windows being small and covered with a grille of iron, a fact
which would make it impossible for any one to get in or out once the
doors were closed and guarded, Sir Henry himself will tell you that the
stable has been ransacked from top to bottom, every hole and every
corner probed into, and not a living creature of any sort discovered.
Yet only last night the groom, Tolliver, was set upon inside the place
and killed outright in his efforts to protect the horse; killed, Cleek,
with four men patrolling outside, and willing to swear, each and every
one of them, that nothing and no one, either man, woman, child, or
beast, passed them going in or getting out from sunset until dawn."

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, sucking in his lower lip. "Mysterious, to say the
least. Was there no struggle? Did the men on guard hear no cry?"

"In the case of the first groom, Murple, the one that was
paralysed--no," said Sir Henry, as the question was addressed to him.
"But in the case of Tolliver--yes. The men heard him cry out, heard him
call out 'help!' but by the time they could get the doors open it was
all over. He was lying doubled up before the entrance to Black Riot's
stall, with his face to the floor, as dead as Julius Caesar, poor fellow,
and not a sign of anybody anywhere."

"And the horse? Did anybody get at that?"

"No; for the best of reasons. As soon as these attacks began, Mr. Cleek,
I sent up to London. A gang of twenty-four men came down, with steel
plates, steel joists, steel posts, and in seven hours' time Black Riot's
box was converted into a sort of safe, to which I alone hold the key the
instant it is locked up for the night. A steel grille about half a foot
deep, and so tightly meshed that nothing bigger than a mouse could pass
through, runs all round the enclosure close to the top of the walls, and
this supplies ventilation. When the door is closed at night, it
automatically connects itself with an electric gong in my own bedroom,
so that the slightest attempt to open it, or even to touch it, would
hammer out an alarm close to my head."

"Has it ever done so?"

"Yes, last night, when Tolliver was killed."

"How killed, Sir Henry? Stabbed or shot?"

"Neither. He appeared to have been strangled, poor fellow, and to have
died in most awful agony."

"Strangled! But, my dear sir, that would hardly have been possible in so
short a time. You say your men heard him call out for help. Granted that
it took them a full m