arena
of her short happiness. But though she proved so dismal a companion,
the old woman who came with her was a treasure. Having lived all her
life in some semi-slum near the Strand, and having rarely experienced
more than a summer's-day glimpse of the country, the long journey had
delighted her, and now this rambling old castle in the midst of the
forest seemed to realise all the dreams which a perusal of halfpenny
fiction had engendered in her imagination. She lit a fire, and cooked
for us a very creditable supper, bustling about the place, singing to
herself in a high key.

Shortly after supper Sophia Brooks, exhausted as much by her emotions
and memories as by her long journey of that day, retired to rest.
After being left to myself I smoked some cigarettes, and finished a
bottle of superb claret which stood at my elbow. A few hours before I
had undoubtedly fallen in the estimation of the stolid constable when,
instead of asking him questions regarding the tragedy, I had inquired
the position of the wine cellar, and obtained possession of the key
that opened its portal. The sight of bin after bin of dust-laden,
cobwebbed bottles, did more than anything else to reconcile me to my
lonely vigil. There were some notable vintages represented in that
dismal cavern.

It was perhaps half-past ten or eleven o'clock when I began my
investigations. I had taken the precaution to provide myself with half
a dozen so-called electric torches before I left London. These give
illumination for twenty or thirty hours steadily, and much longer if
the flash is used only now and then. The torch is a thick tube,
perhaps a foot and a half long, with a bull's-eye of glass at one end.
By pressing a spring the electric rays project like the illumination
of an engine's headlight. A release of the spring causes instant
darkness. I have found this invention useful in that it concentrates
the light on any particular spot desired, leaving all the surroundings
in gloom, so that the mind is not distracted, even unconsciously, by
the eye beholding more than is necessary at the moment. One pours a
white light over any particular substance as water is poured from the
nozzle of a hose.

The great house was almost painfully silent. I took one of these
torches, and went to the foot of the grand staircase where the wicked
butler had met his death. There, as his lordship had said, lay the
silver tray, and nearby a silver jug, a pair of spoons, a knife