No one came to answer the bell, so Prelice judged that Shepworth's servants were out, perhaps fraternising with Mrs. Rover's domestics at the ball overhead. He rang again, however, believing that Shepworth must be within and awake by this time. As again the door did not open, Prelice raised his hand to the knocker. To his surprise, the door yielded a trifle, and then he discovered that it was slightly ajar, but so little so that he had believed it to be closed. For the moment there was no one on the landing, so he stepped into Shepworth's flat, without closing the door after him. "I say, Ned. Ned, are you in?" cried the young man, pausing in the corridor, which was similar to that overhead in Mrs. Rover's flat. "I say, Ned! It is me. It is Prelice." And he slipped off his mask. There was still no reply, and then Prelice smelt stronger than ever that strange odour, which had evoked the Easter Island vision. His thoughts again flew back to the heathen festival, and he walked along the corridor wondering why the scent should follow him here. On the left-hand side he peeped into a drawing-room, but it was empty. The door opposite was surely that of the dining-room. It was closed, but Prelice opened it and walked in to look for his friend. Shepworth was in the room sure enough, but Prelice uttered an irrepressible cry when his amazed eyes fell on the barrister. In a deep saddle-back chair, placed between the fireplace and the near window, sat Shepworth, bolt upright, with his hands resting upon his knees, in the hieratic attitude of an Egyptian statue. His intensely calm face was pearly-white, his brown eyes were fixed in a glassy, unnatural stare, and he appeared as rigid and stiff and unbending as though hewn out of granite. There was no disorder about his clothing, the evening-dress he wore was as accurate and neat as though he had got ready to go to the ball overhead. Prelice stared at him, tongue-tied and motionless with astonishment. Then his eyes mechanically wandered round the room. They fell immediately upon another figure seated on the far side of the dining-table, with outstretched arms sprawling nervelessly across the cloth. On them rested a huge head covered with shaggy red hair. Drawn, as by a loadstone, Prelice stole forward with staring eyes, and saw, with a sudden shudder, that the man at the table was stone-dead. He had been stabbed ruthlessly in the back, under the left shoulder-blade. Everything in the room was in absolute order. Only one man, dead, sat at the table, sprawling half across it, and the other man, insensible, was stiffly seated in the armchair. And the whole apartment was permeated with the scent which suggested Easter Island; suggested also that other murder at Lanwin Grange. CHAPTER VII. SHEPWORTH EXPLAINS.