The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-04

need to come in through the window? l guess"
 'Please be quiet," low voice begged him. ''Be silent for one moment. Listen"
 MT. Cray listened, and it seemed to him that he heard the door close behind him. He turned The curtains were shaking as though sudden wind were blowing into the room.
 Then he felt fingers upon the pulses of his wrists, and immediately it seemed to him that they were beating as though they would break through his flesh-fingers upon his temples, and immediately the sense that sledge hammers were beating there, beating against the nerves of his life. His whole sense of being had become pandemonium.
 The roaring of furnace was in his ears. He felt himself sinking down and down into space, falling-lower and lower.
 MT. Cray opened his eyes. There were splashes of daylight in the sitting room, which made the electric lights look feeble and dim. On the lounge opposite, Major Hartopp was still reclining, although he had changed his dress coat for dressing gown and removed his collar. He welcomed MT. Cray's opening eyes with little sigh of relief.
 "Feeling the better for your nap?" he asked, glancing suggestiyely at the clock.
 My nap?' MT. Cray repeated vaguely.
 His host nodded and stifled yawn.
 .You dropped off like child" he said. q don't want to seem inhospitable, but think you had better wake up now. Your chauffeur has been in twice, and he doesn't seem in the best of tempers.
 MT. Cray looked at the extinct cigar which had apparently slipped from his fingers and lay upon the hearth-rug, and rose to his feet.
 "What happened to me in that room!" he demanded.
 (Which room?" his host asked.
 "The one at the end of the passage, where you and I and your wife went to- gether."
 Major Hartopp looked at his guest hard; then he smiled.
 "You've been dreaming" he observed.
 "You haven't left that easy-chair since you arrived, and you certainly haven't seen anything of my wife. She went straight to bed directly after we got home."
 Straight to bed?" MT. Cray repeated in a dazed tone. "You mean to tell me that she didn't come down here in a white dressng-g gown and still wearing mask, and talk about spooks who were clamoring for me in the room at the end of the passage?"
 Major Hartopp stifled yawn.
 "She most certainly did not" he de- clared little testify. "Youll forgive my hurrying you, old chap, won't you?" he went on, leading the way towards the door. "To tell you the truth, I'm dying to get to bed. If I'd had any idea that you were dreaming things, I'd have awakened you"
 "Dreaming" MT. Cray muttered.
 Sounds like some sort of nightmare" the other observed. "You seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, though, that hated to disturb you"
 MT. Cray felt suddenly for his pocket book. It was there in it's accustomed place, just as bulky and capacious as ever. Neither had the kit-bag, with it's discriminating gleam of scarlet, been removed.
 Mot your bag, is it?" Major Hartopp asked carelessly.
 q hadn't any grip at all," MT. Cray an- swered. 'Isn't it yours?"
 Major Hartopp shook his head.
 "Mine was practically empty All took in it was a couple of bottles of cham pagne. set it down on the steps of the Albert Hall while we were waiting and must have picked up this one by mistake. I'll send it back presently. love, isn't the air good?" he added, as he opened