"I couldn’t help it. So far as I could judge there was an assassin in the house. Just for the moment I was far too frightened to move. That raving madman might have come for me next." "Well, you can make your mind quite easy on that score. As you know, the whole house has been most thoroughly searched from top to bottom, and there is nobody here but the servants and ourselves now. If I were you I should keep out of it. Go to bed." Sir Clement barked out the last few words, but Angela did not move. "There will be an inquest, of course?" she asked. "Oh, Lord, yes! The papers will reek of it, and half the reporters in London will look upon the place as a kind of public-house for the next week. Take my advice and keep out of it. You know nothing and you want to continue to know nothing, so to speak." "But I am afraid that I know a great deal," Angela said slowly. "When I came in I was going into the conservatory to place a flower that I had given me to-night. It is a flower that I am likely to be interested in another time. And there I saw a strange man walking swiftly the same way. From his air and manner he was obviously doing wrong. My idea was to follow and stop him. And when I reached the conservatory, to my intense surprise, he was nowhere to be seen." Frobisher bent down to fill his pipe. There was an evil, diabolical grin, so malignant, and yet so gleeful, as to render the face almost inhuman. "It may be of importance later on," he said. "Meanwhile, I should keep the information to myself. Now go to bed and lock your door. I’m going to finish my pipe in my dressing-room." Frobisher snapped out the lights, leaving the house in darkness. For once in her life Angela did lock her door. She could not sleep; she had no desire for bed and yet her eyes were heavy and tired. She pulled up the blind and opened the window; out beyond, the garden was flooded with moonlight. As Angela stood there she seemed to see a figure creeping from one bush to another. "It is my fancy," she told herself. "I could imagine anything to-night. And yet I could have been certain that I saw the figure of a man." Angela paused; it was no fancy. A man crept over the grass and looked up at the window as if he were doing something strictly on the lines of conventionality. To her amazement Angela saw that the intruder was in evening dress, and that it was Harold Denvers. "Harold," she whispered. "Whatever are you doing there?" "I came on the chance," was the reply. "I have heard strange things to-night, and there is something that I must know at once. I was going to try and rouse you with some pebbles. Dare you go down to the garden-room window and let me in? Darling, it is a matter of life or death, or I would not ask." Angela slipped down the stairs noiselessly, and opened the window. *CHAPTER VI.* *A BIT OF THE ROPE.*