ntering the room.

"What is it, Ramoo?"

"Me not know, sahib. Massa Thorndyke's door shut. Me no able to make him
hear."

"That is curious, Ramoo," Mark said, jumping hastily out of bed. "I will
be with you in a minute."

He slipped on his trousers, coat, and slippers, and then accompanied
Ramoo to his father's door. He knocked again and again, and each time
more loudly, his face growing paler as he did so. Then he threw himself
against the door, but it was solid and heavy.

"Fetch me an ax, Ramoo," he said. "There is something wrong here."

Ramoo returned in a short time with two men servants and with the ax in
his hands. Mark took it, and with a few mighty blows split the woodwork,
and then hurling himself against the door, it yielded. As he entered
the room a cry broke from his lips. Within a pace or two of the bed the
Squire lay on the ground, on his face, and a deep stain on the carpet
at once showed that his death had been a violent one. Mark knelt by his
side now, and touched him. The body was stiff and cold. The Squire must
have been dead for some hours.

"Murdered!" he said in a low voice; "my father has been murdered."

He remained in horror struck silence for a minute or two; then he slowly
rose to his feet.

"Let us lay him on the bed," he said, and with the assistance of the
three men he lifted and laid him there.

"He has been stabbed," he murmured, pointing to a small cut in the
middle of the deep stain, just over the heart.

Ramoo, after helping to lift the Squire onto the bed, had slid down to
the floor, and crouched there, sobbing convulsively. The two servants
stood helpless and aghast. Mark looked round the room: the window was
open. He walked to it. A garden ladder stood outside, showing how the
assassin had obtained entrance. Mark stood rigid and silent, his hands
tightly clenched, his breath coming slowly and heavily. At last he
roused himself.

"Leave things just as they are," he said to the men in a tone of
unnatural calmness, "and fasten the door up again, and turn a table or
something of that sort against it on the outside so that no one can come
in. John, do you tell one of the grooms to saddle a horse and ride down
into the town. Let him tell the head constable to come up at once, and
also Dr. Holloway. Then he is to go on to Sir Charles Harris, tell him
what has happened, and beg him to ride over at once.

"Come, Ramoo," he said in a softer voice, "you can do no good here, p