"

They dragged it a few feet away from the wall, so that the opening faced
them. Then Lenora gave a little cry and Quest stood suddenly still.

"The skeleton!" Lenora shrieked. "It's the skeleton!"

Quest stooped down and drew away the matting which concealed some portion
of this strange-looking object. It was a skeleton so old that the bones
had turned to a dull grey. Yet so far as regards its limbs, it was almost
complete. Quest glanced towards the hands.

"Little fingers both missing," he muttered. "That's the skeleton all
right, Lenora."

"Remember the message!" she exclaimed. "'Where the skeleton is, the
necklace may be also.'"

Quest nodded shortly.

"We'll search."

They turned over everything in the place fruitlessly. There was no sign of
the necklace. At last they gave it up.

"You get outside, Lenora," Quest directed. "I'll just bring this beast
round again and then we'll tackle the Professor."

Lenora stepped back into the fresh air with a little murmur of relief.
Quest turned towards the creature which crouched still huddled up in its
corner, its eyes half-closed, rolling a little from side to side.

"Look at me," he ordered.

The creature obeyed. Once more its frame seemed to grow more virile and
natural.

"You need sleep no longer," Quest said. "Wake up and be yourself."

The effect of his words was instantaneous. Almost as he spoke, the
creature crouched for a spring. There was wild hatred in its close-set
eyes, the snarl of something fiend-like in its contorted mouth. Quest
slipped quickly through the door.

"Any one may have that for a pet!" he remarked grimly. "Come, Lenora,
there's a word or two to be said to the Professor. There's something here
will need a little explanation."

He lit a cigar as they struggled back along the path. Presently they
reached the untidy-looking avenue, and a few minutes later arrived at the
house. Quest looked around him in something like bewilderment.

"Say, fancy keeping a big place like this, all overgrown and like a
wilderness!" he exclaimed. "If the Professor can't afford a few gardeners,
why doesn't he take a comfortable flat down town."

"I think it's a horrible place," Lenora agreed. "I hope I never come here
again."

"Pretty well obsessed, these scientific men get," Quest muttered. "I
suppose this is the front door."

They passed under the portico and knocked. There was no reply. Quest
searched in vain for a bell. They walked round the