king pedestal fully four feet broad. Desmond measured
the distance separating him from the nymph. It was not more than
twenty yards at the outside and the pedestal would conceal him
from the eyes of Strangwise if the latter should turn round
before he had made his second bound and reached the steps at the
side of the house.

He peeped through the window again. Strangwise stood in his old
attitude gazing over the garden wall. Then Desmond acted. Taking
long strides on the points of his toes, he gained the statue and
crouched down behind it. Even as he started, he heard a loud
grunt from the inside of the summerhouse and from his cover
behind the nymph saw Strangwise turn quickly and enter the
summerhouse. On that Desmond sprang to his feet again, heedless
of whether he was seen from the house, ran lightly across the
grass and reached the steps at the side of the house.

The door stood ajar.

He stood still on the top step and listened for a moment. The
house was wrapped in silence. Not a sign of life came from
within.

But now he heard voices from the garden and they were the voices
of two angry men, raised in altercation. As he listened, they
drew nearer.

Desmond tarried no longer. He preferred the unknown perils which
that silent house portended to the real danger advancing from the
garden. He softly pushed the door open and slipped into the
house.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE RED LACQUER ROOM

The side-door led into a little white passage with a green baize
door at the end. A staircase, which from its white-washed treads,
Desmond judged to be the back stairs, gave on the passage.
Calculating that the men in the garden would be certain to use
the main staircase, Desmond took the back stairs which, on the
first landing, brought him face to face with a green baize door,
similar in every respect to that on the floor below.

He pushed this door open and listened. Hearing nothing he passed
on through it. He found himself in a broad corridor on to which
gave the main staircase from below and its continuation to the
upper floors. Three rooms opened on to this corridor, a large
drawing-room, a small study and what was obviously the doctor's
consulting room, from the operating table and the array of
instruments set out in glass cases. The rooms were empty and
Desmond was about to return to the back stairs and proceed to the
next floor when his attention was caught by a series of framed
photographs with which the walls