"Oh, yes, sir. I'll see they understand how important it is."

"Rogers, especially," I added, looking at him.

"I understand, sir," said Parks, quietly.

"Very well. And now let us go down and lock up those rooms."

They were still ablaze with light; but both of us faltered a little,
I think, on the threshold of the ante-room. For in the middle of the
floor stood a stretcher, and on it was an object covered with a
sheet, its outlines horribly suggestive. But I took myself in hand
and entered. Parks followed me and closed the door.

The ante-room had two windows, and the room beyond, which was a
corner one, had three. All of them were locked, but a pane of glass
seemed to me an absurdly fragile barrier against any one who really
wished to enter.

"Aren't there some wooden shutters for these windows?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; they were taken down yesterday and put in the basement.
Shall I get them?"

"I think you'd better," I said. "Will you need any help?"

"No, sir; they're not heavy. If you'll wait here, you can snap the
bolts into place when I lift them up from the outside."

"Very well," I agreed, and Parks hurried away.

I entered the inner room and stopped before the Boule cabinet. There
was a certain air of arrogance about it, as it stood there in that
blaze of light, its inlay aglow with a thousand subtle reflections; a
flaunting air, the air of a courtesan conscious of her beauty and
pleased to attract attention--just the air with which Madame de
Montespan must have sauntered down the mirror gallery at Versailles,
ablaze with jewels, her skirts rustling, her figure swaying
suggestively. Something threatening, too; something sinister and
deadly--

There was a rattle at the window, and I saw Parks lifting one of the
shutters into place. I threw up the sash, and pressed the heavy bolts
carefully into their sockets, then closed the sash and locked it. The
two other windows were secured in their turn, and with a last look
about the room, I turned out the lights. The ante-room windows were
soon shuttered in the same way, and with a sigh of relief I told
myself that no entrance to the house could be had from that
direction. With Parks outside the only door, the rooms ought to be
safe from invasion.

Then, before extinguishing the lights, I approached that silent
figure on the stretcher, lifted the sheet and looked for the last
time upon the face of my dead friend. It was no longer staring and
terrible, b