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The Leavenworth Case

mention, but it was unusual, and I could not help thinking of it when you spoke."

"What was it?"

"Only a door half open."

"Whose door?"

"Miss Eleanore Leavenworth’s." His voice was almost a whisper now.

"Where were you when you observed this fact?"

"I cannot say exactly. Probably at my own door, as I did not stop on the way. If this frightful occurrence had not taken place I should never have thought of it again."

"When you went into your room did you close your door?"

"I did, sir."

"How soon did you retire?"

"Immediately."

"Did you hear nothing before you fell asleep?"

Again that indefinable hesitation.

"Barely nothing."

"Not a footstep in the hall?"

"I might have heard a footstep."

"Did you?"

"I cannot swear I did."

"Do you think you did?"

"Yes, I think I did. To tell the whole: I remember hearing, just as I was falling into a doze, a rustle and a footstep in the hall; but it made no impression upon me, and I dropped asleep."

"Well?"

"Some time later I woke, woke suddenly, as if something had startled me, but what, a noise or move, I cannot say. I remember rising up in my bed and looking around, but hearing nothing further, soon