In her sick horror the girl’s breath failed her; before she could draw it again the man, whose back was still turned to her in the dusk, had put a key in the door--Lord Abbotsford was evidently generous with keys--and disappeared within the house. If Ismay Trelane had thought it would have availed her anything, she would have fallen on her knees in the street--and prayed! CHAPTER IV. “THE MYSTERY.” Mr. Marcus Wray laid down his morning paper on his lonely breakfast-table with a queer sound in his throat. He had taken a deep interest in the affairs, as became a barrister in fair standing, and now the verdict of the coroner’s jury stared him in the face. So important a thing had called out a leading article, and Mr. Wray had read it till he knew it by heart. Yet he picked up the paper now, and looked at it again. “The mystery surrounding Lord Abbotsford’s death,” it ran, “has not been lifted by the verdict at the inquest. The deceased clearly came to his death by poisoning with cyanid of potassium, which could not have been administered by his own hand, as no trace of any bottle containing it was found anywhere in the house of the unfortunate nobleman. And the verdict of murder by persons unknown has only deepened the horror of the public, since no trace or clue to the supposed murderer has been discovered. The evidence of the servants--who were all able to prove an alibi on the afternoon of the murder--that no one entered the house, has been rendered worthless by the statement of Mr. Cylmer, of Cylmer’s Ferry, who swore that he had entered with a latch-key, gone up-stairs and put down a box of cigarettes in the very room in which Lord Abbotsford was lying, and gone out again at once without seeing him, where he lay on a sofa behind a screen. He had hurried out to join a friend in the street: half an hour later he went back to Lord Abbotsford’s house, and this time discovered his body, and sent the servants at once for the police. That Mr. Cylmer--who was a close friend of the deceased--was guiltless, was amply proved at the inquest; but the criminal is still to be found, and a large reward has been offered for his apprehension. “The only clue so far comes from the evidence of Mr. Cylmer, that, on laying down the box of cigarettes, he had noticed on a small table some bank-notes, a quantity of loose gold, some diamonds in an open box, and a woman’s photograph, which he had not been accustomed to see there. On his return and discovery of the dead body, the gold, diamonds, and photograph were gone; the notes only remained.