iminal--their
interference."

"I ordered that none was to be admitted for a moment."

"It is always very hard to keep them out. They are cunning devils, and
take a perverse pleasure in adding to our difficulties. Little they care
how they defeat justice if they can only get 'copy' for their infernal
newspapers."

Inspector Frith spoke with some warmth; he had little for which to thank
the popular Press.

Within an hour the four departed, and it was understood that they should
not be disturbed until they themselves cared to reappear.

Mannering remained with Sir Walter and Lennox. He was dejected and
exceedingly anxious. But the others did not share his fears. The
younger, indeed, felt hopeful that definite results might presently be
recorded, and he went to his bed very thankful to get there. But
Sir Walter, now calm and refreshed by some hours of sleep during the
afternoon, designed to keep his own vigil.

"Poor May lies in my library to-night," he said, "and I shall watch
beside him. Mary also wishes to do so. It seems a proper respect to pay
the dead. The inquest takes place to-morrow, and he will be buried in
his parish. We must attend the funeral, Mary and I."

"If ever a man took his own life, that man did!" declared the doctor.

CHAPTER IX. THE NIGHT WATCH

Though a room had been prepared for Dr. Mannering, he did not occupy it
long. The early hours of night found him in a bad temper, and suffering
from considerable exacerbation of nerves. He troubled little for
himself, and still less concerning the police, for he was human, and
their indifference to his advice annoyed him; but for Sir Walter he was
perturbed, and did not like the arrangements that he had planned. The
doctor, however, designed to go and come and keep an eye upon the old
man, and he hoped that the master of Chadlands would presently sleep, if
only in his study chair. For himself he suffered a somewhat unpleasant
experience toward midnight, but had himself to thank for it. He rested
for an hour in his bedroom, then went downstairs, to find Mary and her
father sitting quietly together in the great library. They were both
reading, while at the farther end, where a risen moon already frosted
the lofty windows above him, lay Septimus May in his coffin. Mary
had plucked a wealth of white hothouse flowers, which stood in an old
Venetian bowl at his feet.

Sir Walter was solicitous for the doctor.

"Not in bed!" he exclaimed. "This