Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/224

196 the hall to the second floor of the south wing, aroused Iris, whom, as I said, she found so soundly asleep that she was awakened with difficulty. My mother and I have rooms in the north wing, Iris and Ulame in the south. Iris had heard nothing of the disturbance, and was amazed at their account of it. They were joined by the gardener, and the four who were able descended to the first floor together. The cook ran immediately to the front door, which, she found, remained closed and locked with its spring lock. The others went straight on into the south wing, where she at once followed them. They found the museum filled with an acrid haze of smoke, and the door of the study closed. They could still hear through the closed door the footsteps and movements of the woman in the study."

"But no more screams?" asked Trant.

"No, only footsteps, which were plainly audible to all four. You can imagine, Trant, that with three excited women and the gardener, who is not a courageous man, several moments were wasted in listening to these sounds and in discussion. Then the gardener pushed open the door. The glass front of the cabinet in which my papers were kept had been broken, and a charred mass, still smoking, in the center of the composition floor of the study was all that we could find of the papers which represented my father's and my own life work, Mr. Trant. The woman whose footsteps only the instant before had been heard in the study by Iris and the gardener besides the others, had completely disappeared, in spite of the fact that there was no possible place for a woman, or even a