ectedly!"

"It was certainly not a pleasant experience," I answered. "But--I was
not quite as surprised as you might think."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because--I can't explain it, quite--I felt, yesterday, that the man
was running risks by showing his money as foolishly as he did," I
replied. "And, of course, when I found him, I thought he'd been
murdered for his money."

"And yet he wasn't!" she said. "For you say it was all found on him.
What an extraordinary mystery! Is there no clue? I suppose he must
really have been killed by that man who was spoken of at the inn? You
think they met?"

"To tell you the truth," I answered, "at present I don't know what to
think--except that this is merely a chapter in some mystery--an
extraordinary one, as you remark. We shall hear more. And, in the
meantime--a much pleasanter thing--won't you show me round the house?
Mr. Raven is busy with the police-inspector and the doctors, and--I'm
anxious to know what the extent of my labours may be."

She at once acquiesced in this proposition, and we began to inspect
the accumulations of the dead-and-gone master of Ravensdene Court. As
his successor had remarked in his first letter to me, Mr. John
Christopher Raven, though obviously a great collector, had certainly
not been a great exponent of system and order--except in the library
itself, where all his most precious treasures were stored in tall,
locked book-presses, his gatherings were lumped together anyhow and
anywhere, all over the big house--the north wing was indeed a
lumber-house--he appeared to have bought books, pamphlets, and
manuscripts by the cart-load, and it was very plain to me, as an
expert, that the greater part of his possessions of these sorts had
never even been examined. Before Miss Raven and I had spent an hour in
going from one room to another I had arrived at two definite
conclusions--one, that the dead man's collection of books and papers
was about the most heterogeneous I had ever set eyes on, containing
much of great value and much of none whatever; the other, that it
would take me a long time to make a really careful and proper
examination of it, and longer still to arrange it in proper order.
Clearly, I should have to engage Mr. Raven in a strictly business
talk, and find out what his ideas were in regard to putting his big
library on a proper footing. Mr. Raven at last joined us, in one of
the much-encumbered rooms. With him was the doctor, Lorrimore,