. I'll just take a glimpse through the next one, and then get
back to Miss Duggan, or she'll be getting the creeps and run."

He had started back, and had just swung his torch through the doorway
beyond, when of a sudden he stopped, sucked in his breath, and fairly
ran into the place, head down, nose to the ground, like a dog, every
faculty alert.

What he saw there is not recorded, for just at that moment he heard
Miss Duggan's clear voice calling him, and he had perforce to answer.
But he had time to stoop suddenly and swoop down upon something white
but slightly bloodstained which lay on the ground before him, dart a
hasty glance at it, and cram it into his pocket, before swinging round
upon his heel and answering her summons; and all the time saying to
himself: "Who'd have thought it? Now who the dickens would have thought
it?"

Meanwhile he fingered the slightly bloodstained handkerchief which he
had picked up, and upon which by the light of his torch he had remarked
the initials "R. D." embroidered in one corner. And he laughed softly
and joyfully clapped his hands together.

CHAPTER VI

WHEN THE SWORD FELL

Luncheon at Aygon Castle resolved itself into a somewhat dull and
ceremonious affair, and although there were a good many of them round
the festive board, conversation languished and laughter was noticeable
by its absence.

"What a devil of a family to live with!--sitting as though there were a
cold-water poultice on top of 'em," mentally registered Cleek as he
surveyed the company and tried his best to add to the general interest
by anecdotes of a recent tour in Ireland; but his conversational efforts
evoked only an occasional "Indeed?" from Sir Andrew. Entertaining these
people ought to be a paid task in itself, he decided. They hadn't got
any further with civilization than the hired-jester period. Gloom was
glory to the atmosphere of that room during the interminable meal. He
looked from one to another keenly.

First the old laird, solemn as a judge, and concerned only with what was
put before him, with the strange greed of the very old; and at the foot
of the table, his lady, offering a contrast that was as darkness to
day. Cleek sat on the right of his host with Maud Duggan beside him, and
opposite her brother Ross--a big, broad-shouldered, hawk-nosed chap with
the small blue eye of the Scot, keen as a knife-blade, and showing in
the winged flare of nostril the blood that ran in his vein