at's because your father doesn't approve?"

"Yes. Ross wired the room--or had it wired with the aid of an
electrician--and then installed the light. But Father was so angry that
he would rarely ever use it. Sticks to the musty old lamp over there,
for most things."

"And is the room still wired?"

"Yes. There's a wall plug over there by the door. Why, Mr. Deland?"

"Oh, nothing. Then that would account for this fragment of flexible
wire, wouldn't it? H'm. Yes. I see. I see."

But what he saw he did not at that moment mention, and Miss Duggan had
to guess at his meaning.

"But it was done ten days ago-- I must really speak to the servants and
tell them to keep the place cleaner than they do. Fancy leaving odd
pieces about like that!" she ejaculated, sensitive to any suggestion of
poor management upon the part of Castle authorities. But Cleek did not
hear. He was standing over by the wall-plug, looking down at it, and
then kneeling, began to examine it minutely. She watched him in
amazement, unused to his methods.

"Why, Mr. Deland--"

"Oh, just looking at how your brother does his work. Quite a good
workman, isn't he?" said Cleek, rising slowly to his feet, and pocketing
the bit of flexible wire forthwith.

And that was the last word she could get out of him upon the subject.

CHAPTER V

A STARTLING DISCOVERY

Within one short hour Cleek had explored the Castle from end to end, in
company with a tireless girl for whom every stick and stone of the grand
old place held a memory that was as sacred to her as the church is to
the priest who has passed all his days in the service of it. But they
met no other members of the family just then. Only, as they passed
through the left wing, where the servants' quarters lay beyond, Cleek
was introduced to Johanna McCall--paid hireling and companion of Lady
Paula, and not too pleased with her job, either, if all he read in that
frightened face of hers was true.

He found her a little pale slip of a thing, with wide, anxious eyes set
in an ivory-tinted, utterly colourless face, and with hair that was
"mousey" and straight, and a mouth that might tremble at an unkind word
as a child's does.

She bowed to him timidly and extended a slender hand.

"How do you do," she said, in a soft, toneless sort of voice which
matched her poor, toneless, utterly downtrodden personality. "Your
stepmother, Miss Duggan? She is in the study, I suppose? I have her
embroidery silks