ewhere in the left wing, near the
room into which you took me, and it is certain that someone has got
caught in the flames. For heaven's sake, show me the entrance to the
tower, and come with me to do what can be done!"

The smug look was gone, chased away by one of blank amazement, which did
not, however, seem the sort of horrified surprise that might have been
expected to follow on my startling announcement.

"I'm sure you must be entirely mistaken, sir," he said. "There is no
fire, I'm quite certain of that. There--there may have been a cry, for
as it happens there's just been an accident--in the kitchen."

"An accident in the kitchen?" I echoed, incredulously.

"Yes, sir. You see, it was this way, sir" (the fellow stammered and
breathed hard between his words, as though he were anxious to gain time
for himself, I thought): "The cook--an awkward woman--set some
methylated spirit on fire, and upset the stuff over her foot. She--I'm
afraid she did give a scream, sir. You know what women are at such
times. But it's all right now. The flames were put out on the instant,
sir, and one of the other servants is helping cook bind up her foot.
Very kind of you to take this trouble and be anxious, sir, I'm sure."

He was glib enough now, but his shifty eyes were moving about, as though
looking with a certain apprehension for someone to arrive.

"I saw smoke and sparks coming out of the tower as I came up to the
door," I said, doubtful about accepting this halting explanation.

The fellow flushed to the roots of his black oiled hair as I watched
him.

"Did you see that, sir?" he exclaimed, ingenuously. "It's master's
laboratory up there, though you'd never think it from the outside, would
you? Something's gone wrong with one of the--the apparatuses, sir--I
don't know the name for it--and the fact is I did suppose you were the
gentleman who had come to examine into the trouble. He was to have
arrived to-day, and so I thought----But I see, sir, as you refer to the
sparks, and seem not to understand what makes them, I must have been
mistaken."

"Yes, you were mistaken," I returned, only half satisfied, yet not
caring to allow myself morbidly to scent a mystery where mystery there
was none.

"Would you step in here, sir, and wait for my master?" he went on
hastily, drawing aside the _portiere_ from a door close by. "I
shouldn't have given you the bother of going so far before, only I
thought you'd come on business which