“There seems no reason why he should have done it,” was the reply. “I would say that Mr. Warren had closed them himself. He must have been just on the verge of leaving for the house to get ready for dinner. Let us say he had closed the windows for the night when some one came. There would be no real reason why the murderer should have closed them.” As he paused, I turned to glance at the windows. They were placed above the bookcases—one window for each of the eight sides of the building. And then, as my eyes went to the central window, I gave a gasp and then a sudden cry. For there, peering through the window, was a face—a face whose outlines were far from plain. But I could see the hat pulled low over the eyes, and the eyes themselves, which seemed to meet my own. For an instant I saw them, and as our glance met, the face disappeared. But for a second I had seen it—a man's face peering through the central window into the room. Chapter XI The Gardener Speaks My glance at the window had been but a casual thing and the appearance of the face had lasted only a second. As the face vanished, I uttered a sudden cry—one which caused Bartley to give me a quick look. Briefly I told what I had seen, and pointed at the window; then we turned and rushed for the door and out into the open air. The library stood upon the top of a small hill, and there were no trees within a short distance. At the bottom of the hill, however, the lawn was covered with trees and shrubbery. It was dark, yet not so dark but that we should have been able to have seen any figure which ran across our vision. But save for the trees in the distance, which loomed a darker shadow against the blackness, we saw nothing. Bartley motioned with his hand and we followed him to the rear of the house. Here, too, there was a close-cropped lawn with the trees commencing on the far edge. The trees were thicker and the shrubbery far more dense than in the front. It needed but a look to realize that it was absurd to expect to discover any one in the darkness. The huge lawn, together with the many trees, offered many opportunities for hiding. Just as I was about to say this there came a sharp exclamation of surprise and the sound of two people tumbling through the hedge far to our left. The path to the library ran between two rows of a high hedge. As we rushed across the grass, the sounds of the struggle came louder to our ears. Two people were thrashing back and forth upon the ground slightly ahead of us. As we reached the path and turned past the slight bend, we almost stumbled over two men—two men rolling to and fro on the gravel.