So saying, he went abruptly out of the room, shutting the door, and climbed once more to the attic. “Jakel” he called quietly. And a Soudanese, the brother of Ilam’s protector, “Spats,” obediently appeared. “I am ready,” said Jetsam. “Come, pass in front of me. I will lock the door myself.” They went together to Mrs. Ilam’s bedroom. “You know how to search, Jake?” Jetsam instructed him. “Everything in this room has to be searched to find a photograph--a photograph, you know--the same sort of thing as this.” And he pointed to a portrait of Josephus Ilam that stood on the mantelpiece. The Soudanese nodded. “Begin with the chest of drawers,” he said. In a quarter of an hour the room was in such a state of havoc as might have resulted from the passage through it of a cyclone. Every drawer in every piece of furniture had been ransacked and emptied. The Soudanese had even climbed on a chair in order to inspect the top of the wardrobe, and had dislodged therefrom a pile of cardboard boxes. Every book had been torn to pieces. Piles of letters lay scattered about. The floor was heaped up with Mrs. Ilam’s private possessions. Chairs were overturned. One or two vases with narrow necks and wide bases had been smashed in order the better to search their interiors. The place was wrecked. But the mysterious photograph which Jetsam wanted had not been discovered. The Soudanese had found dozens of photographs, but not the right one. The bed of the invalid was alone undisturbed. Among all the ruins of the chamber it remained untouched, white, apparently inviolate, and the old woman’s arms lay ever in the same position, and her eyes, open and blazing now, gazed ever at the same spot in the ceiling. “I have it!” exclaimed Jetsam suddenly. “The bed--the bed! The box was hidden under the bed, but I got it. The photograph is hidden under the bed, and I will get it.” He hesitated. Dare he search the bed? Dare he disturb its helpless burden? He wondered. He was ready for anything. He was capable of slaughter, but he wavered and retreated before the idea of searching for the photograph in the place where the box had been. Then he suddenly decided. “Take firm hold of the bed itself, not the mattress,” he ordered the Soudanese, “and I will take hold on this side. Be very gentle. Do not disarrange the clothes. We will lift it over the foot of the bedstead and place it on the floor. Carefully now--carefully!” And with the utmost delicacy the two men lifted the bed bodily and laid it very gently on the floor, and Mrs. Ilam’s gaze was directed to a new point: of the ceiling. “That will be a change for you,” said Jetsam, with a touch of compunction in his voice. “I was obliged to do it. We’ll put you back presently.” And he searched thoroughly the mattress and the bedstead, but there was no photograph. He paused and wiped, his brow. The Soudanese stood at attention by the side of the bed. Jetsam looked at Jake.