"I can't think where I put it; those brutes can't have had it. I had it myself last night, I know. Where did I put it? I can't wait to think--I can't wait; besides it doesn't matter. Anything will do to open it." She took a polished brass poker. With it she made a hole in the lid of the case large enough to enable her to insert her fingers. Then, with her hands, she tore the lid away--a sufficiently easy task, since the wood proved to be less than an eighth of an inch in thickness. The case contained six bottles. She took out one; it was labelled "Pure Ether--Poison". Withdrawing the stopper, paying no attention to the statement on the label, she poured out nearly a wineglassful, which she instantly swallowed, coupling with it, as it were, a somewhat gruesome sentiment. "Here's to Isaac Luker! I wish he was in reach; I'd like to kill him." Scarcely were the words out of her lips than the door opened to admit her husband. He stared at her. "Belle, there doesn't seem to be a servant in the place--not a creature. Where are they all off to? What's it mean?" She replied to his question with another. "Gregory, doesn't there seem to you to be something singular about this bedroom?" "Bedroom? It's not a bedroom; it's a boudoir. What do you mean? Belle, what's the matter with the house? What have you got in your hand? What are you drinking?" Mrs. Lamb was looking round her in a fashion which induced her husband to draw back, as if in doubt. "Have you ever seen it before--anywhere? Isn't there something strange about it?--especially the bed?" Mr. Lamb seemed to be of opinion that his wife's manner was distinctly disagreeable; apparently he did not know what to make of it. "Bed?--what bed? There's no bed here. You're--you're not well. Don't talk like that; you make me go all over creeps. I say, Belle, I do wish you'd give me some coin--if it's only a tenner. I'm broke to the wide." "Gregory!" "Well?" "Come here; I want to speak to you." "Thank you, I'm awfully sorry, but I've got an appointment with a man; I can't stop. About that money--Belle! now, what's up?" With a swift, unexpected movement, interposing herself between him and the door, his wife had slipped her arm through his, and was looking at him with something in her big black eyes which made him more uncomfortable than he would have cared to admit. Considering the bold, ringing, almost blusterous tones in which she was wont to speak, there was something unpleasantly significant in the half-whisper in which she addressed him now. "Gregory, you must stop--you mustn't go. There's something which I wish to say to you--a great deal which I wish to say to you, and I must say it to you now--here"--her voice sank still lower--"in Cuthbert Grahame's bedroom." CHAPTER XXVIII MR. LAMB IN A COMMUNICATIVE MOOD