290
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LUTHER TRANT
letters I brought you are almost entirely taken up with his adventures with the mysterous man. He wrote on typewriter, as you see"—she handed them over—"because on his travels he used to correspond regularly for some of the London syndicates."
"London?"
"Yes; the first Mrs. Axton took Howard to England with her when he was scarcely seven, immediately after she got her divorce. He grew up there and abroad. This is his first return to America. I have arranged those letters, Mr. Trant," she added as the psychologist was opening them for examination now, "in the order they came."
"I will read them that way then," Trant said, and he glanced over the contents of the first hastily; it was postmarked at Cairo, Egypt, some ten months before. He then re-read more carefully this part of it:
But a strange and startling incident has happened since my last letter to you, Miss Waldron, which bothers me considerably. We are, as you will see by the letter paper, at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo, but could not, after our usual custom, get communicating rooms. It was after midnight, and the million noises of this babel-town had finally died into a hot and breathless stillness. I had been writing letters, and when through I put out the lights to get rid of their heat, lighted instead the small night lamp I carry with me, and still partly dressed threw myself upon the bed, without, however, any idea of going to sleep before undressing. As I lay there I heard distinctly soft footsteps come down the corridor on which my room opens and stop apparently in front of the door. They were not, I judged, the footsteps of a European, for the walker was either barefooted or wore soft sandals. I turned my head toward the door, expecting a knock, but none followed. Neither did the door open,
