broad window which looked out on the courtyard.

Taking the doorway wall first, what was there, in the shape of
furniture, on either side of it? There was a card-table on either side.
Above each card-table stood a magnificent china bowl placed on a gilt
and carved bracket fixed to the wall.

I opened the card-tables. The drawers beneath contained nothing but
cards, and the usual counters and markers. With the exception of one
pack, the cards in both tables were still wrapped in their paper covers
exactly as they had come from the shop. I examined the loose pack, card
by card. No writing, no mark of any kind, was visible on any one of
them. Assisted by a library ladder which stood against the book-case,
I looked next into the two china bowls. Both were perfectly empty. Was
there anything more to examine on that side of the room? In the two
corners there were two little chairs of inlaid wood, with red silk
cushions. I turned them up and looked under the cushions, and still I
made no discoveries. When I had put the chairs back in their places my
search on one side of the room was complete. So far I had found nothing.

I crossed to the opposite wall, the wall which contained the window.

The window (occupying, as I have said, almost the entire length and
height of the wall) was divided into three compartments, and was adorned
at their extremity by handsome curtains of dark red velvet. The ample
heavy folds of the velvet left just room at the two corners of the wall
for two little upright cabinets in buhl, containing rows of drawers, and
supporting two fine bronze productions (reduced in size) of the Venus
Milo and the Venus Callipyge. I had Major Fitz-David's permission to
do just what I pleased. I opened the si x drawers in each cabinet, and
examined their contents without hesitation.

Beginning with the cabinet in the right-hand corner, my investigations
were soon completed. All the six drawers were alike occupied by a
collection of fossils, which (judging by the curious paper inscriptions
fixed on some of them) were associated with a past period of the Major's
life when he had speculated, not very successfully in mines. After
satisfying myself that the drawers contained nothing but the fossils
and their inscriptions, I turned to the cabinet in the left-hand corner
next.

Here a variety of objects was revealed to view, and the examination
accordingly occupied a much longer time.

The top drawer contained a complete