.

Tapster and Blanche Farrow each held a candle, but Dr. Panton led the
way; and soon they were treading the whitewashed passages, even their
slippered feet making, in the now absolute stillness, what sounded like
loud thuds on the stone floor.

"Listen!" said Blanche suddenly.

They all stood still, and there came a strange fluttering sound. It was
as if a bird had got in through a window, and was trying to find a way
out.

"D'you know the way to the kitchen? I think that the man must be in the
kitchen, or probably the pantry," whispered the doctor to his hostess.

"I think it's this way."

Miss Farrow led them down a short passage to the right, and cautiously
opened a door which led into the kitchen.

And then they all three uttered exclamations of amazement and of horror.
Holding her candle high in her hand, their hostess was now lighting up a
scene of extraordinary and of widespread disorder.

It was as if a tornado had whirled through the vast, low-ceilinged
kitchen. Heavy tables lay on their sides and upside down, their legs in
the air. Most of the crockery--fortunately, so Blanche said to herself,
kitchen crockery--off the big dresser lay smashed in large and small
pieces here, there, and everywhere. A large copper preserving-pan lay
grotesquely sprawling on the well-scrubbed centre table, which was the
one thing which had not been moved--probably because of its great
weight. And yet--and yet it had been moved--for it was all askew! The
man who did that, if, indeed, one man could alone have done all this
mischief, must have been very, very strong--a Hercules!

The doctor took the candle from Miss Farrow's hand and walked in among
the debris. "He must have gone through that door," he muttered.

Leaving her to be joined by the timorous James Tapster, he went boldly
on across the big kitchen, and through a door which gave into what
appeared to be a scullery. But here everything was in perfect order.

"Where can the man have gone?" he asked himself in astonishment.

Before him there rose a vision of the respectable old butler, and of the
two tall, well-matched, but not physically strong-looking footmen. This
must be the work of some man he had not yet seen? Of course there must
be many men employed about such a place as was Wyndfell Hall.

He retraced his steps. "I think you and Mr. Tapster had better go
upstairs again, and leave me to this," he said decidedly. "I'll have a
thorough hunt through the p