With a brief explanation to Juliette, he hastened downstairs and let himself out of the house. Pauline was already standing at the door. “Anything happened?” he questioned her. “Nothing has happened,” said Pauline, “but there is something extremely curious, all the same, in our house. It is a most singular thing that the housemaid, who never forgets anything, forgot just to-night to leave some milk in my room--a thing which I had specially reminded her to remember, so I rang the bell for her. There is a bell that communicates direct with her room--it used to be in Mrs. Ilam’s bedroom, but we have had it changed--there was no answer. I rang again. No answer. You know, I’m the sort of person that can’t stand that sort of thing from servants, so I went upstairs to her. She was not in her room. There are two beds in that room, the second one for the cook. Both beds were empty; they had neither of them been slept in. I went into the rooms of the other servants. They are all empty. Rosie and I and Mrs. Ilam are alone in the house.” Carpentaria paused. “Did you tell your sister?” “No, I came straight here.” “That was very discreet of you,” said Carpentaria. “I am beginning to get frightened,” Pauline added. “What can it mean? All the servants gone----” CHAPTER XXVI--The Empty Bedroom Within the bungalow of the Ilams there remained only two persons who were legally entitled to be there, and those persons were Mrs. Ilam, motionless for ever, but with her bright, tragic eyes staring continually at the same point in the ceiling, and Rosie Dartmouth. These two women, however, were decidedly not alone in the house. It was a large house, a bungalow more by the character of its architecture and its many balconies, than by its size and shape. Most bungalows are long and low; this one was long without being low. On the ground floor were the reception rooms and kitchen offices; on the first floor were the principal bedrooms; and above these was a low-ceiled floor of servants’ bedrooms. Nor was that all; for the steeply-sloping roof had been utilized by an architect who hated to waste space as a miser hates to waste money, and hence, above even the servants’ floor was a vast attic, serviceable for storage. The attic was reached by a little flight of stairs of its own, and it was lighted by two panes of glass let into the roof, one on either side. The ground-floor and the servants’ floor were now dark and uninhabited. On the first floor the only occupied room was the bedchamber of Mrs. Ilam, where Rosie stood nervously by the mantelpiece in an attitude of uneasy expectation. The sole illumination was given by the small rose-shaded lamp, which threw a circle of light on the white cloth of the invalid’s night-table; all else, including Rosie, was in gloom.