he north and south galleries looked on
to an internal courtyard, so there was every chance of isolating
the outbreak if it were tackled vigorously; and no fault could be
found with either the spirit or training of the amateur brigade.
Consequently, only two rooms, a bedroom and adjoining dressing-room,
were well alight; these were burned out completely. A sitting-room on
one side was badly scorched, as was a spare room on the other; but the
men soon knew that they had checked the further progress of the
flames, and were speculating, while they worked, as to the cause of a
fire originating in a set of empty apartments, when Parker, Mrs.
Fenley's personal attendant, came sobbing and distraught to Sylvia.

"Oh, miss!" she cried. "Oh, miss! Where is your aunt?"

"Isn't Mrs. Fenley in her room?" asked the girl, yielding to a sense
of neglect in not having gone to see if Mrs. Fenley was alarmed,
though the older woman was not in the slightest danger. The two main
sections of the building were separated by an open space of forty
feet, and The Towers had exceedingly thick walls.

"No, miss. I can't find her anywhere!" said the woman, well aware that
if any one was at fault it was herself. "You know when I saw you. I
went back then, and she was sleeping, so I thought I could leave her
safely. Oh, miss, what has become of her? Maybe she was aroused by the
shooting!"

All hands that could be spared from the fire-fighting operations
engaged instantly in an active search, but there was no clue to Mrs.
Fenley's disappearance beyond an open door and a missing night light.
The electric current was shut off at the main at midnight, except on a
special circuit communicating with the hall, the courtyard, and
MacBain's den, where he had control of these things.

High and low they hunted without avail, until MacBain himself stumbled
over a calcinated body in the murdered banker's bedroom. The poor
creature had waked to some sense of disaster. Vague memories of the
morning's horror had led her, night light in hand, to the spot where
she fancied she would find the one person on earth in whom she placed
confidence, for Mortimer Fenley had always treated her with kindness,
even if his methods were not in accord with the commonly accepted
moral code.

Presumably, on discovering that the rooms were empty, some further
glimmering knowledge had stirred her benumbed consciousness. She may
have flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of weeping