The Grey Room

by Eden Phillpotts

  CHAPTER VIII. THE LABORS OF THE FOUR

  Despite the storm, Sir Walter slept through the night, and did not wakenuntil his man drew the blinds upon a dawn sky so clear that it seemedwashed of its blue. He had directed to be wakened at six o'clock.

  "What of Mr. May?" he asked.

  "Masters wants to know if we shall call him, Sir Walter."

  "Not if he has returned to his room, but immediately if still in theGrey Room."

  "He's not in his own room, sir."

  "Then seek him at once."

  The valet hesitated.

  "Please, Sir Walter, there's none much cares to open the door."

  He heard his daughter's voice outside at the same moment.

  "Mr. May has not left the Grey Room, father."

  "I'll be with you in a moment," he answered.

  Then he rose, dressed partially, and joined her. She was full of activefear.

  "All went well at two o'clock," she said, "for I crept out to listen. Sodid Masters. Mr. May's voice sounded clear and steady."

  They found the butler at the door of the Grey Room. He was pale andmopping his forehead.

  "I've called to him, but it's as silent as the grave in there," he said."It's all up with the gentleman; I know it!"

  "He may not be there; he may have gone out," answered Sir Walter.

  Then he opened the door widely and entered. The electric light stillshone and killed the pallid white stare of the morning. Upon a littletable under it they observed Septimus May's Bible, open at an epistle ofSt. Paul, but the priest himself was on the floor some little distanceaway. He lay in a huddled heap of his vestments. He had fallen upon hisright side apparently, and, though the surplice and cassock which he hadworn were disarranged, he appeared peaceful enough, with his cheek ona foot stool, as though disposed deliberately upon the ground to sleep.His biretta was still upon his head; his eyes were open, and the fretand passion manifested by his face in life had entirely left it. Helooked many years younger, and no emotion of any kind marked his placidcountenance. But he was dead; his heart had ceased to beat and hisextremities were already cold. The room appeared unchanged in everyparticular. As in the previous cases, death had come by stealth, yetrobbed, as far as the living could judge, of all terror for its victim.

  Masters called Caunter and Sir Walter's valet, who stood at the door.The latter declined to enter or touch the dead, but Caunter obeyed, andtogether the two men lifted Mr. May and carried him to his own room. Ina moment it seemed that the house knew what had happened.

  A scene of panic and hysteria followed below stairs, and, without JaneBond's description of it, Mary knew the people were running out of thehouse as from a plague. She left her father with Masters, and strove tocalm the frightened domestics. She spoke well, and explained that theevent, horrible though it was, yet proved that no cause for their alarmany longer existed.

  "If it had been a wicked spirit we do not understand, it would have hadno power over Mr. May, who was a saint of God," she said. "Be at peace,restrain yourselves, and fear nothing now. There is no ghost here. Hadit been a demon or any such thing, it must have been conscious, andtherefore powerless against Mr. May. This proves that there is somefearful natural danger which we have not yet discovered hidden in theroom, but no harm can happen to anybody if they do not go into the room.The police are coming from Scotland Yard in an hour or two, and you mayfeel as sure, as I do, and Sir Walter does, that they will find out thetruth, whatever it is. You must none of you think of leaving before theycome. If you do, they will only send for you again. Please prepare yourbreakfast and be reasonable. Sir Walter is terribly upset, and it wouldbe a base thing if any of you were to desert him at a moment like this."

  They grew steadier before her, and Mrs. Forbes, the housekeeper, whobelieved what Mary had said, added her voice.

  Then Sir Walter's daughter returned to her father, who was with Mastersin the study. A man had already started for a doctor, but with Manneringaway there was none nearer than Neon Abbot.

  Mary called on Masters to assert his authority, and reassure thehousehold as she had done. She told him her argument, and he accepted itas a revelation.

  "Thank God you could keep your senses and see that, ma'am! Tell themaster the same, and make him drink a drop of spirits and get into hisclothes. He's shook cruel!"

  He had already brought the brandy, which was his panacea for all ills,and now left Mary and her father together. She found him collapsed,and forgot the cause for a few moments in her present concern for him.Indeed, she always thought, and often said afterwards, that but forthe minor needs for action that intervened in this series of terriblemoments she must herself have gone out of her mind. But something alwayshappened, as in this case, to demand her full attention, and so arrestand deflect the strain almost at the moment of its impact.

  She found that the ideas she had just employed to pacify the servants'hall were also in her father's thoughts. From them, however, he won noconsolation, though he stood convinced. But the fact that Septimus Mayshould have failed, and paid for his failure with his life, now assumedits true significance for Sir Walter. He was self-absorbed, prostrate,and desperate. In such a condition one is not master of oneself, and maysay and do anything. The old man's armor was off, and in the course ofhis next few speeches, by a selfish forgetfulness that he would havebeen the first to condemn in another, he revealed a thing that wasdestined to cause the young widow bitter and needless pain. First,however, he pointed out what she already grasped and made clear toothers.

  "This upsets all May's theories and gives the lie to me as well. Whydid I believe him! Why did I let him convince me against my betterjudgment?"

  "Do not fret about that now."

  "You might say, 'I told you so!' but you will not do that. Nevertheless,you were right to seek to stop this unfortunate man last night, and hewas terribly mistaken. No being from another world had anything to dowith his death. If we granted that, there is an end of religious faith."

  "We can be sure of it, father. Evil spirits would have had no power overMr. May, if there is a just God in heaven."

  "Then it is something else. If not a spirit, then a living man--a humandevil--and the police will discover him. In this house, one we haveknown and trusted; for all are known and trusted. They will blame me,with good reason, for sacrificing another life. The irony of fate thatI, of all men, one so much alive to the meaning of mercy--that I, outof superstitious folly--But how will it look in the eyes of justice?Black--black! I am well prepared to suffer what I have deserved, Mary.Nothing that man can do to me equals the shame and dismay I feel when Iconsider what I have done to myself!"

  "You must not talk so; it is unworthy of you. You know it, father, whileyou speak. Nobody has a right to question you or your opinions. Manywould have been convinced by Mr. May last night. They may still thinkthat he was right, and that, far from receiving evil treatment, he wasblessed by being taken away into the next world without pain or shock.We must feel for him as we try to feel for dear Tom. And I do notmean that I am sorry for him; I am only sorry for us, because of thedifficulty of explaining. Yet to tell the truth will not be difficult.They must do the best they can. It doesn't matter as much as you think.Indeed, how should they blame you at all until they themselves find outthe truth?"

  "They will--they must! They will discover the reason. They will huntdown the murderer, and they will inevitably attach utmost blame to mefor listening to a man possessed. May was possessed, I tell you!"

  "He was exceedingly convincing. When I listened to him he shook me,too."

  "I should have supported you, instead of going over to him."

  "He knows the truth now. He is with Tom now. We must remember that. Weknow they are happy, and that makes the opinion of living people mattervery little."

  Then, out of his weakness, he smote her, and thrust upon her some hoursof agony, very horrible in their nature, which there was no good reasonthat Mary should have suffered.

  "Who is al
ive and who is dead?" he asked. "We don't even know that. Thepolice demanded to make their own inquiries, and Peter Hardcastle may atthis moment be a living and breathing man, if they are right."

  She stared at him and feared for his reason.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that they were not prepared to grant that he was dead. Henry andMannering took him up on that assumption. He may have been restored toanimation and his vital forces recovered. Why not? There was nothingvisible to indicate dissolution. We have heard of trances, catalepsies,which simulate death so closely that even physicians are deceived. Havenot men been buried alive? Tom's father at this moment might be restoredto life, if we only knew how to act."

  "Then--" she said, with horrified eyes, and stopped.

  He saw what he had done.

  "God forgive me! No, no, not that, Mary! It's all madness and moonshine!This is delirium; it will kill me! Don't think I believe them, any morethan Mannering did, or Henry did. Henry has seen much death; he couldnot have been deceived. Tom was dead, and your heart told you he wasdead. One cannot truly make any mistake in the presence of death; I knowthat."

  Mary was marvellously restrained, despite the fact that she had receivedthis appalling blow and vividly suffered all that it implied.

  "I will try to put it out of my mind, father," she said quietly. "But ifMr. Hardcastle is alive, I shall go mad!"

  "He is not. Mannering was positive."

  "Nevertheless, he may be. And if he is, then Mr. May probably is."

  "Grotesque, horrible, worse than death even! Keep your mind away fromit, my darling, for the love of God!"

  "Who knows what we can suffer till we are called to find out? No, Ishall not go mad. But I must know to-day. I cannot eat or sleep until Iknow. I shall not live long if they don't tell me quickly."

  Her father trembled and grew very white.

  "This is the worst of all," he said. "These things will leave a burningbrand. I am ruined by them, and my life thrown down. I, that thought Iwas strong, prove so weak that I can forget my own daughter, and out ofcowardly misery speak of a thing she should never have known. You haveyour revenge, Mary, for I shall go a broken man from this hour. Nothingcan ever be the same again. My self-respect is gone. I could haveendured everything else--the things that I dreaded. All I could havesuffered and survived; but to have forgotten and stabbed you--"

  "Don't, don't--come--we have got each other, father--we have still goteach other. The dead understand everything. Who else matters? Go to yourroom, and let your dear mind rest. I am not suffering. We cannot alterthe past, and who would wish it, if they believe in eternal life? Iwould not call Tom back if I had the power to do so. Be sure of that."

  She spoke comfortable words to him, and supported him to his room. Sheknew the police would soon arrive, and though they could not reportconcerning the life, or death, of Peter Hardcastle, she doubted not thatdefinite information relating to him must come to Chadlands quickly.Upon that another life might hang. Yet, when the medical man arrivedfrom Newton, he could only say that Septimus May was dead. He was afriend of Mannering, and knew the London opinion, that this formof apparent death might in reality conceal latent possibilities ofresuscitation; but he spoke with absolute certainty. He was old, and hadnearly fifty years of professional experience behind him.

  "The man is dead, or I never saw death," he declared. "By a hundredindependent evidences we can be positive. Post-mortem stains havealready appeared, and were they ever known on a living body? Of theothers who died in this room I know nothing personally; but here isdeath, and in twenty-four hours the fact will be plain to the perceptionof an idiot. What has happened is this: the London police have heardof a famous, recent German case mentioned in 'Deutsche MedizinischeWochenschraft'--an astonishing thing. A woman, who had taken morphineand barbital, was found apparently dead after a night's exposure insome lonely spot. There were no reflexes, no pulse, no respiration orheart-beat. Yet she was alive--existing without oxygen--an impossibilityas we had always supposed. Seeing no actual evidence of death, thephysicians injected camphor and caffein and took other restorativesteps, with the result that in an hour the woman breathed again!Twenty-four hours later she was conscious and able to speak. It isassumed that the poison and the cold night air together had paralyzedher vasomotor nerves and reduced her body to a state akin tohibernation, wherein physical needs are at their minimum. That case hasdoubtless awakened these suspicions, and having regard to them, we willkeep the poor gentleman in a warm room and proceed with the classicalmeans for restoring respiration."

  The doctor was thus engaged when four men reached Chadlands after theirnightly journey. They were detective officers of wide reputation, andtheir chief--a grey-haired man with a round, amiable face and impersonalmanner--listened to the events that had followed upon Peter Hardcastle'sarrival and departure.

  Sir Walter himself narrated the incidents, and perceiving hisexcitation, Inspector Frith assumed the gentlest and most forbearingattitude that he knew.

  The police had come in a fighting humor. They arrived without anypreconceived ideas or plan of action; but they were in bitter earnest,and knew that a great body of public opinion lay behind them. ThatHardcastle, who had won such credit for his department and earned theapplause of two continents, should have thus been lost, in a manner somean and futile, exasperated not only his personal colleagues, but thelarger public interested in his picturesque successes and achievements.

  The new arrivals felt little doubt that their colleague was indeed dead,nor, when they heard of the last catastrophe, and presently stood bySeptimus May, could they feel the most shadowy suspicion that life mightbe restored to him. Sir Walter found his nerve steadied on the arrivalof these men. Indeed, by comparison with other trials, the ordeal beforehim now seemed of no complexity. He gave a clear account of events,admitted his great error, and answered all questions without any furtherconfusion of mind.

  "I am not concerned to justify my permission in the matter of Mr. May,"he concluded. "I deeply deplore it, and bitterly lament the result; butmy reasons for granting him leave to do what he desired I am prepared tojustify when the time comes. Others also heard him speak, and though hedid not convince my daughter, whose intellect is keener than my own, Ihonestly believed him with all my heart. It seemed to me that onlyso could any reasonable explanation be reached. Moreover, you have toconsider his own triumphant conviction and power of argument. Rightly orwrongly, he made me feel that he was not mistaken--indeed, made me sharehis resolute convictions. These things I am prepared to explain if needbe. But that will not matter to you. Personally I am now only too surethat both Septimus May and I were mistaken. I realize that there mustexist some physical causes for these terrible things, that they areof human origin, and I hope devoutly that you will be permitted byProvidence to discover them, and those responsible for them. But theperil is evidently still acute. The danger remains, and I need not askyou to recognize it."

  Inspector Frith answered him, and proved more human than Sir Walterexpected. He was an educated man of high standing in his business.

  "We'll waste no time," he said. "Perhaps it is as well you areconvinced, Sir Walter, that these things have happened inside naturallaws, and don't depend on beings in some unknown fourth dimension. Thatis your affair, and I am very sure, as you say, that you can give goodreasons for what you did at a future inquiry, though the results are soshocking. Poor Peter was taken back to London last night, you tell us,according to directions. If he's in the same case as this unfortunategentleman, then there's not much doubt about his being dead. Wemust begin at the beginning, though for us, naturally, Hardcastle'soperations and their failure are the most interesting facts to be dealtwith. You have told us everything that happened to him. But we have notheard who found him."

  "My nephew, Henry Lennox."

  "He found Captain May, too?"

  "He did. He was the last to see him alive, and the first to see himafterwards."

  "Is he here?" />
  "He will be here in the course of the day. He travelled to London lastnight with the body of Mr. Hardcastle."

  "Why?"

  "The doctor, Mr. Mannering, wished him to do so. He desired to have acompanion."

  "Have you anything further that you would care to tell us?"

  "Only this, that I think Mr. Hardcastle, with whom I had a longconversation on his arrival, gave it as his opinion that it was not inthe Grey Room we must look for an explanation. I believe he regardedhis visit to the room itself as a comparatively unimportant part of thecase. He was really more interested in the life of my son-in-law and hisrelations with other people. I think he regarded May's death as a matterwhich had been determined outside the Grey Room. But, if I may presumeto advise you, this view of his is surely proved mistaken in the lightof his own destruction and what has happened since. It is certain nowthat the cause of danger lies actually in the room itself, and equallycertain that what killed my son-in-law also killed Mr. Hardcastle and,last night, killed the Reverend Septimus May."

  "On the fact of it, yes," admitted Frith. "I think, after we haveconsidered the situation now developed and visited the Grey Room, weshall agree that there, at any rate, we may begin the work thathas brought us. You understand we rule out the possibility of anysupernatural event, as Hardcastle, of course, did. While he veryproperly centred on the history of Captain May, and, from his point ofview, did not expect to find the accident of the captain's death in thisparticular place would prove important, we shall now assume otherwise,and give the room, or somebody with access to it, the credit for thisdestruction of human life. We shall fasten on the room therefore. Ourinquiry is fairly simple at the outset, simpler than poor Hardcastle's.It will lie along one of two channels, and it depends entirely uponwhich channel we have to proceed whether the matter is going to takemuch time, and possibly fail of explanation at the end, or but a shorttime, and be swiftly cleared up. I hope the latter."

  "I shall be glad if you can explain that remark," answered Sir Walter;but Mr. Frith was not prepared immediately to do so.

  "Fully when the time comes, Sir Walter; but for the moment, no--not evento you. You will understand that our work must be entirely secret, andthe lines on which we proceed known only to ourselves."

  "That is reasonable, for you cannot tell yet whether I, who speak toyou, may not be responsible for everything. At least, command me. I onlyhope to Heaven you are not going to discover a great crime."

  "I share your hope. That is why I speak of two channels for inquiry,"answered the detective. "Needless to say, we four men shall discuss thenew light thrown upon the situation very fully. At present the majorityof us are inclined to believe there is no crime, and the death of Mr.May does not, to my mind, increase the likelihood of such a thing.Indeed, it supports me, I should judge, in my present opinion. What thatis will appear without much delay. We'll get to our quarters now, andask to see the Grey Room later on."

  "May I inquire concerning Mr. Hardcastle? I hope he had no wife orfamily to mourn him."

  "He was a bachelor, and lived with his mother, who keeps a shop. Theintention is to examine his body this morning, and submit it to certainconclusive tests. Nobody expects much from them, but they're not goingto lose half a chance. He was a great man."

  "You will hear at once from London if anything transpires to help you?"

  "We shall hear by noon at latest."

  Sir Walter left them then, and Masters took the four to theiraccommodation. Their rooms were situated together in the corridor, asnear the east end of it as possible. But the four were not yet of onemind, and when they met presently, and walked together in the garden foran hour, it appeared that while two of them agreed with Inspector Frith,under whom all acted, the fourth held to a contrary view, and desired totake the second of the two channels his chief had mentioned.

  Thus three men believed some extraordinary concatenation ofcircumstances, probably mechanical in operation, was responsible forall that had happened in the Grey Room; but the fourth, a man older thanFrith, and in some sort his rival for many years, held to it that thereason of these things must be sought in an active and conscious agency.He trusted in a living cause, but felt confident that it was not a saneone. He had known a case when a madman, unsuspected of madness, hadoperated with extraordinary skill to destroy innocent persons andescape detection, and already he was disposed to believe that among thehousehold of Chadlands might hide such an insane criminal.

  On a similar plane, it was in his personal experience that weak-mindedpersons, possessed with a desire to do something out of the common, hadoften planned and perpetrated apparent physical phenomena, and createdan appearance of supernatural visitations, only exposed after greatdifficulty by professional research. Along such lines, therefore, thisman was prepared to operate, and he believed it might be possible that amaniac, in possession of some physical secret, would be found amongthe inhabitants of the manor house. He did not, however, elaborate thisopinion, but kept it to himself. Indeed, the human element of jealousy,so often responsible for the frustration of the worthiest humanambitions, was not absent from the minds of the four now concerned withthis problem.

  Each desired to solve it, and while no rivalry existed among them, savein the case of the two older men, it was certain that the eldest ofthe four would not lose his hold on his own theory, or be at very vitalpains to stultify it. All, however, were fully conscious of the dangerbefore them, and Frith, from the first, directed that none was to workalone, either in the Grey Room or elsewhere.

  At noon a telegram arrived for Mr. Frith from Scotland Yard. It recordedthe fact that Peter Hardcastle was dead, and that examination hadrevealed no cause for his end. The news reached Sir Walter at once, andif ever he rejoiced in the death of a fellow-creature, it was upon thisoccasion. It meant unspeakable relief both for him and his daughter.

  The detectives began their operations after a midday meal, and havingfirst carefully studied the Grey Room in every visible particular, theyemptied it of its contents, and placed the pictures, furniture, andstatuette outside in the corridor. They asked for no assistance, anddesired that none should visit the scene of their labors. The apartment,empty to the walls, they examined minutely; with the help of ladders,they investigated the outer walls on the east and south side; and theyprobed the chimney from above and below. They searched the adjoiningroom--Mary's old nursery--to satisfy themselves that no communicationexisted, and they drove an iron rod through the walls in variousdirections, only to prove they were of solid stone, eighteen inchesthick within and two feet thick without. There was no apartment on theother side of the chamber. It completed the eastern angle of the housefront, and behind it, inside, the corridor terminated at an easternwindow parallel with the Grey Room oriel, but flat and undecorated--amodern window inserted by Sir Walter's grandfather to lighten a darkcorner. Not a foot of the walls they left untested, and they examinedand removed a portion of the paper upon them also. Then, taking up thecarpet, they broke into the flooring and skirting boards, but discoveredno indication that the grime and dust of centuries had ever beendisturbed. The desiccated mummy of a rat alone rewarded their scrutiny.It lay between great timbers under the planking--beams that supportedthe elaborate stucco roof of a dwelling-room below.

  To the ceiling of the Grey Room they next turned their attention,fastened an electric wire to the nearest point, and, through a trap-doorin the roof of the passage, investigated the empty space between theceiling and the roof. Not an inch of the massive oaken struts above didthey fail to scrutinize, and they made experiments with smoke and water,to learn if, at any point, so much as a pin-hole existed in the face ofthe stucco. But it was solid, and spread evenly to a considerable depth.They studied it, then, from inside the room, to discover nothing butthe beautifully modeled surface, encrusted with successive layers ofwhitewash. The workmanship belonged to a time when men knew not toscamp their labors and art and craft went hand in hand. Such enthusiasmsperished with the improvement of educa
tion. They died with the Guilds,and the Unions are not concerned to revive them.

  The detectives had finished this examination when, at an hour in thelate afternoon, Henry Lennox and Dr. Mannering returned. The authoritieshad been informed of the death of Septimus May, and desired that nomore than the ordinary formalities should be taken, unless theirrepresentatives at Chadlands thought otherwise. But they did not. Theywere now convinced that no communication existed between the Grey Roomand the outer world, and they declared their determination to watch init during the coming night. As a preliminary to this course, however,they examined each piece of furniture and every picture and otherobject that they had removed from the room. These told them nothing,and presently they restored the chamber in every particular, re-laidand nailed the carpet, and placed each article as it had stood when theyarrived. They continued to decline assistance, and made it clear thatnobody was to approach the end of the corridor in which they worked.Alive to the danger, but believing that, whatever its quality, four mencould hardly be simultaneously destroyed, they prepared for their vigil.Nor did they manifest any fear of what awaited them. Facts, indeed, maybe stubborn things, but even facts will not upset the convictions ofa lifetime. Not one of the four for an instant imagined that asupernatural explanation of the mystery existed. Their minds were open,and their wits, long trained in problems obscure and difficult, assuredthem that the problem was capable of solution and within the power oftheir wits to solve. They apprehended no discovery from the watch tobe undertaken; but, at Frith's orders, they set stolidly about it, asa preliminary to the proceedings of the following day. Once proved thatthe murderous force was powerless against men prepared and armed againstit, and the practical inquiry as to these strange deaths would beentered upon.

  They came with full powers, and designed to search the house withoutwarning on the following morning, and examine all who dwelt in it.

  Sir Walter invited them to dine with him, and they did so. There werepresent the master of Chadlands, Dr. Mannering--who asked to spend thenight there--and Henry Lennox; while Masters and Fred Caunter waitedupon them. The detectives heard with interest the result of thepost-mortem conducted during the morning, and related incidents in thelife of Peter Hardcastle. They were all unfeignedly amazed that a manwith such a record--one who had carried his life in his hand on manyoccasions--should have lost it thus, at noonday and without a sound ofwarning to his fellow-creatures. Dr. Mannering told how he had watchedthe medical examination, but not assisted at it. All attempts togalvanize back life failed, as the experts engaged immediately perceivedthey must upon viewing the corpse; and during the subsequent autopsy,when the dead man's body had been examined by chemist and microscopist,the result was barren of any pathological detail. No indication toexplain his death rewarded the search. Not a clue or suspicion existed.He was healthy in every particular, and his destruction remained, sofar, inexplicable to science. Hardcastle had died in a syncope, as theother victims; that was all the most learned could declare.

  Impressed by these facts, the four made ready, and Lennox observed thatthey neither drank during their meal nor smoked after it.

  At nine o'clock they began their work of the night, but invited nobodyto assist them, and begged that they might not be approached untildaylight on the following morning.

  Dr. Mannering took it upon himself earnestly to beg they would abandonthe vigil. Indeed, he argued strongly against it.

  "Consider, gentlemen," he said, "you are now possibly convinced inyour own minds that the source of these horrible things is to be foundoutside the Grey Room, and not in it. I agree with you, so far. We havereached a pitch where, in my judgment, we are justified in believingthat some motiveless malignity is at work. But by going into that room,are you not giving somebody another opportunity to do what has alreadybeen done? Evil performed without motive, as you know better than Ican tell you, must be the work of a maniac, and there may exist in thishouse, unsuspected and unguessed, a servant afflicted in this awful way.One has heard of such things."

  The eldest of his listeners felt unspeakable interest in these remarks,since his own opinion inclined in the same direction. He was, however,none the less chagrined that another should thus voice his secrettheory. He did not answer, but his chief replied.

  "It is proved," said Frith, "that no violence overtakes those subjectedto this ordeal. And I have decided that we shall not be in danger, forthis reason. We shall be armed as none of the dead were. Our precautionswill preclude any possibility of foul play from a material assault.And, needless to say, we contemplate no other. We are free agents, and Ishould not quarrel with any among us who shirked; but duty is duty, andwe have all faced dangers as great as this--probably far greater. Whatyou say is most interesting, doctor, and I agree with you, that outsidethe room we must look for the explanation of these murders--if murdersthey are. Upon that business we shall start to-morrow. Forgive me fornot going into details, because we have our personal methods.They embrace the element of surprise, and, of course, prevent anyconversation concerning what we are going to do until we have done it."

  "Supposing you are all found dead to-morrow?" asked Dr. Manneringbluntly.

  "Then we are all found dead to-morrow; and others will have thesatisfaction of finding out why."

  "You suspect somebody, yet can absolve nobody?"

  "Exactly, Sir Walter. I said pretty much that to the pressmen, whoforced themselves in this afternoon. The accursed daily Press of thiscountry has saved the skin of more blackguards than I like to count.Keep them and the photographers away. It ought to be criminal--theirinterference."

  "I ordered that none was to be admitted for a moment."

  "It is always very hard to keep them out. They are cunning devils, andtake a perverse pleasure in adding to our difficulties. Little they carehow they defeat justice if they can only get 'copy' for their infernalnewspapers."

  Inspector Frith spoke with some warmth; he had little for which to thankthe popular Press.

  Within an hour the four departed, and it was understood that they shouldnot be disturbed until they themselves cared to reappear.

  Mannering remained with Sir Walter and Lennox. He was dejected andexceedingly anxious. But the others did not share his fears. Theyounger, indeed, felt hopeful that definite results might presently berecorded, and he went to his bed very thankful to get there. ButSir Walter, now calm and refreshed by some hours of sleep during theafternoon, designed to keep his own vigil.

  "Poor May lies in my library to-night," he said, "and I shall watchbeside him. Mary also wishes to do so. It seems a proper respect to paythe dead. The inquest takes place to-morrow, and he will be buried inhis parish. We must attend the funeral, Mary and I."

  "If ever a man took his own life, that man did!" declared the doctor.