ement was, when Narkom and the rest came on tiptoe
to the end of the trampled path and peeped around the last screening
bush into the open beyond, they found it to be the case.

Blurred, shadowy, mist wrapped--like the ghost of a house set in a
ghostly garden--there stood the long-abandoned building, its blank upper
windows lost in the wrapping fog; its dreary face toward the distant
road; its bleak, unlovely side fronting the point from which Narkom and
his men now viewed it; and from one of the two side windows thin
wavering lines of constantly shifting light issued from beneath the
shadow of a veranda.

"Candlelight, sir, and a draught somewhere, nobody moving about,"
whispered Hammond. "Window or a door open--that's what makes the light
rise and fall. What an ass! Barricaded the window and never thought to
stop up the chinks. Lord, for a fellow clever enough to get away from
the constable and the keeper in the manner he did, you'd never look for
an idiot's trick like this."

Narkom might have reminded him that it was an old, old failing on the
part of the criminal class, this overlooking some trifling little point
after a deed of almost diabolical cunning; but at present he was too
much excited to think of anything but getting into that lighted room and
nabbing his man before he slipped the leash again and escaped him.

Ducking down he led a swift but soundless flight across the open space
until he and his allies were close up under the shadow of the building
itself, where he made the rather surprising discovery that the rear door
was unlocked. Through this they made their way down a passage, at the
end of which was evidently the room they sought, for a tiny thread of
light lay between the door and the bare boards of the passage. Here they
halted a moment, their nerves strung to breaking point and their hearts
hammering thickly as they now heard a faint rustling movement and a
noise of tearing paper sounding from behind it.

For a moment these things alone were audible; then Narkom's hand shot
upward as a silent signal; there was a concerted movement, a crash that
carried a broken door inward and sent echoes bellowing and bounding from
landing to landing and wall to wall, a gush of light, a scramble of
crowding figures, a chorus of excited voices, and--the men of Scotland
Yard were in the room.

But no cornered criminal rose to do battle with them, and no startled
outcry greeted their coming--nothing but the s