"He wasn't?" Brett's excitement overcame him. "Why, I saw him with my own eyes." "You saw him leave here, yes; but you probably did not notice that the Japanese chauffeur was crouching at his feet in the car. When the machine turned into Wisconsin Avenue, out of your sight, my brother slowed down and sprang out, giving his hat to the Japanese, who took his place at the wheel and raced the machine up Wisconsin Avenue." "Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Brett. "So it was poor Fugi who was burned up. But, good Lord! when Colonel Thornton had made so successful a getaway what induced him to put his head in the lion's mouth by returning here, and what was he doing in this room?" "If you search his pockets you may find out," was the cryptic reply as Barry Thornton drew up a chair by Eleanor's couch and seated himself. Brett thrust his hand first in one pocket of the dead man's clothing and then in another. In the last one he jerked it out again as if his fingers had been bitten. In his hand dangled the priceless ruby necklace and a wallet filled with bank notes! Brett sat down on the floor, for once speechless. "How did you know it?" he asked finally. Barry Thornton raised his disengaged hand and pointed to the portrait of his ancestor and namesake. "I was watching this scene through those peepholes,"--an exclamation escaped Douglas,--"you almost caught me this morning, Mr. Hunter. This old house is honeycombed with secret passages. My brother kept a large sum of money in a secret drawer in that desk. He probably needed funds to assist him in escaping from this country, so came back here and entered the house by means of one of the secret passages. He has been concealed behind that sliding panel,"--pointing to an aperture in the wall near the chimney,--"waiting to slip into this room. He seized the opportunity when Nicodemus put out the lights, and left by the billiard room door, to steal the necklace as well as get his money. Your reëntering the room flustered him, and he was making in haste for the secret passage when I stepped out of it and faced him. Thinking me dead years ago--his escape barred--the shock proved too much...." Thornton did not complete his sentence. There was a moment's silence. "I think it would be as well, Mr. Thornton, that we remove your brother's body to his room," suggested Douglas, recovering somewhat from his astonishment. "Well, I don't know about that; the coroner----" objected Brett dubiously. "We can all testify to the details of Colonel Thornton's death," put in Lane. "But we cannot leave him lying here on his own floor. His death was natural, brought on by shock." "Very well, sir." Brett rose and walked to the door. He returned in a moment with a plain-clothes policeman, and, with the assistance of Douglas and Lane, all that was mortal of Dana Thornton was carried to his room. Barry Thornton had requested them to return, and Douglas, Lane, and Brett trooped back to the library.