hey were.

[Illustration: They stared with the fascination of horror]

As they stared with the fascination of horror, the partially open door
was pushed farther open and a dim gray form glided around its edge.
Joyce clutched Cynthia, gave one little shriek, half-relief and
half-laughter, and gasped:

"Oh, Cynthia! _It's Goliath!_"

CHAPTER IV

THE ROOM OF MYSTERY

It was, indeed, Goliath. He was an enormous cat, and his purr was as
oversized as his body. That was the hoarse sound that they had thought
was heavy breathing. His footfalls too could be distinctly heard when
all else was quiet, and he had evidently rubbed against some light
article of furniture in the outer room and moved it. In the reaction of
relief, Cynthia seized Goliath, sat down on the floor, and--cried!
having first deposited her candlestick carefully on the table. Joyce did
quite the opposite, and laughed hysterically for several minutes. The
tension of suspense and terror had been very real.

"How _did_ he get in here?" sobbed Cynthia, at length.

"Why, through the window, of course. And he must have been in before we
came. Don't you remember, we found the door at the head of the cellar
steps open? I closed it when we came up, so he couldn't have got here
afterward." Joyce bent down and scratched Goliath's fat jowls, at which
he purred the louder.

"Well, let's let him stay, since he's here," sighed Cynthia, wiping her
eyes. "He'll be sort of company!" So Goliath was allowed to remain, and
the two girls, escorted by him, proceeded on their voyage of discovery.
Back across the drawing-room and hall they went, and through the
dining-room. There for a moment they stood, surveying anew the curious
scene.

"Does it strike you as strange," Joyce demanded suddenly, "that there's
no silver here, no knives, forks, spoons, sugar-bowls, or--or anything
of that kind? Yet everything else in china or glass is left. What do you
make of it?"

"Somebody got in and stole it," ventured Cynthia.

"Nonsense! Nobody's been here since, except ourselves, that's perfectly
plain. No, the people must have stopped long enough to collect it and
put it away,--or take it with them. Cynthia, why _do_ you suppose they
left in such a hurry?" But Cynthia, the unimaginative, was equally
unable to answer this query satisfactorily, so she only replied:

"I don't know, I'm sure!"

A room, however, beyond the dining-room was awaiting their inspection.
In a corne