floor was covered with Eastern rugs, and a fine silver-tip grizzly bearskin lay on the hearthstone. The couches and big, comfortable reading chairs were upholstered in dark green leather, very handsome and substantial, while directly under the dome stood a massive, flat-topped library desk made of teakwood. The accompanying swivel-chair was mounted on a bronze mushroom foot firmly secured to the floor by[Pg 39] means of bolts; it was so placed that the occupant had his back to the windows, with the light coming over his shoulder after the proper fashion for comfort.

[Pg 39]

I have been particular in thus describing the furnishings and internal economy of the library, for in this room lay the very heart of the mystery so soon to present itself; later on I was destined to make myself acquainted with every square inch of its large area, only to fail in my attempt to discover its menacing secret. Fortunate indeed that Betty's feminine intuition asserted itself in the nick of time. But I must not anticipate the solution of the problem while the prime factors in the equation still remain unstated. Enough then to acquaint the reader with the general disposition of the stage upon which the drama was shortly to unfold itself.

The great room was very quiet, the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen, and still we waited.[Pg 40]

[Pg 40]

Chapter III

 Hildebrand of the "Hundred"

It must have been close to an hour before Mr. Eldon joined us; evidently his papers had been in more than usual confusion. A few minutes later the ladies appeared, together with a dozen or more negro servants connected in various capacities with the estate. John Thaneford jerked himself to his feet in apparently unwilling acknowledgment of the social amenities; his father, sitting impassively upright in an immense leather chair, looked more than ever like some gigantic, impossible infant. Miss Graeme went over and spoke a few words to him, but he barely nodded in reply; Buddha himself could not have improved upon that colossal, immemorial serenity. I had hoped that Betty would say something to me, but she contented herself with the briefest of smiles in my direction. A pretty girl? Why, yes, I suppose she would be so considered, with her slim, graceful figure and that pronounced type of Irish beauty—dark hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes; but the[Pg 41] eyes themselves of the clearest cerulean blue, rubbed in with a smutty finger, as the saying goes. Yet 

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