who does most of the letting,--'Mr. Waddington and Mr.
Burton,' she said, 'if a tenant comes along whom you think I'd like to
have living in my rooms and using my furniture, breathing my air, so to
speak, why, go ahead and let the house, rents being shockingly low just
now, with agricultural depression and what not, but sooner than not let
it to gentlepeople, I'll do without the money,' Her Ladyship declared.
Now you're just the sort of tenant she'd like to have here. I'm quite
sure of that, Mr. Lynn. I should take a pleasure in bringing you two
together."

Mr. Lynn grunted. He was perfectly well aware that the house would
seem more desirable to his wife and daughters from the very fact that it
belonged to a "Lady" anybody. He was perfectly well aware, also, that
his companion had suspected this. The consideration of these facts left
him, however, unaffected. He was disposed, if anything, to admire the
cleverness of the young man who had realized an outside asset.

"Well, I've seen pretty well all over it," he remarked. "I'll go back
to the office with you, anyhow, and have a word with Mr. Waddington.
By the way, what's that room behind you?"

The young man glanced carelessly around at the door of the room of Fate
and down at the bunch of keys which he held in his hand. He even
chuckled as he replied.

"I was going to mention the matter of that room, sir," he replied,
"because, if perfectly agreeable to the tenant, Her Ladyship would like
to keep it locked up."

"Locked up?" Mr. Lynn repeated. "And why?"

"Regular queer story, sir," the young man declared, confidentially.
"The late Earl was a great traveller in the East, as you may have heard,
and he was always poking about in some ruined city or other in the
desert, and picking up things and making discoveries. Well, last time
he came home from abroad, he brought with him an old Egyptian or
Arab,--I don't know which he was, but he was brown,--settled him down in
this room--in his own house, mind--and wouldn't have him disturbed or
interfered with, not at any price. Well, the old chap worked here night
and day at some sort of writing, and then, naturally enough, what with
not having the sort of grub he liked, and never going outside the doors,
he croaked."

"He what?" Mr. Lynn interposed.

"He died," the young man explained. "It was just about the time that
the Earl was ill himself. His Lordship gave orders that the body was to
be buried and the room locked up