rest?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered slowly, "and all the rest." He said nothing more
until we stopped before the Vantine house, but I could see, from his
puckered brows, how desperately he was trying to untangle this quirk
in the mystery.

"The siege seems to have been lifted," I remarked, as we alighted.

"The siege?"

"Parks telephoned me that your esteemed contemporaries had the place
surrounded. I told him to hold the fort!"

"Poor boys!" he commented, smiling. "To think that all they know is
what Grady is able to tell them!" Then he stopped before the house
and made a careful survey of it.

"Which room is the cabinet in?" he asked.

"The ante-room is there at the left where those two shuttered windows
are. The cabinet is in the corner room--there is one window on this
side and two on the other."

"Wait till I take a look at them," he said, and, vaulting the low
railing, he walked quickly along the front of the house and around
the corner. He was gone only a minute. "They're all right," he said,
in a tone of relief.

"Of course they're all right. You didn't suppose--"

"If that cabinet contains what I thought it did, Lester--yes," he
added, a little savagely, as he saw my look, "and what I still think
it does--it wouldn't be safe in the strongest vault of the National
City Bank," and he motioned for me to ring the bell.

I did so, in silence.

Parks answered it almost instantly, and I could tell from the way his
face changed how glad he was to see me.

"Well, Parks," I said, as we stepped inside, "everything is all
right, I hope?"

"Yes, sir," he answered. "But--but it gets on the nerves a little,
sir."

I heard a movement behind me, as I gave Parks my coat, and turned to
see Rogers sitting on the cot.

"Hello," I said, "so you're able to be up, are you?"

"Yes, sir," he answered, without looking at me. "I thought I'd come
down and keep Parks company."

Parks smiled a little sheepishly.

"I asked him to, Mr. Lester," he said. "I got so lonesome and jumpy
here by myself that I just had to have somebody to talk to.
Especially, after the burglar-alarm rang."

"The burglar-alarm?" repeated Godfrey quickly. "What do you mean?"

"We've got a burglar-alarm on the windows, sir. It's usually turned
off in the day-time, but I thought I'd better leave it on to-day, and
it rang about the middle of the afternoon. I thought at first that
one of the other servants had raised a window, but none of them