drawing-room. It was empty, containing not a single item of furniture.
From my pocket I took two pairs of thick woolen socks and drew them
one over the other on to my boots to deaden my footfalls. The door of
this empty and desolate room was open, and, stepping softly, I walked
out into a wide corridor, my mind filled with terrifying recollections
of the Red House.

Three other rooms I explored, and although in two of them some items
of massive furniture remained, covered with dust-sheets, no sign of
habitation did I come upon. The whole of the ground floor proved to be
vacant and a broad uncarpeted stair suggested that the floors above
were also deserted by their occupants.

I mounted softly, but the stairs creaked in a horrible fashion, so
that I became hotly apprehensive before I gained the top. I had
nothing to fear, however, for again empty rooms alone rewarded my
search. My most significant discovery in the upper part of the house
was that of a bedroom which was still almost completely furnished and
in which even the bed-linen yet remained untidily strewn about the
bed. But there were thick spiders' webs stretching from the coverlet
to the canopy, and a coating of dust lay everywhere.

When I finally returned to the empty drawing-room, I had convinced
myself of that which I had come to seek.

Friar's Park was uninhabited!

CHAPTER XIX

THE MAN ON THE TOWER

I quitted Friar's Park unobserved--as I had entered it; walking
quickly across to the shrubbery, I began to work my way back to the
point at which I must strike westward in order to reach the weed-grown
kitchen-garden. At the risk of encountering man-traps I gave the lodge
a wide berth and came out in sight of the wall at a point much nearer
the lawns of the house than that from which I had entered.

What it was that prompted me to turn and take a final look at the
house I cannot say, but before commencing to make my way through the
wilderness of the kitchen-garden, I know that I stood and looked back
towards the ancient Saxon tower which uprose, silvered by the
moonlight, above the trees that obscured from my view all the rest of
the house.

Right to the embrasured crest it was sharply outlined by the brilliant
moon--and as I looked I felt my heart leap suddenly; and then, almost
holding my breath, I crouched, distrusting the very shadows which
afforded me shelter.

For leaning out through one of the embrasures at the top of the tower,