matter, and, instead of answering, you kept cramming yourself into your dressing-gown, and I could hardly credit my senses when, without a word, you rushed out of the room, and left me all alone."

"I'll bet a penny that somebody had been in the room, and that it wasn't fancy my thinking that someone had just shut the door. Where were your jewels?"

"They were in the case on the table."

"I'll lay a trifle that they're not there now. It looks very much as if the place had been plundered on a wholesale scale. What's that you said about Noel Draycott?"

This inquiry was addressed to the major, who explained to the best of his ability. The earl continued:

"I heard what seemed a jolly row going on downstairs--that's what brought me. But--could it have been Draycott? What could he have been having a row about, and with whom?"

A suggestion came from Sir Gerrard Ackroyd.

"He might have heard the thief, chased him, and have brought him to bay, and in the row which followed he might have got the worst of it. That sort of chap doesn't stick at trifles."

"But this is the most extraordinary thing of which I have ever heard: that anyone should have had the audacity to go into the bedrooms, one after the other. In each case it looks as if he knew just where the jewels were kept; and look at the risks he ran! Then he comes downstairs, and meets Draycott. Could Draycott have fired that shot?"

Again the question was addressed to the major.

"It could not have been. It was after we had found him lying dead that the shot was fired, and it was while we had gone to see who fired the shot that the body vanished."

"His body? You talk as if you were sure that he was dead, but was he?"

"I've had some experience of dead men. I ought to know one when I see him. I had an opportunity of examining him before Miss Forster came in. I should have been prepared to assert positively that he was dead, and I'm prepared to do so still. I do not believe that in such a matter I could have been so mistaken."

"But, my dear man, if he was lying dead upon the floor, he could not have picked himself up and walked away, could he?"

"Presumably not."

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