"
Still rambling, Aunt Agatha, having fussed considerably over the
extraction of the key, halted in the hallway, appalled by the utter
loneliness of the darkened rooms. Beyond in the library a clock boomed
loudly through the quiet. Somewhere upstairs a dull, choking rasp
broke the soundless gloom. Aunt Agatha began to flutter nervously up
the stairway.
"It's Carl of course!" she murmured in a panic. "I just know it is.
I've never known him to even gurgle--much less snore in his sleep.
Like as not his windows are still boarded up and he's suffocating.
Only a Westfall would think of such a thing."
Puffing, Aunt Agatha halted at her nephew's door. That and the one
adjoining were locked. There was a den beyond. Making her way to a
door of which Hunch was ignorant. Aunt Agatha opened it and gasped.
Fully clothed, a man whose feet and hands were securely bound, lay
muttering upon the bed, his jargon incomprehensibly foreign.
"God deliver us from all Westfalls!" wept Aunt Agatha. "Carl's
kidnapped an immigrant!"
With unwavering determination in her round, aggrieved eyes, she swept
majestically to the bed and shook the sleeper severely.
"My good man," she demanded, "what do you mean by lying here on a lace
spread with your feet tied and your head scarred?"
Jokai of Vienna stirred and moaned.
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