My uncle's reply was startling in its suggestiveness: "That may have been the reason why he kept his studio-door locked then; but why does he keep it locked now?" "Yes--over this new picture of the girl-martyr?" said I. The Baronet had not considered this point. "Why--does--he--keep--his--door--locked--now?" he repeated, pausing in a curiously deliberative manner between each word. "Ah, why?" He made a long pause. "Not for a similar reason, surely? And yet--" he made another long pause. "He said at breakfast, you know, that he might finish his picture to-day. He was playing with his knife, very curiously at the time. What could he mean? Good God! what could he mean? Not that----" He paused, afraid to give utterance to his suspicions. For a few moments we durst not speak, for a dim presentiment of some awful tragedy to come had stolen over us. The Baronet was the first to break silence. "That tower must be watched to-night," he said in a hoarse voice. "Sir Hugh," said my uncle sternly, "if Angelo be the fiend you think him, he must be arrested at once." "That will require a magistrate's warrant," I said. "Right; and we will procure it without delay," observed the Baronet, rising. "Colonel Montague is the nearest magistrate. He lives at the Manse--five miles from here. The carriage can take us there and back in an hour, and----" His further words were checked by the sudden appearance of Fruin, who, without having waited to knock, entered the room, and, brimful of excitement, cried: "I've found the picture, Sir Hugh!" "The devil you have! Where on earth was it?" "In the Nuns' Tower, to be sure!" "The Nuns' Tower! How did you manage to get in there?" Fruin's manner changed at once from excitement to soberness. "Well, Sir Hugh," he began with the air of a penitent, "it was wrong, I admit, to play the spy on a gentleman, but--but-- It's this way, you see. I have always been suspicious of Mr. Vasari and his doings, so--so that's how it was, you know. I haven't been doing exactly what's right, but--but--you see----" He hesitated and stammered so much that the impatient Baronet, with a deprecatory wave of his hand, cried: "There, there, go on. I forgive beforehand everything you've done in consideration of your having found the picture." Highly gratified by this plenary indulgence, the butler began again in a more confident tone: "Well, Sir Hugh, you remember that Mr. Vasari hadn't been here a week before I said to you, 'That Italian gentleman has come here for no good?'" "I remember it, Fruin; and I told you not to pass remarks on my visitors."