Pale and terror-stricken the two ladies waited, every minute seeming an hour, while the heavy footsteps overhead went tramping with slow, methodical precision from room to room. So long as they kept out of the fatal dressing-room it did not matter, but that was the very place, or so it seemed to Edith, where they lingered longest of all. “Will they never come out of that room?” she kept on asking herself with agonized earnestness. And then her very heart would seem to stand still with the intensity of her listening. The slow seconds measured themselves accurately by the clock on the chimney-piece, but still no sound reached her to indicate that any discovery had been made; and at length, with intense relief and thankfulness, she heard the heavy footsteps come tramping downstairs. The footsteps passed slowly into the dining-room, and then Edith could hear the low muttering of two or three voices, as though the superintendent and his men were deep in consultation. “Surely the worst is over,” said Mrs. Garside. “A few minutes more, and they will be gone.” But suddenly Edith started to her feet with an exclamation. “There were three men: went upstairs,” she cried, “but only two of them have come down! Why has not the third man come down with the others?” “Are you quite sure that you are not mistaken?” asked Mrs. Garside, anxiously. “Quite sure, aunt—only too sure. I cannot bear to be shut up here any longer. Better to know the worst at once. I will go and see for myself.” And before Mrs. Garside had time to interpose, Edith had opened the door almost without a sound, had passed out of the room, and was gliding noiselessly upstairs, so as not to be heard by the men in the dining-room. Edith was right. Three men had gone upstairs and only two had come down. The laggard was Mr. Drayton’s second in command—Sergeant Tilley. Mr. Tilley was a tall, lanky, weak-kneed man, with watery eyes, and a slow, hesitating way of speaking, rather uncommon among gentlemen of his profession. He had been on duty for the last twelve hours, and, feeling thoroughly worn out, had sat down to rest for a moment on a corner of the sofa in Edith’s dressing-room, and there he was left by Mr. Drayton and the other constable when they followed Martha Vince downstairs. He sat down to rest for a minute, and his thoughts flew home to Mrs. Tilley and the five little Tilleys, who had to be fed, clothed, and lodged—after a fashion—out of his scanty wage. “Ah!” he sighed to himself, “if I could but spot this Mr. Dering, and get the reward, what a happy man I should be! But there’s no such luck. Bill and Kitty will have to go without their shoes for another week or two; and as for the old woman’s new gown, why——”