let loose of a night within the front
courtyard of the house. Not apprehending robbers, but fearing the dog
might also disturb his master, he got out of his window (being on the
ground-flour) to pacify the animal; that he then saw, in the opposite
angle of the building, a light moving along the casement of the passage
between Losely's rooms and Mr. Gunston's study. Surprised at this, at
such an hour, he approached that part of the building and saw the
light very faintly through the chinks in the shutters of the study. The
passage windows had no shutters, being old-fashioned stone mullions. He
waited by the wall a few minutes, when the light again reappeared in
the passage; and he saw a figure in a cloak, which, being in a peculiar
colour, he recognised at once as Losely's, pass rapidly along; but
before the figure had got half through the passage, the light was
extinguished, and the servant could see no more. But so positive was
he, from his recognition of the cloak, that the man was Losely, that he
ceased to feel alarm or surprise, thinking, on reflection, that Losely,
sitting up later than usual to transact business before his departure,
might have gone into his employer's study for any book or paper which he
might have left there. The dog began barking again, and seemed anxious
to get out of the courtyard to which he was confined; but the servant
gradually appeased him--went to bed, and somewhat overslept himself.
When he awoke, he hastened to take the coffee into Losely's room, but
Losely was gone. Here there was another suspicious circumstance. It had
been a question how the bureau had been opened, the key being safe in
Gunston's possession, and there being no sign of force. The lock was one
of those rude old-fashioned ones which are very easily picked, but to
which a modern key does not readily fit. In the passage there was found
a long nail crooked at the end; and that nail, the superintendent of the
police (who had been summoned) had the wit to apply to the lock of
the bureau, and it unlocked and re-locked it easily. It was clear that
whoever had so shaped the nail could not have used such an instrument
for the first time, and must be a practised picklock. That, one would
suppose at first, might exonerate Losely; but he was so clever a fellow
at all mechanical contrivances that, coupled with the place of finding,
the nail made greatly against him; and still more so when some nails
precisely similar were found on t