e stone
steps were covered with heavy dark carpet, was a marble, that
imagination might easily have taken for a queen.

Here and there the panelled walls were ornamented with stands of Indian
arms and armour, conical helmets, once worn by Eastern chiefs, with
pendent curtains, and suits of chain mail. Bloodthirsty daggers, curved
scimitars, spears, clumsy matchlocks, and long straight swords, whose
hilt was an iron gauntlet, in which the warrior's fingers were laced as
they grasped a handle placed at right angles to the blade, after the
fashion of a spade. There were shields, too, and bows and arrows, and
tulwars and kukris, any number of warlike implements from the East,
while beside the statues, the West had to show some curious chairs, and
a full-length portrait of an Englishman in the prime of life--a
handsome, bold-faced man, in the uniform of one of John Company's
regiments, his helmet in his hand, and his breast adorned with orders
and jewels of foreign make.

The old Indian servant stood there like one of the statues, as the
dining-room door opened and three dark, closely-shaven and moustached
men, in black, came out softly, and went silently up the stairs.

There was something singularly furtive and strange about them as they
followed one another in silence, all three alike in their dress coats
and turned-down white collars, beneath which was a narrow strip of
ribbon, knotted in front.

They passed on and on up the great winding stairs, past the
drawing-room, from whence came the low buzz of voices, to a door at the
back of the house, beside a great stained-glass window, whose weird
lights shone down upon a lion-skin rug.

Here the first man stopped for his companions, to reach his side. Then,
whispering a few words to them, he took a key from his pocket, opened
the door, withdrew the key, and entered the darkened room, closing and
locking the door, as the old Indian crept softly up, sank upon his knees
upon the skin rug, his hands clasped, his head bent down, and resting
against the panels of the door.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE DEAD MAN'S RELATIVES.

"I can tell you very little, Mr Capel. I have been your great uncle's
confidential solicitor ever since he returned from India. I was a mere
boy when he went away. He knew me then, and when he came back he sought
me out."

"And that is twenty-five years ago, Mr Girtle?"

"Yes. The year you were born."

"And he made you his confidant?"

"Yes; h