Then I walked with measured tread about the floor, the dull "plunk plunk" of my rubber soles sounding, in the depth of the night, and in the stillness of that unoccupied house--ghostly even to me. Next I began to push the furniture about, and a moment later I slammed the door. There was a wild, a frantic stampede. Both men had sprung to their feet and were dashing headlong down the stairs. I pursued them in the darkness! They heard the quick patter of my rubber shoes upon the stairs behind them, and it seemed to give them wings. Furniture was knocked spinning in the darkness. A terrific crash echoed through the house as, in their blind rush, they hurled on to the stone floor of the hall a big china vase the height of a man which had stood upon a pedestal. A door slammed. Then another, more faintly, a long way down some corridor. Then once more all was still. Chuckling at the grim humour of the situation, I went slowly up the stairs again. There was still a light in the first-floor room. I pushed the door open and walked boldly in. I halted, surprise had petrified me. The sight that my eyes rested upon I shall not forget as long as ever I live! CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. CONTAINS ANOTHER REVELATION. I stood still in horror, my eyes riveted upon the shrivelled human body. It was stretched out upon several chairs placed side by side. The sight was most gruesome. Near it, upon the floor, was an ordinary packing-case, in the bottom of which a quantity of wood shavings had been pressed down, to form a sort of bed. At once I realised that this box had been prepared for the reception of the body. It was about to be smuggled out of the house! But how did it come to be there? Whose body was it? How long had it been dead? And how had the man--for I saw it was the body of a man, apparently a man of middle-age--come by his death? It was not the sight of the Thing that had startled me, however, for I had expected to see it there. What had taken my breath away had been the sight of great heaps of coin upon the floor, gold coin which had evidently just been emptied out of the little sacks close by. Near by were some glass bottles containing powdered metal, some bottles of coloured fluid, and various implements-- a couple of metal moulds, a ladle, a miniature hand-lathe, several files, and some curiously-fashioned tools which I judged must be finishing tools used in the manufacture of coin. The truth was plain--a ghastly unexpected truth.