The sound ceased on the instant as its cause passed through some hole in the panelling, and Stratton uttered a low gasping sigh, and caught hold of Guest’s arm with a grip which felt as if it was the grasp of a skeleton.

“Are you faint?” whispered the young barrister. “Let me take you back to your room.”

“If the gentleman feels queer, sir, he’d better not go on with it,” said the sergeant, also in a low voice, as if impressed by the place. “He isn’t used to it; we are.”

“Yes,” said the workman. “Not our first case, eh, pardner?”

But even he spoke below his breath.

“No, I’ll stay,” said Stratton more firmly. “I have been ill, officer, and it has left me weak.”

“Then don’t try it, sir. You can leave it to us.”

“Go on,” said Stratton, after drawing a long, gasping breath; “I am quite right now.”

“Spoken like an Englishman, sir,” said the sergeant. “Party’s likeness, gents?” he said, as the light shone full on the oil-painting across the room; the face of the grey, benevolent-looking man seeming to gaze at them reproachfully.

“Yes, my old friend’s portrait,” said Stratton, with a sigh.

“Better let me go first, sir,” said the sergeant, pressing before Stratton, who was about to enter, but he was too late. Stratton took a step forward, caught his foot against something, and nearly fell headlong into the room.

“Mind my tools, please,” growled the workman, stooping to pick up his bag, which had lain in the darkness of the opening; and then all stepped cautiously into the well-furnished room, which was, in almost every respect, a repetition of Stratton’s, only reversed, and a good deal encumbered with large, open cases full of bulky folios, containing series of pressed and dried plants. These hid a great deal of the panelling and carving, save on the right, where, on either side of the beautiful old fireplace, were two low doors, formerly the entrances to the passages which connected the room with Stratton’s when they were part of a suite.

Away to the left was another door, matching those by the fireplace—that leading into the botanist’s bed-chamber; and wherever a space was left on the panelling, there was a portrait, in an old tarnished gilt frame, of some ancestor, each—dimly seen though it was—as the sergeant made the light play round the walls—bearing a striking resemblance to that which faced them.

“Looks as if he was watching us,” said the workman huskily; and he placed a piece of tobacco in his mouth, making Guest start as he closed the brass box from which he had extracted it with a loud snap.

“Yes,” said the sergeant, in a whisper, as if to himself, and he made the light of his bull’s-eye play from easy-chair to couch, and then all about the floor; “I always wondered how they managed them eyes.”

Everything looked in order, with one exception. The thick Turkey carpet and heavy rug were exactly as they had been laid; the fireplace showed the coal, wood, and paper neatly laid; and the chairs were all duly ranged in their places; but the sergeant’s light rested upon the table—a heavy, oblong affair, with four massive carven legs—a part of whose top was bare, for the thick green cloth cover, with bullion braiding at the border, had been half dragged off, and lay in folds from the top to floor, only kept from gliding right off by the heavy lamp, and looking as if it had been hastily dragged down to cover something by the table, or caught by someone’s foot when passing hastily to the door.

The sergeant made his light play on the dark folds for a few moments, and then jerked it away.

“Do you gentlemen mean to stop?” he said, speaking now a little more rapidly.

There was no reply and the man stepped forward to the table, raised one corner of the cloth quickly, and then swung it right up and steadily lowered it again, while Guest uttered a sigh of relief, for there was nothing visible but the heavy legs of the table.

“Enough to deceive any man,” said the sergeant, who then stopped and listened, walked back, and softly closed both doors.

“May as well be private, gentleman,” he said. “Eh?”

This last to the workman, who had muttered something in a low voice.

“I says I could ha’ swore he was there.”

“So could I, Jemmy,” replied the sergeant, as he made the light play round the room again, and let it rest upon the chamber-door.

“There is nothing, you see,” said Stratton, rather ............