As he seemed disposed to remain in the room, the housekeeper quietly took her departure, and closed the door. Crowdy threw himself into an armchair, and laughed softly. He felt that he was advancing rapidly; every fresh pair of eyes which met his, and in which he saw no gleam of suspicion, gave him confidence. His one desire was to do everything which the late Dandy Chater had been in the habit of doing, and, on the other hand, to do nothing which would seem strange or unusual. And here again luck was with him. Mrs. Dolman, on retiring from the room, had not closed the door so carefully as she had imagined; the sound of two voices, in low converse, came to his ears. “What’s brought ’im ’ome in such a ’urry?” asked the first voice—evidently that of a woman. “I thought ’e was goin’ to be away about a week.” In the second voice, which replied in the same low tone, but somewhat aggressively, Crowdy recognised that of the young man-servant, who had already waited upon him. “Well—I suppose Master can do as he likes—can’t he?” “Lor’—some of us soon gits put out, don’t we, Mr. ’Arry,” replied the woman. “Good. Now I know _his_ name,” muttered Crowdy to himself. Whistling loudly, he strode across the room and pulled open the door abruptly. The distant flutter of skirts announced that the woman had taken fright and fled. “Harry,” he said, turning back when he reached the head of the stairs—“I’m going out.” The man seemed, he thought, to look at him rather narrowly—almost frowningly, in fact. “To the Chater Arms, sir?” he asked. “Yes—I may look in there,” replied Crowdy carelessly, and wondering somewhat at the evidently well-known habits of the late Dandy Chater. “I shall be back in time for dinner.” Mr. Philip Crowdy took his way downstairs, selected a cigar with much care, and strolled out, after taking a walking stick from its place in the hall. “A dead man’s house—a dead man’s cigar—a dead man’s walking stick!” he said to himself, as he went down the long drive. “I don’t like it; it smothers me. And yet—and yet——” He did not finish the sentence; some thought was evidently running in his mind, to the exclusion of everything else. He turned away from the village, and made his way across some fields, and sat down, in the winter sunlight, on the footstone of a stile. Looking cautiously about him, he pulled from his pocket the papers he had taken from the body of Dandy Chater. There was a cheque book, with one cheque filled up, even to the signature, but still remaining in the book. There was a pocketbook, with various entries in regard to betting, and to sporting engagements generally. And there were one or two letters, in the same handwriting as that seen by him that day. These last he read carefully.