in the corridor all day and night, I never for a moment anticipated anything wrong. Still, I examined the seals carefully and they appeared to me to be absolutely intact. With my sergeant we broke the seals and entered the room, the door of which was locked. Imagine our astonishment when we found that the body of the poor gentleman had vanished. In all the extraordinary cases that have ever come under my notice, I never recollect anything so amazing as this."

It was amazing, stupendous--so much so that nobody spoke for a little time. Beatrice had taken a seat and sat waiting for somebody to ask questions. She was no longer dazed and frightened; her brain was working rapidly. It seemed to her that she would be able to throw light on this mysterious disappearance presently.

"Are you quite sure that the seals are intact?" Mark asked.

"If you had asked me that question half an hour ago, I should have said most assuredly so, sir," Field replied. "I looked carefully to see. We always do. How on earth a body could have been spirited away like this with people about till late, to say nothing of the night watchman going his rounds, and the night porter down below--but we need not go into that yet. My seals appeared to be in perfect order."

"But that really could not have been the fact," Mark persisted. "I fancy we can dispense with the idea that Sir Charles was removed by spiritual agency. Now, would it not have been possible for anyone to have taken an impression of the seals?"

"Just possible," Field admitted. "But what would have been the use of----"

"A great deal of use, it seems to me," Mark went on. "But I will come to that presently. Let us take one thing at a time. For some reason or other, those scoundrels have found it imperatively necessary to spirit away the body of Sir Charles. Perhaps they are afraid of the result of a post-mortem. That is another point we need not bother about for the present. Did you give any orders to the watchman here to keep an eye on that door?"

"Well, I did," Field admitted. "I particularly mentioned the seals, in case any very zealous housemaid, imagining that somebody had been disfiguring the doors, should remove them."

"Then if the seals had been broken, the night watchman would have noticed it?"

"I should say that such a thing was highly possible," Field admitted with an admiring glance in the direction of his questioner. "Really, sir, 

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