Alas! there were many points of exit from this portion of the hall.  The drawing-room opened near; so did Mayor Packard’s study; then there was the kitchen with its various offices, ending as I knew in the cellar stairs.  Nearer I could see the door leading into the dining-room and, opening closer yet, the short side hall running down to what had once been the shallow vestibule of a small side entrance, but which, as I had noted many times in passing to and from the dining-room, was now used as a recess or alcove to hold a cabinet of Indian curios.  In which of these directions should I carry my inquiry?  All looked equally unpromising, unless it was Mayor Packard’s study, and that no one with the exception of Mr. Steele ever entered save by his invitation, not even his wife.  I could not hope to cross that threshold, nor did I greatly desire to invade the kitchen, especially while Nixon was there.  Should I have to wait till the mayor’s return for the cooperation my task certainly demanded?  It looked that way.  But before yielding to the discouragement following this thought, I glanced about me again and suddenly remembered, first the creaking board, which had once answered to the so-called spirit’s flight, and secondly the fact which common sense should have suggested before, that if my theory were true and the secret presence, whose coming and going I had been considering, had fled by some secret passage leading to the neighboring house, then by all laws of convenience and natural propriety that passage should open from the side facing the Quinlan domicile, and not from that holding Mayor Packard’s study and the remote drawing-room.

This considerably narrowed my field of inquiry, and made me immediately anxious to find that creaking board which promised to narrow it further yet.

Where should I seek it?  In these rear halls, of course, but I hated to be caught pacing them at this hour.  Nixon’s step had not roused it or I should have noticed it, for I was, in a way, listening for this very sound.  It was not in the direct path then from the front door to the kitchen.  Was it on one side or in the space about the dining-room door or where the transverse corridor met the main hall?  All these floors were covered in the old-fashioned way with carpet, which would seem to show that no new boards had been laid and that the creaking one should still be here.

I ventured to go as far as the transverse hall,—­I was at full liberty to enter the library.  But no result followed this experiment; my footsteps had never fallen more noiselessly.  Where could the board be?  In aimless uncertainty I stepped into the corridor and instantly a creak woke under my foot.  I had located the direction in which one of the so-called phantoms had fled.  It was down this transverse hall.