Any certainty will be better than the possibilities I shall be conjuring
up for myself."
He looked at me wearily, and then drawing his hand across his eyes, as
if trying to clear his vision, he answered, with an uneasy laugh:
"It was nonsense, of course. I did not think I was so imaginative, but I
declare I fancied I saw, looking through the windows of that now utterly
dark room, a man lying dead on the floor."
"Did you hear a door shut?" I inquired.
"Distinctly," he answered; "and what is more, I saw a shadow flitting
through the other door leading out of the library, which we found, if
you remember, bolted on the inside."
"And what inference do you draw from all this?"
"Either that some one is, in a to me unintelligible way, playing a very
clever game at River Hall, or else that I am mad."
"You are no more mad than other people who have lived in this house,"
I answered.
"I don't know how you have done it, Patterson," he went on, unheeding my
remark. "I don't, upon my soul, know how you managed to stay on here. It
would have driven many a fellow out of his mind. I do not like leaving
you. I wish I had told my landlady I should not be back. I will, after
this time; but to-night I am afraid some patient may be wanting me.
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