"There's a sort of alley going up there, between this house and the next," he said. "Come round--sure to be a tradesman's entrance--a side-door--up there." "Plenty of spikes and glass-bottle stuff on those walls, anyhow!" remarked Ayscough, as they went round a narrow alley to the rear of the villa. "Your grandfather evidently didn't intend anybody to get into these premises very easily, Mr. Rubinstein. Six-foot walls and what you might call regular fortifications on top of 'em! What are you going to do, now?" Melky had entered a recess in the side-wall and was examining a stout door on which, plainly seen in the moonlight, were the words _Tradesman's Entrance_. He turned the handle--and uttered an exclamation. "Open!" he said. "Come on, Mr. Ayscough--we're a-going in! If there is anybody at home, all right--if there ain't, well, still all right. I'm going to have a look round." The detective followed Melky into a paved yard at the back of the villa. All was very still there--and the windows were dark. "No lights, back or front," remarked Ayscough. "Can't be anybody in. And I say--if either of those Chinese gents was to let himself in with his key at the front gate and find us prowling about, it wouldn't look very well, would it, now? Why not call again--in broad daylight?" "Shucks!" said Melky. "Ain't I one o' the landlords of this desirable bit o' property? And didn't we find that door open? Come round to the front." He set off along a gravelled path which ran round the side of the house, and ascended the steps to the porticoed front door. And there he rang the bell--and he and his companion heard its loud ringing inside the house. But no answer came--and the whole place seemed darker and stiller than before. "Of course there's nobody in!" muttered Ayscough. "Come on--let's get out of it." Melky made no answer. He walked down the steps, and across the lawn beneath the iron-work gate in the street wall. A thick shrubbery of holly and laurel bushes stood on his right--and as he passed it something darted out--something alive and alert and sinuous--and went scudding away across the lawn. "Good Lord!" said Ayscough. "A rat! And as big as a rabbit!" Melky paused, looked after the rat, and then at the place from which it had emerged. And suddenly he stepped towards the shrubbery and drew aside the thick cluster of laurel branches. Just as suddenly he started back on the detective, and his face went white in the moonbeams. "Mr. Ayscough!" he gasped. "S'elp me!--there's a dead man here! Look for yourself!" CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN THE EMPTY HOUSE Ayscough had manifested a certain restiveness and dislike to the proceedings ever since his companion had induced him to enter the back door of Molteno Lodge--these doings appeared to him informal and irregular. But at Melky's sudden exclamation his professional instincts were aroused, and he started forward, staring through the opening in the bushes made by Melky's fingers.