escaping murderer, I made my way back to the front of the house and
thus to the stairs communicating with the upper floor.

It was on the rug lying at the foot of these stairs that I came upon
the first of a dozen or more burned matches which lay in a distinct
trail up the staircase and along the floors of the upper halls. As
these matches were all burned as short as fingers could hold them,
it was evident that they had been used to light the steps of some
one seeking refuge above, possibly in the very room where we had
seen the light which had first drawn us to this house. How then?
Should I proceed or await the coming of the "boys" before pushing
in upon a possible murderer? I decided to proceed, fascinated, I
think, by the nicety of the trail which lay before me.

But when, after a careful following in the steps of him who had so
lately preceded me, I came upon a tightly closed door at the end
of aside passage, I own that I stopped a moment before lifting hand
to it. So much may lie behind a tightly closed door! But my
hesitation, if hesitation it was, lasted but a moment. My natural
impatience and the promptings of my vanity overcame the dictates
of my judgment, and, reckless of consequences, perhaps disdainful
of them, I soon had the knob in my grasp. I gave a slight push to
the door and, on seeing a crack of light leap into life along the
jamb, pushed the door wider and wider till the whole room stood
revealed.

The instantaneous banging of a shutter in one of its windows proved
the room to be the very one which we had seen lighted from below.
Otherwise all was still; nor was I able to detect, in my first
hurried glance, any other token of human presence than a candle