"Presumably! Did you ever hear of a dead man that did? Very well, then. And you say there wasn't time for anyone to come in and carry him off; and, mind you, it would have taken a good many minutes. Someone would have seen them, wouldn't they? The whole house was up and about by then. Two people can't walk about carrying a corpse without being noticed; and, even granting it, they must have planked him down somewhere. The only question is, where?"

"I should say that the thing to do is to go up to Mr. Noel Draycott's room, and see if he is in it--alive or dead."

This practical suggestion, which came from Sir Gerrard Ackroyd, was acted on then and there. Noel Draycott's room was empty. More, it seemed that it had never been occupied; at least, since he had dressed for the ball. There was a tweed suit, which he had exchanged for dress, lying just as it was extremely likely he had placed it. It was the same with all his other garments. There was nothing whatever unusual about the appearance of the room, nothing to show that anybody had entered it since its occupant had gone down to dance at the ball.

CHAPTER XVIII

In Bed

"Violet!" The Countess of Cantyre came dashing into Miss Forster's bedroom--the word "dashing" fairly describes her method of entry. "I have been robbed."

Miss Forster was in bed, though very far from asleep, or even inclined to slumber. She had been borne upstairs in the carrying chair, her foot had been bathed and bandaged by sympathetic hands, and she had been placed between the sheets. She was given stern injunctions that she was on no account to move; the doctor would be sent for at the earliest reasonable hour, and until his arrival she was not to move. But when her ladyship made that announcement, she sat up immediately.

"Margaret, you don't mean it?"

"Don't tell me that I don't mean it when I know that I do. I went straight to my room when I left you----"

"That's only ten minutes ago."

"The first thing I saw when I entered my room was my jewel-case lying on the floor. I had clean forgotten all about what Rupert had said till I saw it; really, I am not sure that I quite believe the stories that those other women have been telling; but when I saw it--there, of all places--of course, I dashed at it and--Violet, it was open, and it was empty; practically all the Avonham 

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