ou a needless search. It will have to be opened later on, I
imagine."

"All right," I said, with much interest. "Lead the way."

Burke rose, with a queer glance at Maillot, and--turned toward the
curtained alcove.

If he had any intention of moving in that direction, however, he
quickly changed his mind; for Maillot and I followed him through the
doorway, down the length of the roomy panelled hall, to another door on
the same side of the house as the one we had just quitted. I could
hear a murmur of voices across the hall, where Stodger was entertaining
the reporters.

"The safe," said Burke, as we entered a large, handsome, but very
disordered sleeping-chamber, "is what decided Mr. Page on selecting
this room in preference to one on the second floor. It was placed
here, I suppose, at the time the house was built; it is very artfully
hidden."

The bed betrayed the fact that it had not been slept in recently, and
the room that it was unused to a cleansing supervision. Some soiled
clothing lay in a heap in one corner; a pair of trousers were collapsed
over the back of a chair; the dresser-top held a lot of linen and
cravats, both clean and soiled; half-closed drawers overflowed with
garments that had been thrust in any way, and an over-turned ink bottle
on a handsome mahogany stand had never been righted. Even a careless
housewife would have been driven insane by such deliberate untidiness.

Our guide picked up a half-burned candle, lighted it, and then opened a
closet door. Next instant he started back with a queer cry.

Maillot and I crowded forward and saw--nothing, at first, to explain
Burke's conduct. But in a moment I comprehended.

A section of the closet floor was up, and now stood on edge leaning
against a wall; beneath it was a shallow, cemented hollow, with four
wooden steps leading down to the bottom, where, obviously, one might
stand to get conveniently at the small safe thus disclosed.

It was also manifest that somebody had been doing that very thing. For
the safe door stood open, as well as the inner door; and a flash of the
candle, a single brief glimpse, assured me that--whatever it might have
held--it was now as empty as on the day it left the maker's hands.

But, stay--there _was_ something, though not in the safe. I took the
candle from Burke, and went down the steps. On the cement floor, in
the shadow of the open safe door, was a visiting-card, yellowed by age.
I thought it bla