was quite limp, and my
fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging
them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall, and pulled
the front door open to see the better.

His throat was gashed from ear to ear.

How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the
floor, and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say.
Twice I stirred a foot as if to run out at the door. Then, changing my
mind, I stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase. The light
no longer shone out into the left-hand passage; but groping down it,
I found the study door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light
stole through the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses
and decanters on the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung
before the room where the light had first attracted me.

I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the
violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door handle and turned it.

All I could see at first; was that the chamber was small; next, that
the light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a
bed; and next, that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.

I listened again. There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but
my own. I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back
again. I dared not.

The daylight grew, minute by minute, on the dull parallelogram of
the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took
something of distinctness. The strain beat me at last. I fetched a
veritable yell to give myself courage, and, reaching for the cord,
pulled up the blind as fast as it would go.

The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and
peaceful, with quiet lines about the month and eyes, and long lines of
gray hair falling back from the temples. The body was turned a little
on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural
manner. But there were two dark spots on the coverlet.

Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder; and it
flashed on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his
butler, and that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.

[Illustration: "FACE TO FACE WITH THE REAL HOUSEHOLDER."]

And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I
quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me. Outside
the house the storm had died, and white sunlight broke over the sodden