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before she got between the sheets she had no notion of neatness and she herself was lying in her berth with her back towards me snoring like a grampus. I did not know when she had turned in, and it was perhaps not surprising that I had not disturbed her since she had certainly not disturbed me. I must have been pretty sound asleep about as sound asleep as she was. In spite of all the clatter I had made she snored placidly on.
I had asked her to bolt and lock the door when she came to bed, not fancying leaving it for anyone to come in who chose. A momentary glance showed that she had done nothing of the kind; anyone outside had only to turn the handle to walk straight in. I turned the key and shot the bolt, so that, should the visitor be minded to pay us another call, he might not find entry so easy the second time as the first.
I should have been driven to the conclusion that my imagination had played me a trick, though I do believe that I am the least imaginative person that ever was, and that no one and nothing had touched me except in dreams, had it not been that as I eyed my bedclothes in search of I knew not what, I saw something lying on the tumbled quilt. I gave a snatch at it. When I had it in my fingers I couldn't make out what it was.
Then it dawned on me that it was a tiny pair of tweezers attached to a silken thread.
CHAPTER XV
HUGH'S NOTE
THE next morning there was weather. When I woke up again I could not make out what had happened to my berth; one moment I seemed to be trying to stand on my feet and the next on my head. It was most surprising. Then there were various noises to which I was not accustomed, among them some singular sounds from below. It was several seconds before I understood that they were coming from Sadie Lawrence. She was making the most doleful din. I inquired over the edge of my berth if she was in pain.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked.
"Ring for the stewar
