Was I now gradually approaching the solution of Sir Charles Thorold's secret? I believed it more than likely that I might now at last be well on my way to solving the mystery of Houghton Park and the Thorolds' sudden flight. That Sir Charles and his big friend would not return that night I fully believed. They might, or might not, be superstitious, but there could be no doubt I had terrified them thoroughly. If they returned at all it would be in the daytime, I conjectured. What was to be done? How should I act? I decided that the only thing to do would be to go out into the street and inform the constable of all that had happened. I had told him I would not stay long in the house in any case, and my prolonged absence might be making him feel uneasy. I left by the front door--which I found securely bolted and chained on the inside--and there found the constable flashing his bull's-eye lantern upon the door, and with his truncheon ready drawn. "Hush!" I whispered, and he smiled upon seeing me, and at once replaced his truncheon. "I was beginning to feel very anxious on your account, sir," he said. "I 'arf wondered who might be a-comin' out. Well, sir, did you see anything?" "I should say so," I answered, and then, as briefly as I could, I told him nearly everything. I persuaded him to come in then and there. "Well, look at that, now!" he said, as I showed him first the mummified body, then the sacks of gold, and pointed out to him the great hole cut in the ceiling. "Well, look at that, now!" he repeated. "The awkward part of the affair is this," I said at last. "Who is going to lodge information? I don't care to, for, if I do, inquiries will be made as to how I came to be on the premises at all, and how I managed to get in, and it won't look well if I am proved, on my own showing, to have entered the place secretly in the middle of the night. Again, I don't want to lodge information against Sir Charles Thorold. Why should I? He has always been my friend. Nor, for that matter, do I want to prefer any sort of charge against Whichelo. So far as the body is concerned, we may be quite wrong in conjecturing that there has been foul play. Indeed, there is no actual proof that the mummy was hidden in the ceiling of the room, though personally I think it must have been. Everything points to it. And you, Bennett, can't very well give information either without compromising yourself as well as me. Your inspector would want to know how you managed to get into the house, and what right you had to enter it." I paused, considering, while he removed his helmet and scratched his head. "I'll tell you what I think we had better do," I said at last. "Well, sir, what?" he inquired eagerly. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Go back to your beat. I'll bolt and chain the front door when you're gone. Then I'll put out the light in this room, and make my way out of the house by the way I entered it."