"Now, owing to the peculiarity of its construction--it is not more than eighteen feet high--the fact that it contained but one circular room, and all those bowman slits in the walls of it, this unusual 'tower' gained an equally unusual name for itself, and became known everywhere as the 'Stone Drum of Heatherington,' and is even mentioned by that name in the _Inquisitio Eliensis_ of the "Domesday Book," which, as you doubtless know, is the particular volume of that remarkable work which records the survey, et cetera, of the counties of Cambridge, Hertford, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Huntingdon." "I see," said Cleek, with an amused twinkle in his eye. "You are getting on, Mr. Narkom. We shall have you lecturing on archæology one of these fine days. But to return to our mutton--or, rather, our stone drum--was it in that place, then, that the murder was committed?" "Yes. It is one of the few, very few, parts of the building to which Mr. Jefferson P. Drake did nothing in the way of modernizing, and added nothing in the way of 'improvements.' That, probably, was because, as it stood, it offered him a quiet, secluded, and exclusive retreat for the carrying on of his experiments; for wealth had brought with it no inclination to retire, and he remained to the last in the lists of the world's active forces. As a general thing, he did not do much in the way of burning the midnight oil, but conducted most of his experiments in the daytime. But last night was an exception. It may be that the news of his son's appeal to the lodgekeeper that afternoon had upset him, for he was restless and preoccupied all the evening, Lord Fallowfield says--or, at least, so young Drake reports him as having said--and instead of retiring with the rest of the house party when bedtime came and his Japanese valet carried up his customary carafe of ice-water----" "Oh, he has a Japanese valet, has he? But, of course, in these days no American gentleman with any pretence to distinction whatsoever would be without one. Go on, please. His Japanese valet carried up the ice-water, and--then what?" "Then he suddenly announced his intention of going into the Stone Drum and working for a few hours. Lord Fallowfield, it appears, tried his best to dissuade him, but to no purpose." "Why did he do that? Or don't you know?"