“Hours. He was walking funny, sort of dragging his leg, you know? He was putting both feet on each step as he came up. I thought of getting up and asking him if something was wrong, but he’s been acting so weird lately I thought I’d better leave him alone.”

“How did you know it was Duff and not someone else?”

“Who else could it have been? You or Stephanie wouldn’t have made such a racket, and Dad doesn’t come upstairs. Also the person went into Duff’s room, so it had to be Duff.”

After a while I said, “Franny, there’s a key to the door of this room, isn’t there?”

“Yes, it’s on the dresser.”

“All right, from now on, the last one of us to come to bed will lock the door.”

She sat up. “But why, Mama?”

“There are prowlers in this area. Someone told me today.”

“But if we just lock our outside doors—”

“We’ll do that too, but in addition I think it’s a good idea to lock the bedroom door.”

“Daddy too, and Stephanie?”

“We can suggest that they do it.”

“And what about Duff? You’ll have a hard time convincing him to lock his door.”

“We can tell him we’re doing it. Maybe that will cause him to follow suit.”

There was silence for a moment and then Franny asked, “Mama, should I get out of bed and and lock the door now?”

“No, we’ll let it go for tonight.”

He’s asleep now, I thought, and likely to stay that way until daylight. But who was it asleep in that bed? Was it Duff speaking like the man or—a really wild thought—the man looking like Duff?

I stayed awake until daylight and then (moments later, it seemed) the alarm went off. While Franny was getting ready for school, I went to Duff’s door and knocked. He answered in his normal voice, saying that he was getting up and would be down for breakfast shortly.

But he didn’t join us for breakfast. Stephanie didn’t either, which was strange because she was usually up and around before any of the rest of us. Her bedroom door was still closed, however, so I assumed she had come in after three o’clock when I checked the room.

After a few minutes of waiting for Duff, I went upstairs to look for him. He wasn’t in his room and he wasn’t in the storeroom either. I assumed he had gone downstairs and out the front door, without any of us seeing him from the dining room. It was unpardonable behavior to leave the house without saying anything to us, but, to tell the truth, I wasn’t anxious to confront him that morning anyway.