Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/223

Rh could be sure it was the voice of a stranger?" Trant pressed with greater precision.

"Yes. My mother has been confined to her room so much that her ability to tell a person's identity by the sound of the voice or footsteps has been immensely developed. There could be no better evidence than hers that this was a strange voice and that it was in the south wing. She thought at first that it was the voice of a frightened child. Two or three loud screams were uttered by the same voice, and were repeated at intervals during all that followed. There was noise of thumping or pounding, which I believe to have been occasioned in opening the study door. Then, after a brief interval, came the noise of breaking glass, and, at the end of another short interval, a smell of burning."

"The screams continued?"

"At intervals, as I have said. My mother, when the screams first reached her, hobbled to the electric bell which communicates from her room to the servants' quarters and rang it excitedly. But it was several minutes before her ringing brought the cook up the back stairs."

"But the screams were still going on?"

"Yes. Then they were joined in the upper hall by Ulame."

"They still heard screams?"

"Yes; the three women crouched at the head of the stairs listening to them. Then Ulame ran to the rear window and called the gardener, who had almost finished sweeping the rear walks; and the cook,