The pantries
opening out of this room were in no better case. Shrinking from the
sights and smells I found there, I passed out into the kitchen and
so on by a close and narrow passage to the negro quarters clustered
in the rear.
Here I made a discovery. One of the windows in this long disused
portion of the house was not only unlocked but partly open. But as
I came upon no marks showing that this outlet had been used by the
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.
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