"Nobody," Valentine replied. "You know the thing's impossible."
"Impossible or not, somebody has found means to get in."
Valentine shook his head.
"Then you were lying?"
"Julian, what are you saying? Don't go too far."
"Either you were, or else a man has been sitting at that table between
us, and I have held his hand, the hand of some stranger. Ouf!"
He shook his broad shoulders in an irrepressible shudder.
"I was not lying, Julian. I tell you so, and I mean it."
Valentine's eyes met Julian's, and Julian believed him.
"Put your hands on the table again," Julian said.
Valentine obeyed, and Julian laid his beside them, linking one of his
little fingers tightly in one of Valentine's, and at the same time
shutting his eyes. After a long pause he grew visibly whiter, and hastily
unlinked his finger.
"No, damn it, Val, I hadn't hold of your hand. The hand I touched was
much harder, and the finger was bigger, thicker. I say, this is ghastly."
Again he shook himself, and cast a searching glance upon the little room.
"Somebody has been in here with us, sitting between us in the dark," he
repeated. "Good God, who is it?"
Valentine looked doubtful, but uneasy too.
"Let us go through the rooms," he said.
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