"What is it?" he asked.

"Belle thinks she hears something in her room."

"It's in mine, now," called out Bess, whose apartment was beyond that
of her sister.

"Open the door, and I'll have a look," suggested Jack,
good-naturedly.

"Wait a minute," Cora said, and, slipping into a robe, she admitted
her brother.

"Now we'll see what's going on," he promised.

"Cover up your heads, girls," he called to Bess and Belle, as he and
Cora went into the room of the latter. "If it's a villain, you won't
get nervous when you see me squelch him."

"Oh!" faintly murmured Belle, as she pulled the covers over her head.
Jack groped for the electric switch and found it, making light
Belle's room.

"I don't see a thing," he announced, looking carefully about.

"It is in here!" said Bess, faintly. "I can hear it walking about.
It's rattling some papers in a corner of my room."

Jack and Cora went on through to the farther apartment, and Jack,