Her eyes, big and dark, were fixed upon him with a peculiar earnestness, and she saw him start a little and compress his lips. “Tell—me!” she said. “Me!” Harborough, too, glanced at Braxfield: the old butler, unconscious of this intimate question—and—answer, was drawing nearer. “I may know—something,” murmured Harborough. “If—if I think—on reflection—I ought to tell you—I will. Later.” She gave him an understanding nod, a whispered word of thanks, and went away up the dark staircase behind them. And Braxfield, after a word or two with Harborough, let the visitor out, and locked the big door, and drew across it a weighty chair which had done duty in that respect for many a generation of Markenmores. The house was secured for the night. Braxfield went back to his pantry—a snug and comfortable sitting-room at the end of the big main corridor. There was a bright fire there, and his easy, well-cushioned arm-chair placed by it. Now was his time of rest and recreation. All done, all quiet, he would smoke his pipe, read the newspaper, and enjoy his glass of whisky. His pipe lay ready to hand: the newspaper flanked it; he went to the cupboard to get out his decanter and his glass. And just as he laid hands on these things, Braxfield heard a sound. His fingers relinquished their hold, dropped to his side, began to tremble. For Braxfield knew that sound—it was familiar enough to him, though it was seven years since he had heard it last. He stood, listening—it came again; a tap, light but firm, three times repeated on the pantry window. And at that he left the room, turned down a side-passage, and opened a door that admitted to the rose garden. A man stepped in, and in the dim light of a neighbouring lamp the butler saw his face. “Good Lord ha’ mercy!” he exclaimed, shrinking back against the wall. “Mr. Guy?” CHAPTER II THE BUTLER’S PANTRY The man whom Braxfield thus addressed, and who, in spite of the well-remembered signal on the pantry window was the last person in the world he had thought of seeing, turned a sharp, inquisitive, suspicious glance down the narrow passage, which opened on the main corridor of the house. It shifted just as sharply to the old butler’s amazed and troubled face—and the question that followed on it was equally sharp. “The rest of ’em—in bed?” Braxfield was beginning to tremble. In the old days, he had often let Guy Markenmore in, late at night, at that very door; the thrice-repeated tap was an arranged signal between them. And in those days he had had that very question put to him more times than he could remember. It had not troubled him then, but now, hearing it again, after the questioner’s unexplained absence of seven years, it frightened him. Why did the heir to the Markenmore baronetcy and estates come sneaking to his father’s house, late at night, seeking secret entrance, obviously nervous about something? Braxfield looked at him doubtfully.