Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/134



stirred restlessly in his sleep and groaned once or twice, as a restless sleeper sometimes will. He opened his eyes and stared at the blackness of the room, listening with all his faculties, for some reason, straining his eardrums and his eyes to the fullest extent. He had a feeling that all was not well.

The house was silent as the grave; there was absolutely nothing stirring, but Eddie had an oppressed feeling—a feeling that something had gone on there while he was asleep. He had known such a feeling in the trenches—the sensation that something was due to happen, and generally it did happen, a midnight raid or a sudden air attack that was not written into the program. That was the sensation he had now, and he gave way to it by arising softly and opening his door quietly to peer out into the dim light of the hall at the end of which was the closed door of his master’s bedroom.

A draft breezed along the hall and made him uncomfortable in his thin pajamas. A window was open!

He contracted his brows. Of course there were windows open in the apartment, but none that should cause this draft, no matter how windy it was outside. The inference was plain; somebody had opened a window that was not generally open, and his mind traveled Rh