. Something much more substantial than spirits is at the bottom of this cheerful occasion.” “There was a beastly sly fellow over the way when we came in,” said Allyne as he sat on the end of the table to drink. “Why the deuce did he watch us like that?” “He probably wants me,” answered Fair seriously, “although he does not yet know that it is I he wants. We can ask him to escort me to jail as we go out of the house presently.” Travers put down his glass with a bang, spilling the liquor, jumped up and swung around at Fair, thoroughly disgusted and exasperated. “Really, Fair,” he began, “I’ve had about enough of this. Aren’t you pressing your little joke a bit too far? I was just saying to Allyne that I would give you half an hour. At the end of that time I——”