This stairway ends above at the tent-shaped space between the roof and
the joists.
That space is dark and forbidding, and being useless is rarely visited.
Sharp opened this door and gazed for a moment up this narrow cobwebbed
stairway.
* * * * * *
After dark that night a man opened cautiously one of the lower windows
of the Land Office, crept out with great circumspection and disappeared
in the shadows.
* * * * * *
One afternoon, a week after this time, Sharp lingered behind again after
the clerks had left and the office closed. The next morning the first
comers noticed a broad mark in the dust on the upstairs floor, and the
same mark was observed below stairs near a window.
It appeared as if some heavy and rather bulky object had been dragged
along through the limestone dust. A memorandum book with "E. Harris"
written on the flyleaf was picked up on the stairs, but nothing
particular was thought of any of these signs.
Circulars and advertisements appeared for a long time in the papers
asking for information concerning Edward Harris, who left his mother's
home on a certain date and had never been heard of since.
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