look of fear in her eyes. Above his head he heard someone
moving in the study.

"Your husband is upstairs?" he asked in a voice which was little more than
a whisper. "I want to see him--I am going up to him."

He did not wait for her to reply, and she watched him out of the room with
staring eyes. Stealthily he directed his steps to the staircase, and with
infinite precautions for silence commenced to ascend. But midway he
stumbled in the dark, and the stair creaked loudly. Above his head a door
opened sharply, and when he reached the landing he saw the figure of
Thalassa framed in the lighted doorway at the far end of the long passage,
listening.

"Who's there?" he cried; then his eye fell on Barrant, advancing swiftly
from the darkness towards the light. "What do you want?" he said. "How did
you get in?"

Barrant looked past him into the room. There was a litter of papers on the
table and shelves, as he had last seen it, but it did not seem to him that
anything had been disturbed. The door of the death chamber opposite was
closed.

"What are you doing up here?" he said sternly.

Thalassa did not deign to parley. "What do you want?" he repeated, looking
steadily at the detective.

"Did you hear what I said to you?" angrily demanded Barrant. "Were you not
told not to interfere with these rooms in any way? You have no right up
here."

"More right than you have to come into a house like a thief," retorted
Thalassa coldly. "I have my work to do. The place must be looked after,
whether I'm spied on or not."

"I advise you not to take that tone with me," replied the detective. "As
you are here, you had better come into this room again, and shut the door
behind you. I have some questions I want to put to you."

Thalassa followed Barrant into the room and stood by the table, the rays
of the swinging-lamp throwing his brown face into sharp outline. "What do
you want to know?" he asked.

"I want you to tell me everything that happened in this house on the night
your master was found dead."

"There's not much to tell," began Thalassa slowly. "When it happened I was
down in the cellar, breaking some coal. I heered my wife call out to me
from the kitchen. I went up from the cellar, and she was standing at the
kitchen door, shaking like a leaf with fright. She said there'd been a
terrible crash right over her head in Mr. Turold's study. I took a lamp
and went upstairs, and knocked at the door, but I got no reply. I kn