No one ever went near those old rooms except on some special errand or business, and there was a dead silence all around her as she turned the key in the lock and slipped inside the door--to lock it again as soon as she had entered. There was an equally deep silence within the room--and for a moment she glanced a little fearfully at the recumbent figure in the old, deep-backed chair. Pratt had stretched himself fully in his easy quarters---his legs lay extended across the moth-eaten hearth-rug; his head and shoulders were thrown far back against the faded tapestry, and he was so still that he might have been supposed to be dead. But Esther Mawson had tried the effect of that particular drug on a good many people, and she knew that the victim in this instance was merely plunged in a sleep from which nothing whatever could wake him yet awhile. And after one searching glance at him, and one lifting of an eyelid by a practised finger, she went rapidly and thoroughly through Pratt's pockets, and within a few minutes of entering the room had cleared them of everything they contained. The sealed packet which he had taken from his safe that morning; the bank-notes which Mrs. Murgatroyd had returned in her indignant letter; another roll of notes, of considerable value, in a note-case; a purse containing notes and gold to a large amount--all those she laid one by one on a dust-covered table. And finally--and as calmly as if she were sorting linen--she swept bank-notes, gold, and purse into her steel-chained bag, and tore open the sealed envelope. There were five documents in that envelope--Esther examined each with meticulous care. The first was an authority to Linford Pratt to sell certain shares standing in the name of Ann Mallathorpe. The second was a similar document relating to other shares: each was complete, save for Ann Mallathorpe's signature. The third document was the power of attorney which Ann Mallathorpe had given to Linford Pratt: the fourth, the letter which she had written to him on the evening before the fatal accident to Harper. And the fifth was John Mallathorpe's will. At last she held in her hand the half-sheet of foolscap paper of which Mrs. Mallathorpe, driven to distraction, and knowing that she would get no sympathy from her own daughter, had told her. She was a woman of a quick and an understanding mind, and she had read the will through and grasped its significance as swiftly as her eyes ran over it. And those eyes turned to the unconscious Pratt with a flash of contempt--she, at any rate, would not follow his foolish example, and play for too high a stake--no, she would make hay while the sun shone its hottest! She was of the Parrawhite persuasion--better, far better one good bird in the hand than a score of possible birds in the bush.