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“What has he got to do with it?”

“More than is decent,” ejaculated Parton. “More than is decent. He has just been peering in through that window there, and he means no good.”

“Why, you’re mad,” I remonstrated. “He couldn’t peer in at the window–we are on the fourth floor, and there is no possible way in which he could reach the window, much less peer in at it.”

“Nevertheless,” insisted Parton, “Carleton Barker for ten minutes previous to your waking was peering in at me through that window there, and in his glance was that same malignant, hateful quality that so set me against him to-day–and another thing, Bob,” added Parton, stopping his nervous walk for a moment and shaking his finger impressively at me–“another thing which I did not tell you before because I thought it would fill you with that same awful dread that has come to me since meeting Barker–the blood from that man’s arm, the blood that stained his shirt-sleeve crimson, that besmeared his clothes, spurted out upon my cuff and coat-sleeve when I strove to stanch its flow!”

“Yes, I remember that,” said I.

“And now look at my cuff and sleeve!” whispered Parton, his face grown white.

I looked.

There was no stain of any sort whatsoever upon either!

Certainly there must have been something wrong about Carleton Barker.

II

The mystery of Carleton Barker was by no means lessened when next morning it was found that his room not only was empty, but that, as far as one could judge from the aspect of things therein, it had not been occupied at all. Furthermore, our chance acquaintance had vanished, leaving no more trace of his whereabouts than if he had never existed.

“Good riddance,” said Parton. “I am afraid he and I would have come to blows sooner or later, because the mere thought of him was beginning to inspire me with a desire to thrash him. I’m sure he deserves a trouncing, whoever he is.”

I, too, was glad the fellow had passed out of our ken, but not for the reason advanced by Parton. Since the discovery of the stainless cuff, where marks of blood ought by nature to have been, I goose -fleshed at the mention of his name. There was something so inexpressibly uncanny about a creature having a fluid of that sort in his veins. In fact, so unpleasantly was I impressed by that episode that I was unwilling even to join in a search for the mysteriously missing Barker, and by common consent Parton and I dropped him entirely as a subject for conversation.

We spent the balance of our week at Keswick, using it as our head -quarters for little trips about the surrounding country, which is most charmingly adapted to the wants of those inclined to pedestrianism, and on Sunday evening began preparations for our departure, discarding our knickerbockers and resuming the habiliments of urban life, intending on Monday morning to run up to Edinburgh, there to while away a few days before starting for a short trip through the Trossachs.

While engaged in packing our portmanteaux there came a sharp knock at the door, and upon opening it I found upon the hall floor an envelope addressed to myself. There was no one anywhere in the hall, and, so quickly had I opened the door after the knock, that fact mystified me. It would hardly have been possible for any person, however nimble of foot, to have passed out of sight in the period which had elapsed between the summons and my response.

“What is it?” asked Parton, observing that I was slightly agitated.

“Nothing,” I said, desirous of concealing from him the matter that bothered me, lest I should be laughed at for my pains. “Nothing, except a letter for me.”

“Not by post, is it?” he queried; to which he added, “Can’t be. There is no mail here to-day. Some friend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying, in a somewhat feminine fashion, to solve the authorship of the letter before opening it by staring at the superscription. “I don’t recognize the handwriting at all.”