Chapter 5

"What has frightened you?" inquired that meanest of men. "I was in my studio--and I must first explain to you that for weeks and weeks I--I have imagined I heard sounds--" She looked carefully around her; nothing animate was visible. "Sounds," she repeated, swallowing a little lump in her white throat, "like the faint squealing and squeaking and sniffing and scratching of--of live things. I asked the janitor, and he said the house was not very well built and that the beams and wainscoting were shrinking." "Did he s…