joined me and directed
me to drive to the Queen Street Station. I waited here for him quite a
long time and at last he came back with a face expressive of much
dissatisfaction. "Two of them went up on the eight train," he growled.
"One of them the clerk in the booking office remembers as keeping a
laundry in Frog Street. The other he had never seen. They took tickets
for London, third class." He swung himself into the seat beside me and
sat in silence all the way to the house, evidently thinking deeply.

When we arrived at The Oaks, very soon after, we found the Major waiting
impatiently for us in the hall. Jones and Li Min had arrived, and the
Major had subjected the latter, he informed us, to a severe
cross-examination, with the result that the Chinaman had denied all
knowledge of Mr. Ashton's death and explained his absence from the house
by saying that he had gone into town the night before to see his brother
who had recently arrived from China, and, knowing the habit of the
household to breakfast very late, had supposed his return at nine
o'clock would pass unnoticed. I made Major Temple acquainted with
Sergeant McQuade, and we proceeded at once to the room where lay all
that now remained of the unfortunate Robert Ashton.

CHAPTER III

A QUEER DISCOVERY

We found Gibson guarding the door where we had left him. Miss Temple was
nowhere to be seen. Major Temple took the key from his pocket, and,
throwing open the room, allowed McQuade and myself to enter, he
following us and closing the door behind him.

"Where did you get the key?" asked the detective as Major Temple joined
us.

"It was in the door--on the inside."

"Had the door been locked?"

"No. It was bolted."

"And you broke it open when you entered?"

"Yes. Mr. Morgan and my man, Gibson, forced it together."

McQuade stepped to the door and examined the bolt carefully. The socket
into which the bolt shot was an old-fashioned brass affair and had been
fastened with two heavy screws to the door jamb. These screws had been
torn from the wood by the united weight of Gibson and myself when we
broke open the door. The socket, somewhat bent, with the screws still in
place, was lying upon the floor some distance away. McQuade picked it up
and examined it carefully, then threw it aside. He next proceeded to
make a careful and minute examination of the bolt, but I judged from his
expression that he discovered nothing of importance, for he turned
i