CHAPTER IX


_The Judge Leaves His House_


Mrs. Flora Carwell was going up the great staircase with a posset for
the Judge in a china bowl, on a little silver tray.

Across the top of the well-staircase there runs a massive oak rail; and,
raising her eyes accidentally, she saw an extremely odd-looking
stranger, slim and long, leaning carelessly over with a pipe between his
finger and thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all to droop downward into
extraordinary length, as he leant his odd peering face over the
banister. In his other hand he held a coil of rope, one end of which
escaped from under his elbow and hung over the rail.

Mrs. Carwell, who had no suspicion at the moment, that he was not a real
person, and fancied that he was some one employed in cording the Judge's
luggage, called to know what he was doing there.

Instead of answering, he turned about, and walked across the lobby, at
about the same leisurely pace at which she was ascending, and entered a
room, into which she followed him. It was an uncarpeted and unfurnished
chamber. An open trunk lay upon the floor empty, and beside it the coil
of rope; but except herself there her. Perhaps, when she was able to
think it over, it was a relief to was no one in the room.