Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael's stood wide open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread. The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the disturbance of the previous night. "Who, in God's name, opened that curtain!" he muttered. Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays. His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip. Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him. He was quite dead. Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed, anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son. "Ferrara!" he cried, coming up to the bed. "Ferrara!" He dropped on his knees beside the dead man. "Ferrara, old fellow--" His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking, and went downstairs. In the hall stood Felton and some other servants. "Miss Duquesne?" "She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom." Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was glad of the chance to talk to someone. "Mr. Antony has been 'phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o'clock." "Thank you," said Cairn shortly. Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of emotion. "Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell me. I am listening." Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf. "I _have_ something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you." "Tell your story, first; then ask your question." "My story begins in a Thames backwater--" Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate, with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table and thrown in the fire-- "Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?" The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some hardly repressed emotion. "I cannot swear to it, sir--"