Nearly a fortnight passed away before Lionel Dering was able to leave the house. The wound on his head was a very severe one, and for the first two days and nights he lay in bed, to all outward seeming more dead than alive. As soon as he was in a condition to do so he sent for the Duxley superintendent of police, and told him confidentially all that he knew of the affair. Lionel was strongly averse to all unnecessary publicity, and was especially desirous that no mention of the case should be made in the local newspapers. Had he been asked to state his reasons for wishing to keep the matter so private, he would perhaps have found it difficult to do so. Nevertheless, the feeling to act thus was strong upon him. It was proved, on investigation, that the intruder, whoever he might be, had obtained, access to the house through one of the library windows. One of the panes had been cut out with a diamond, and the window then unfastened. Next came the discovery of a secret passage from the library to the late Mr. St. George’s bedroom. Those among the servants who had been at Park Newton under the old regime denied all knowledge of the existence of any such passage, and their statements might well be true. The passage in question was one of a kind by no means uncommon in houses built a couple of centuries ago. It was simply a very narrow staircase, built in the thickness of the wall, and leading from the ground floor to the floor above. The entrance to it was behind a sliding panel in the bedroom; but both exit and entrance were so carefully hidden that a person might pass his whole life at Park Newton without ever suspecting the existence of such a place. One of Lionel’s first acts, after a thorough exploration of the passage had been made, was to send for the bricklayers and have both entrance and exit walled up. But the little closet or cupboard in the bedroom had still to be considered. It was nothing more than a small square opening in the wall; and, like the staircase, it was hidden behind the panelling, and secured still further by means of a secret spring. It was evident that the late Mr. St. George had known the secret of the cupboard, and had used the place as a safe depository for money and other valuables. It was equally certain that this latter fact must have been well known to Lionel’s assailant; and there could be no doubt that the object of the midnight raid had been to rifle the cupboard of its contents. Some testimony as to the quality of those contents had been unavoidably left behind in the hurry of flight. Three or four small diamonds, and a couple of sovereigns of recent coinage, were found scattered on the floor: but as to the further value of the property stolen there were no means of judging.