And after that his astonishment evidently outweighed the pleasure he took in our performance. Mr. Rayner gave me a strange smile as the Doctor uttered his quaint speech, and I laughed back, much amused at the effect of our efforts on a musically ignorant listener. When we had finished, and Mr. Rayner was putting his violin into its case, he suddenly discovered that a corner of the latter was damp. “This will never do,” he exclaimed, with as much affectionate concern as if a friend’s well-being had been threatened. “I might as well keep it in the garden as in this den,” he went on, quite irritably for him--music always wrought him to a high pitch of excitement. “Here, Sarah,” he added, turning towards the table where she had just placed the candles. “Take this to my room--mind, very carefully.” So his room could not be damp, I thought, or he would not allow his precious violin to be taken there. I had said good-night, and was in the hall, just in time to see Sarah, carrying the violin, disappear down the passage, on the right-hand side of the staircase, which led to the study. Now the wing where Mrs. Rayner’s room was was on the left-hand side of the staircase. Did Mr. Rayner sleep in the study? I could not let my curiosity lead me to follow her, much as I should have liked to solve this little mystery. I knew all the rooms on the upper story, and, except the nursery where Mona and Jane slept, the cook’s room, Sarah’s, and the one I had left, they all bore distinctly the impress of having been long unused. So I was obliged reluctantly to go upstairs. When I got to the foot of my turret staircase, however, which was only a few steps from the head of the back-staircase that the servants used, I heard Sarah’s quick tread in the passage below, and, putting down my candle on the ground, I went softly to the top of the stairs--there was a door here also, but it was generally open and fastened back--and looked down. I saw Sarah, much to my amusement, give a vicious shake to the violin-case, as if it were a thing she hated; and then I saw her take a key from her pocket and unlock a door near the foot of the stairs. That, then, was Mr. Rayner’s room. But, as the door went back on its hinges and Sarah took out the key, went through, and locked it behind her, I saw that it led, not into a room at all, but into the garden. So far, then, Mr. Reade’s guess was right. But there still remained the question--Where did Mr. Rayner sleep? CHAPTER X.