four minutes. They had gone into the next room, been there not more than a minute when the woman was heard screaming. Although circumstances had made the time during which Miss Forster had been left alone seem infinite, actually it was probably only a minute or two. During those fleeting minutes what had--what could have happened? Had the dead man come back to life and taken himself away? 

There was nothing to show that anything had happened. There was the club, the furniture, apparently in exactly the same confusion in which they had left it; only a dark red stain, that was still wet and shiny, marked the place on the floor where something had been lying. And that stain was eloquent; the man from whom so much blood had come must have been in a parlous condition, certainly in no state to pick himself up and walk unassisted from the room. For he would probably have been bleeding still; his progress would quite possibly have been marked upon the carpet. Which way could he have gone? There were two windows and three doors--all of them were shut. Reith looked to see if there were signs of him on the other side of the doors. There was nothing. 

It was while he was standing at the door looking out into the passage that there was, for the first time, anything to show that the happenings downstairs had been heard above. A gentleman in a dressing-gown came along with a candle in his hand, followed by another, in the same attire, without a candle. The one in front was the Earl of Cantyre; the other was Sir Gerrard Ackroyd. The earl broke into exclamation at the sight of the major. 

"Hullo, Reith! Have the beggars woke you, too?" When he saw the girl, on his good-humoured face there came a comical expression. "What! Violet Forster! What on earth's the matter?" He was looking round the room. "Who has been knocking the furniture about like this?" He turned to Ackroyd: "That must have been the noise you heard."

"I told you it sounded as if somebody was throwing the furniture about. Somebody's been having a lark all over the house."

"Lark, you call it? If someone has been having a lark, I call it jolly bad form at this hour of the morning." His lordship's tone was one of grievance. "What's the meaning of all this? I suppose the beggars disturbed you, too--nice thing! Wasn't there a pistol-shot, and someone screaming, and I don't know what besides? Lark, indeed!"

"I wish," said the major, "that I could think that it was only what Ackroyd calls a lark. I'm afraid there's been something very like murder 

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