"Impossible?"

"He is not here--he has gone away."

"Gone away!" It was old Nanon's voice, and it was pitched a shade higher than usual. She took a step toward the girl, the thick gray brows bent over the sharp-sighted eyes. "Where has he gone? Why did he go?"

The girl did not reply; she put her hands to her face, and the secret agent as he looked at her saw that she shivered as though struck with a chill.

"I do not know," she said.

For a moment the old woman stood looking at her, something like menace in her face; it seemed as though she were about to burst forth into a torrent of words. But Ashton-Kirk rose.

"If you don't mind," said he, calmly, "I should like to go through the house."

Slowly the stern eyes turned from the girl to the speaker.

"You will not see _him_?" indicating the direction of the library.

"Not until afterward."

Without another word she walked toward the door. Ashton-Kirk followed her; as he was stepping into the hall he looked back. Stella Corbin was standing erect, her hands clasped, her face white and drawn with what seemed suspense; and the great dark eyes, filled with terror, were fixed steadily upon him.

CHAPTER V

THE HOUND STRIKES THE TRAIL

Old Nanon led the secret agent through the rear of the house and then up the stairs from floor to floor and room to room. His eyes seemed to take in everything, gauging, measuring, speculating; now and then he asked a question to which she returned a brief, illuminating answer. Finally they descended and Ashton-Kirk examined the front door. Beside the ordinary spring lock it had a heavy bolt.

"When you left the step and went back into the kitchen to prepare the coffee, did you close this door?" he asked.

"I did; and bolted it."

"Did you look at it after the body was found?"

"It was I who opened the door for Drevenoff when he started after you.

It was still bolted."

Both Fuller and Drevenoff stood in the hall; and as old Nanon paused at the library door, Ashton-Kirk said to the Pole:

"How far away is the nearest police station?"

"About half a dozen blocks," answered the other.

"I want you to go there at once and report what has occurred."

"I can call them upon the telephone," suggested Drevenoff.

"I prefer that you go in person," said Ashton-Kirk, smoothly. "More than likely they will send a man or two; if so, please wait for and return with them."

Nanon opened the library door, turned the switch which controlled the library lights, and then stepped back.

"He is there," she said, one lean finger pointing to the empty doorway.

"Will you not go in?" Ashton-Kirk looked at her keenly.

"No." She drew back further, and he noted her make the same furtive sign that he had caught upon his first visit. "He has filled the world with evil," she went on, "and you see the end of it. Who knows but what that room swarms with things that the soul should fear?"

With this she turned and retraced her steps down the hall, and they saw her reenter the room where the girl had been left.

"A queer sort of old party," commented Fuller. "And one that seems to stick to her opinions."

The two went into the library and closed the door behind them. The hideous thing which sat huddled in the desk chair compelled their instant attention; the head lay tipped back and the face was caked with dry blood. From one thing to another the secret agent swiftly turned his attention; his singular eyes were narrowed, his nostrils widened like those of a hound searching for the scent.

"He was killed while he sat," said he to Fuller. "His position in the chair is too natural for it to be otherwise. And from the size of the wound I should say the weapon was a small one; the fact that no one, not even a woman seated just outside the door, heard a report, also indicates the same thing."

Around the library went the secret agent; the side windows were tried, but were fast, as were those opening upon the porch. A raincoat lay upon the floor; upon the top of the highboy rested a dark, soft hat.

"The bag!" said Ashton-Kirk in a low voice.

"Was there a bag?" asked Fuller.

In a few words the other related what old Nanon had said. Fuller whistled through his shut teeth as he searched the room with a glance.

"It's gone," said he, "and a hundred to one the thing we want is gone with it."

"Perhaps," said Ashton-Kirk quietly. "But we are not at all sure of that. The person who is keyed up to the pitch of a desperate deed such as this seldom is in the state of mind to make an intelligent search.

If the desired thing is at his hand, well and good, but if it is hidden the chances are decidedly against him. Witness the attempt upon the rubies of Bostwick's wife, in which her butler lost his life; also the astonishing matter of the numismatist Hume.[1] A miscalculation spoiled the criminals' chances in the first case; and a misunderstanding with a confederate was fatal in the second. The beast in a man is uppermost when he can do murder; and even the most intelligent of beasts is not a reasoning thing."

"That sounds like truth," said Fuller. "But this is the way I look at it. Dr. Morse was clearly in a state of dread; all about him agreed that these queer things, which were continually recurring, had broken his nerve. A servant enters a room and finds him preparing for a journey.

Yet apparently he has not mentioned his intentions in this regard even to his niece, to whom he is much attached. To my mind this indicates that he was about to run off somewhere without saying anything to any one. He feared to remain and he feared to tell that he was going, thinking it would, somehow, leak out."

"Well, and what next?"

"The most natural thing for him to do under the circ.u.mstances,"

proceeded Fuller, "would be to take with him the article which created all the fuss. It would be against human nature to leave it behind. He was about to put it into the bag, or he had already done so, when the servant saw him endeavoring to turn the key."

"That," smiled the secret agent, "is rather well thought out. But you have overlooked one thing. That Dr. Morse intended doing as you state would necessitate his knowing definitely what his mysterious communicants desired. His own acts and especially his own words, as overheard by his niece, indicate the reverse of this. And if he did not know what they wanted," with a twinkle in his eye, "it is certain that he could not pack it away in a bag."

Fuller looked perplexed, but nodded understandingly.

"That's so," said he. "I forgot, for a moment, that the case had that peculiar phase." Again he looked all about. "However," he continued, "the bag is not here, and if the murderer took it with him, you can bet that he had an excellent reason for so doing."

While Fuller was speaking, Ashton-Kirk lifted the coat from the floor; several of the pockets were pulled out. At once he examined the coat worn by the dead man; the inside pockets of this were also turned out, as were those upon the lower outside.

"There was a search," said he. "But, as before, when the house at Sharsdale was broken into, the personal valuables were not its object.

Here is his watch in his fob pocket, and this," taking up a torn card case from the desk, "lies just where the criminal flung it in his anger at not finding what he wanted. Its contents," pointing to a tightly wadded heap of bills also upon the desk, "are there."