ry quickly and
noiselessly, and he made sure there was no one anywhere in any of these
rooms on the ground floor.

He locked the front door and the back to make sure no one should enter
or leave too easily, and returned on tiptoe, moving to and fro like
a shadow cast by a changing light, so swift and noiseless were his
movements.

For a little he remained crouching against the side of the stairway,
listening for any sound that might float down to him from above.

But none came--and on a sudden, in one movement, as it were, he ran up
the stairs and crouched down on the topmost one so that any bullet aimed
at him as he appeared might perhaps fly overhead.

But none was fired; there was still no sound at all, no sign that the
house held any living creature beside himself. He began to think
that Deede Dawson must have sent the two women away and now have gone
himself.

But there was the pen downstairs with ink still wet upon the nib to
prove that he had been here recently, and again very suddenly Rupert
leaped to his feet and ran noiselessly down the corridor and entered
quickly into Ella's room.

He had not been in it since the night of his arrival at Bittermeads, but
it appeared to him extraordinarily familiar and every little object in
it of ornament or use seemed to speak to him softly of Ella's gracious
presence.

Of Ella herself there was no sign, but he noticed that the tassel at the
end of the window blind cord was moving as if recently disturbed.

The movement was very slight, almost imperceptible, indeed, but it
existed; and it proved that some one must very shortly before have been
standing at the window. He moved to it and looked out.

The view commanded the road by which he had approached Bittermeads, and
he wondered if Ella had been standing there and had seen his approach,
and then had concealed herself for some reason.

But, if so, why and where was she hiding? And where was Deede Dawson?
And why was everything so silent and so still?

He turned from the window, and as he did so he caught a faint sound in
the passage without.

Instantly he crouched behind the bed, the heavy glass inkpot that was
his one weapon poised in his hand.

The sound did not come again, but as he waited, he saw the door begin to
open very slowly, very quietly.

Lower still he crouched, the inkpot ready to throw, every nerve taut and
tense for the leap at his foe's throat with which he meant to follow it
up. The door