some inmate of the house as its victim.

Though I knew not where to find the servant who had admitted me, or any other person, I flung open the door through which I had come, and ran down the passage leading towards the main part of the house. In through the second and wider one I went, opening a door here and there, but finding only darkness and emptiness beyond.

I reached the large entrance hall at last, and shouted loudly–"Here, you! John, James!"–not knowing in the absence of the master and his guest whom to call upon.

No one answered, and after the horror of the unearthly cry that I had heard, and now the sound of my own lusty voice, the silence that fell seemed curiously brooding and ominous.

46I shouted a second time, and was then rewarded by the sight of the respectable-looking butler. His face appeared–or I imagined it,–even more smug than before in its expression, and there was something suggestive of injured dignity as well.

46

"Did you call, sir?" he inquired with an irritating meekness.

"I did, indeed," I returned rather sharply. "I've been looking everywhere for a bell, but couldn't find one. I have every reason to believe that this house is on fire, somewhere in the left wing, near the room into which you took me, and it is certain that someone has got caught in the flames. For heaven's sake, show me the entrance to the tower, and come with me to do what can be done!"

The smug look was gone, chased away by one of blank amazement, which did not, however, seem the sort of horrified surprise that might have been expected to follow on my startling announcement.

"I'm sure you must be entirely mistaken, sir," he said. "There is no fire, I'm quite 47 certain of that. There–there may have been a cry, for as it happens there's just been an accident–in the kitchen."

47

"An accident in the kitchen?" I echoed, incredulously.

"Yes, sir. You see, it was this way, sir" (the fellow stammered and breathed hard between his words, as though he were anxious to gain time for himself, I thought): "The cook–an awkward woman–set some methylated spirit on fire, and upset the stuff over her foot. She–I'm afraid she did give a scream, sir. You know what women are at such times. But it's all right 

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