"Do you hear that, White?" The detective nodded. "She must have reached the house about half-an-hour before me," he said, addressing the butler. "That's about right, sir." "But I understood," went on Bruce, "that Sir Charles was not at home to ordinary callers?" Thompson shuffled about somewhat uneasily. He wished now he had held his tongue. "I had my orders, sir," he murmured, in extenuation of his apparently diverse actions. "Tell me what your orders were," persisted Bruce. The man hesitated, not wishful to offend his master's friend, but too well trained to reveal the explicit instructions given him by Sir Charles Dyke. "Do not be afraid. I will explain everything to Sir Charles personally. We cannot best judge what to do--whether to wake him or not--unless we know the position," went on the barrister. Thus absolved from blame, Thompson took from his waistcoat pocket a folded sheet of notepaper. "I don't pretend to understand the reason, sir," he said, "but Sir Charles wrote this himself, and told me to be careful to obey him exactly." The barrister eagerly grasped the note and read: "If Mr. Bruce, Jane Harding, or Mrs. Hillmer should call, admit any of them immediately. To all others say that I have left town--some days ago, should they ask you. "C. D." White, round-eyed and bullet-headed, gazed with goggle orbs over Bruce's shoulder. "That settles it, Mr. Bruce," he said. "We _must_ see him." "Thompson," said Bruce, "does Sir Charles usually lock his door?" "Never, sir." "Very well. Knock again, and then try the door. We will go with you." Something in the barrister's manner rather than his words sent a cold shiver down the old butler's spine. "I do hope there's nothing wrong, sir," he commenced; but Bruce was already half-way up the stairs. Both he and White guessed what had happened. They knew that poor Thompson's repeated summons at the bedroom door would remain forever unanswered--that the unfortunate baronet had quitted the dread certainties of this world for the uncertainties of the next. They were not mistaken. A few minutes later they found him listlessly drooping over the side of the chair in which he was seated, partly undressed, and seemingly overcome at the moment when he was about to take off his boots. On a table near him were two bottles, both half-emptied, and an empty wineglass. Each of the bottles bore the label of a well-known chemist. One was endorsed "Sleeping-draught," the other "Poison," and "Chloral." The three men were pale as the limp, inanimate form in the chair while they silently noted these details. Bruce raised the head of his friend in the hope that life might not yet be extinct. But Sir Charles Dyke had taken his measures effectually. Though the _rigor mortis_ had not set in, he had evidently been dead some time. Thompson, quite beside himself with grief, dropped to his knees by his master's side.