The Film of Fear

Duvall read it, then thrust it into his pocket.

"Did your daughter see it?" he asked.

"Yes. It had been delivered to her before I could prevent it."

"That is too bad. Was she much upset?"

"Yes. The thing is beginning to get on her nerves."

Duvall rose, and placed his tools in the kit.

"Please take me to your daughter's bedroom," he said. Mrs. Morton led the way.

The room was a fairly large one, situated in an ell at the rear of the building. Of its two windows, one, as has already been pointed out, overlooked the court between the apartment building and the house next door. The other faced toward the rear. Duvall placed his kit of tools upon the floor, and began an examination of the room. After a quick glance about, he turned to Mrs. Morton.

"Where was the letter found – the one that did not come through the mails?"

"Here." Mrs. Morton indicated a spot on the floor near the small enameled dressing table that stood against the east wall of the room. Its position was midway between the two windows. It was clear that whoever had entered the room might have done so through either of the windows; at least, the position in which the dressing table stood afforded no indication as to which one it might have been.

"Which of the two windows was open, when you found the letter?" Duvall asked.

Mrs. Morton indicated the one facing the court.

"This one," she said. "Not wide open. Perhaps six or eight inches."

"The other was not fastened, I suppose?"

"No. Ruth always keeps it raised during the night, but usually closes it while dressing."

Duvall went to the window, and opened it. It was well balanced and moved easily.

"Anyone coming up by way of the fire escape could, of course, have raised the window from the outside, and closed it again after leaving the room," he said, more to himself than to Mrs. Morton. Then he got out on the fire escape and made a careful examination of its surface.

"When was this ironwork painted?" he asked Mrs. Morton, through the window.

"About ten days ago."

"H – m." Duvall examined the newly painted iron surface with rather a blank expression. That anyone had walked upon it since it had received its newly applied coat was, he felt, out of the question. The paint was so new, so shiny, so yielding in its fresh glossiness that, even treading as lightly as he could, the marks of his shoes were plainly visible. He leaned over and pressed the palm of his hand upon the grated iron floor. The pressure of his hand was sufficient to dull the freshly painted surface. It seemed impossible that anyone, even in bare or stockinged feet, could have been upon the fire escape, without having left tell-tale marks upon it. He re-entered the room, and turned his attention to the other window.

Here the opportunities for entrance seemed even more unfavorable. The window was situated on the fourth floor. There was still another floor above, with a window similarly located. Anyone might, of course, have been lowered from this window above, to the sill of the one at which he now stood, and entered the room in that way. He examined with care the white woodwork of the window sill, also freshly painted. It showed no marks. This, of course, was not conclusive. He determined to investigate the occupants of the apartment on the top floor.

The wall of the brownstone dwelling house next door, which formed the east side of the narrow court, was of brick, covered with ivy. There were no windows in it whatever. Apparently it had once adjoined the wall of a similar house, where the apartment building now stood, and when the second house had been torn down to make way for the new building, the partition wall had remained as originally built, without windows.

Duvall examined this house next door with a great deal of interest. It was four stories high, with an attic, and rose to almost the same height as the fifth floor of the apartment house, owing, no doubt, to its ceilings being somewhat higher. In the sloping roof of the attic were three small dormer windows, facing the court, but the nearest one was perhaps twenty feet from the window of Ruth's room, in a horizontal direction, and some eight or ten feet above it. There was no way in which anyone could have passed from the attic window to that of Ruth's room, even supposing such a person to be an expert climber. Anyone lowered from this window by means of a rope would merely have found himself hanging against a bare brick wall, twenty feet from the window of the girl's room. Duvall, accompanied by Mrs. Morton, made his way back to the library.

"You feel quite certain about the cook?" he asked.

"Sarah?" Mrs. Morton smiled. "What do you think? You've seen her."

"She certainly appears to be above suspicion," Duvall replied. "But one can never be sure. Suppose you send her out on some errand. I should like to search her room."

Mrs. Morton left him for a few moments, and presently the old colored woman passed down the hall and left the apartment. Then Duvall, accompanied by Mrs. Morton, made a thorough examination of the woman's room.

His search disclosed nothing of interest, nor was a similar search of the room of Nora, the maid, productive of anything that could in any way connect her with the mysterious warnings. There remained only the occupants of the fifth floor apartment. Duvall requested Mrs. Morton to summon the janitor of the building, and explain to him, in a guarded way, that he wished to ask him certain questions.

The janitor proved to be a good-natured fellow, who seemed extremely anxious to please Mrs. Morton in every possible way. In answer to a question from the latter, he said that the apartment on the top floor was vacant, and had been vacant for nearly two months.

The family that had occupied it, he explained, had moved away, and had requested the management of the building to sublet it. This they had not yet succeeded in doing.

"May I go up and look it over?" Duvall asked.

"Sure you may," the janitor replied, and he and Duvall went to the elevator, leaving Mrs. Morton waiting in the library.

The apartment on the top floor had been newly done over, and smelt of fresh varnish and paint. The shiny floors had scarcely been walked upon, since they had been refinished. The air was close and warm, by reason of the tightly closed windows. Duvall proceeded at once to the room directly over Ruth's bedroom.

To his disappointment the two windows were not only closed and fastened, but so tightly stuck on account of the fresh paint that it required the combined efforts of the janitor and himself to open them. That they had been opened, since the painting had been done, some ten days before, was clearly out of the question. Duvall made up his mind at once that however the person who had placed the mysterious message in Ruth's room had effected his or her entrance, it had not been by way of the apartment on the top floor.

Somewhat disappointed, he went to the floor below, and thanking the janitor for his kindness, rejoined Mrs. Morton.

"What have you discovered, Mr. Duvall?" the latter asked, eagerly.

"Nothing, so far. I confess the thing is somewhat of a puzzle."

"Someone must have been in Ruth's room."

"Not necessarily."

"But – why not?"

"You will remember that you found the letter on the floor. That would seem to me to indicate rather the opposite. If anyone had actually been in the room, they would have been far more apt to place the message on the dressing table. That it was found upon the floor indicates to my mind that it was in some way inserted – thrown, perhaps – through the window from without." He took the letter in question from his pocket, and sitting down, gazed intently at the surface of the envelope. Presently he passed it over to Mrs. Morton. "What do you make of that?" he said, indicating with his finger a curious row of indentations, extending in a semi-circular line about midway of one of the longer edges of the envelope.

The marks were very faint, but by turning the letter about in the light, Mrs. Morton at last managed to make them out. What they were, how they had been placed there Duvall could not say. Yet their presence indicated something of value, of that he felt sure.

"I don't understand them at all," Mrs. Morton replied, returning the letter to him. "It looks as though someone had held the letter in a – a pair of pincers."

The suggestion conveyed by her words interested Duvall greatly. The same thought had been forming in his own mind.

He rose to his feet, his eyes shining with interest. Why could not such a pair of pincers or forceps have been attached to a long pole, such as a fishing rod, and the letter in this way pushed through the window and released by pulling on a cord attached to one of the forceps' handles? The thing was perfectly practical, except for the fact that there seemed no place from which such a pole or rod might have been extended. He gazed out of the library window, across the court to the row of dormer windows in the house opposite. The distance from the nearest of them, to Ruth's window was, as he had before observed, at least twenty feet horizontally, or some twenty-three feet on the diagonal. Then there was the distance from the window to the dressing table, at least eight feet more, to be added, making necessary a rod over thirty feet long. And he saw at a glance that even could a rod of this length be secured and handled, the angle made by a line from the dormer window through Ruth's window was such that the end of the rod or pole would strike the floor only a few feet beyond the windowsill, and in no possible way could its further end be elevated sufficiently to deposit the letter in front of the dressing table. The thing was manifestly out of the question, even had the window of the girl's room been wide open. And Mrs. Morton had assured him with the greatest positiveness that it had been open, at the time the letter was found, but a few inches. He returned the letters to his pocket and rose.

"The thing is astonishing – remarkable," he said to Mrs. Morton, who was regarding him intently. "I confess that so far I am quite in the dark. I feel sure that whoever entered the room, or left the message, must have done so by means of the fire-escape, and yet, how was it possible, without marks having been left upon the paint? I think I shall make another and even more careful examination, in the hope that some slight clues may have escaped me." He once more made his way toward the girl's room, followed by Mrs. Morton.

The room was precisely as they had left it. The window facing to the rear was wide open, Duvall having omitted to close it after his examination of the fire escape. The window fronting on the court was raised perhaps six inches. And yet, to the utter amazement of them both, there lay on the floor of the room, near its center, a square white envelope, addressed in typewriting to Ruth Morton.

Duvall sprang forward and seized it with an exclamation of astonishment. It bore the same seal, in the same black wax, and upon it was the same semi-circular row of indentations. He tore the letter open. Its typewritten message was brief but significant. "Only twenty-seven days more," it read. The grinning death's head seal seemed to Duvall's astonished eyes even more terrifying than before.

With a bound he reached the rear window, and swung himself upon the fire escape. There was no one in sight. The gray surface of the ironwork showed not the slightest scratch, save those made by his own heels earlier in the day. The steps of the ladder leading up to the next floor were glistening, immaculate. Those of the one to the floor below were equally so. He re-entered the room, and going to the opposite window, threw it wide open. The three dormer windows of the adjoining house were gray, dusty, as though they had not been opened for years. He turned to his companion with a look of amazement.

"In all my experience, Mrs. Morton," he said, "I do not think that I have ever encountered anything quite so astonishing. That letter must have been placed there while I was in the apartment above. Your cook, your maid, are out. Certainly you did not place it there yourself. And yet we know that someone has been in this room, or at least delivered the letter, during the past fifteen minutes. Had I not found it here myself, I should have been almost tempted to disbelieve it, but I am forced to admit its truth."

Mrs. Morton stood wringing her hands.

"It – it seems almost supernatural," she exclaimed. "Poor Ruth. What are we to do?"

"There is nothing supernatural about the matter, madam," Duvall remarked. "I don't doubt the explanation is simple enough, could we but hit upon it. But so far I confess I am unable to understand it." He went over to the wall which adjoined that of the house next door, and sounded it, inch by inch, with a small hammer he took from his bag of tools. The operation required several minutes. When he had completed it, he tossed the hammer back into his kit in disgust. "Brick, of course," he said, "and perfectly solid." He turned toward the door. "What are you going to do now?" Mrs. Morton asked.

"Try to find out something through this telegram. And also, investigate the house next door."

"But, you will come back? I am afraid."

"I shall be at your call at all times, Mrs. Morton. If anything of interest occurs, notify me here." He drew a card from his pocket and wrote upon it the name of his hotel. "Say nothing to your daughter about these new threats. I shall probably see you again later in the day." Shouldering his kit of tools, Duvall left the apartment. He was by no means satisfied with the results of his visit. In fact there had apparently been no results at all.