Nevertheless, when Lionel reached the house, he decided that, for once, he would look after the fastenings of the windows and doors himself. When he had satisfied himself that everything was secure, he took his candle and went off to his bed in the Dolphin. He was very tired and soon fell asleep. But Lionel had a trick—begotten of the time when he lay camping out in the wilds of North America, and had to sleep with his loaded rifle resting on his arm, and in constant dread of a surprise by hostile Indians—of waking up at the slightest noise at all out of the common way: waking up in a moment, completely, fully, and with all his wits about him. The old instinct did not desert him on the present occasion. He had been asleep for a couple of hours or so, when he was recalled in a moment from the land of dreams to life the most vivid and conscious, by the overturning of some heavy piece of furniture in the room immediately over that in which he was sleeping. He sat up in bed and listened with all his senses on the alert. But all was again as silent as the grave. After two or three minutes he lay back in bed, still listening, but not so keenly as before; and trying to make out, from his knowledge of the house, which particular room it was from whence the noise proceeded that he had just heard. All at once it struck him—and the thought sent a chill through his heart—that the room in question was none other than the Griffin—none other, in fact, than the room in which his Uncle Arthur had died. The more he thought of it, the more certain he felt that he was right. It was the Griffin without doubt. But what could any living being be doing in that room of all others, and at that hour of the night? The room had been left untouched since his uncle’s death, and, as far as he, Lionel, was concerned, was likely to be so left for some time to come.