hey left untested, and they examined
and removed a portion of the paper upon them also. Then, taking up the
carpet, they broke into the flooring and skirting boards, but discovered
no indication that the grime and dust of centuries had ever been
disturbed. The desiccated mummy of a rat alone rewarded their scrutiny.
It lay between great timbers under the planking--beams that supported
the elaborate stucco roof of a dwelling-room below.

To the ceiling of the Grey Room they next turned their attention,
fastened an electric wire to the nearest point, and, through a trap-door
in the roof of the passage, investigated the empty space between the
ceiling and the roof. Not an inch of the massive oaken struts above did
they fail to scrutinize, and they made experiments with smoke and water,
to learn if, at any point, so much as a pin-hole existed in the face of
the stucco. But it was solid, and spread evenly to a considerable depth.
They studied it, then, from inside the room, to discover nothing but
the beautifully modeled surface, encrusted with successive layers of
whitewash. The workmanship belonged to a time when men knew not to
scamp their labors and art and craft went hand in hand. Such enthusiasms
perished with the improvement of education. They died with the Guilds,
and the Unions are not concerned to revive them.

The detectives had finished this examination when, at an hour in the
late afternoon, Henry Lennox and Dr. Mannering returned. The authorities
had been informed of the death of Septimus May, and desired that no
more than the ordinary formalities should be taken, unless their
representatives at Chadlands thought otherwise. But they did not. They
were now convinced that no communication existed between the Grey Room
and the outer world, and they declared their determination to watch in
it during the coming night. As a preliminary to this course, however,
they examined each piece of furniture and every picture and other
object that they had removed from the room. These told them nothing,
and presently they restored the chamber in every particular, re-laid
and nailed the carpet, and placed each article as it had stood when they
arrived. They continued to decline assistance, and made it clear that
nobody was to approach the end of the corridor in which they worked.
Alive to the danger, but believing that, whatever its quality, four men
could hardly be simultaneously destroyed, they prepared for their vigil.
Nor d