ed, "if anybody's been
there, the other door must be open."

She shook her head. Those two first of all faced that extraordinary
puzzle. How had the murderer entered and left the room with both doors
locked on the inside, with the windows too high for use? They went to the
upper story. She urged the butler into the sombre corridor.

"We have to know," she whispered, "what's happened beyond those
locked doors."

She still vibrated to the feeling of unconformable forces in the old
house. Jenkins, she saw, responded to the same superstitious misgivings.
He inserted the chisel with maladroit hands. He forced the lock back and
opened the door. Dust arose from the long-disused room, flecking the
yellow candle flame. They hesitated on the threshold. They forced
themselves to enter. Then they looked at each other and smiled with
relief, for Silas Blackburn, in his dressing-gown, lay on the bed, his
placid, unmarked face upturned, as if sleeping.

"Why, miss," Jenkins gasped. "He's all right."

Almost with confidence Katherine walked to the bed.

"Uncle Silas--" she began, and touched his hand.

She drew back until the wall supported her. Jenkins must have read
everything in her face, for he whimpered:

"But he looks all right. He can't be--"

"Cold--already! If I hadn't touched--"

The horror of the thing descended upon her, stifling thought.
Automatically she left the room and told Jenkins what to do. After he had
telephoned police headquarters in the county seat and had summoned Doctor
Groom, a country physician, she sat without words, huddled over the
library fire.

The detective, a competent man named Howells, and Doctor Groom arrived at
about the same time. The detective made Katherine accompany them upstairs
while he questioned her. In the absence of the coroner he wouldn't let
the doctor touch the body.

"I must repair this lock," he said, "the first thing, so nothing can be
disturbed."

Doctor Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent on entering the room.
For a long time he stared at the body in the candle light, making as much
of an examination as he could, evidently, without physical contact.

"Why did he ever come here to sleep?" he asked in his rumbling bass
voice. "Nasty room! Unhealthy room! Ten to one you're a formality,
policeman. Coroner's a formality."

He sneered a little.

"I daresay he died what the hard-headed world will call a natural death.
Wonder what the coroner'll say."

The