Unobserved by all except Miss Cornelia, the mention of the detective's name had caused a strange reaction in the Unknown. His eyes had opened--he had started--the haze in his mind had seemed to clear away for a moment. Then, for some reason, his shoulders had slumped again and the look of apathy come back to his face. But, stunned or not, it now seemed possible that he was not quite as dazed as he appeared.
The Doctor gave the slumped shoulders a little shake.
"Rouse yourself, man!" he said. "What has happened to you?"
"I'm dazed!" said the Unknown thickly and slowly. "I can't remember." He passed a hand weakly over his forehead.
"What a night!" sighed Miss Cornelia, sinking into a chair. "Richard Fleming murdered in this house--and now--this!"
The Unknown shot her a stealthy glance from beneath lowered eyelids. But when she looked at him, his face was blank again.
"Why doesn't somebody ask his name?" queried Dale, and, "Where the devil is that detective?" muttered Beresford, almost in the same instant.
Neither question was answered, and Beresford, increasingly uneasy at the continued absence of Anderson, turned toward the hall.
The Doctor took Dale's suggestion.
"What's your name?"
Silence from the Unknown--and that blank stare of stupefaction.
"Look at his papers." It was Miss Cornelia's voice. The Doctor and Bailey searched the torn trouser pockets, the pockets of the muddied shirt, while the Unknown submitted passively, not seeming to care what happened to him. But search him as they would--it was in vain.
"Not a paper on him," said Jack Bailey at last, straightening up.
A crash of breaking glass from the head of the alcove stairs put a period to his sentence. All turned toward the stairs--or all except the Unknown, who, for a moment, half-rose in his chair, his eyes gleaming, his face alert, the mask of bewildered apathy gone from his face.
As they watched, a rigid little figure of horror backed slowly down the alcove stairs and into the room--Billy, the Japanese, his Oriental placidity disturbed at last, incomprehensible terror written in every line of his face.
"Billy!"
"Billy--what is it?"
The diminutive butler made a pitiful attempt at his usual grin.
"It--nothing," he gasped. The Unknown relapsed in his chair--again the dazed stranger from nowhere.
Beresford took the Japanese by the shoulders.
"Now see here!" he said sharply. "You've seen something! What was it!"
Billy trembled like a leaf.
"Ghost! Ghost!" he muttered frantically, his face working.
"He's concealing something. Look at him!" Miss Cornelia stared at her servant.
"No, no!" insisted Billy in an ague of fright. "No, no!"
But Miss Cornelia was sure of it.