At a word from Guest, Stratton moved across the landing and turned down the passage in which Brettison's doorway stood, moving still in the same dreamy fashion, as his friend's will forced him to act, and as they reached the doorway the sergeant turned on his lantern, so that the light played about the keyhole. "Now, Jem," he said, "have a look at it. What do you say?" The man slouched up, and the shadow of his head, with its closely fitting cap, glided about on the door, as he turned from side to side to get a good look at the little opening. "Light more this way, matey," he growled, in an ill-used tone. "That'll do. Steady, please. I don't want to look at the 'inges." "There you are, then. Well, is it a pick? or a saw-out?" "Pick," said the man, swinging his bag down on to the floor and opening it by drawing out the hammer. There was a faint jingle as the bag was opened, and its owner looked up in a protesting way. "Can't work if you make a Jacky Lantern game of it, matey. I want to see." The light of the lantern was directed into the bag, revealing a stock, a box of centre bits, a keyhole saw, and a couple of bunches of attenuated keys, some of which were merely a steel wire turned at right angles at the end. "Nice, respectable looking character this, gentlemen," said the sergeant dryly. "Supposed to be an honest man; but if a `tec' got hold of him with a bag like that he'd have to say a great deal before anyone would believe him. That one do, my lad?" "No, too big," said the workman huskily, and he began to whistle softly as he coolly selected another hook-like skeleton key from his bunch; while Guest stood watching the pair with a strange feeling of nervousness increasing upon him, caused partly by the weird aspect of the scene, with all in darkness save the round patch of light on the old drab-painted oaken door, in which glow the fingers of the workman were busily engaged, as if they were part of some goblin performance, and were quite distinct from any body to which they should have belonged. He began wondering, too, whether there really was any cause for their operations--whether poor old Brettison really did lie dead in the dusty room beyond the double doors which held them at bay--dust to dust, the mortal frame of the gentle old naturalist slowly decaying into the atoms by which he was surrounded; and whether it was not something like sacrilege to interfere with so peaceful a repose. And all the time the little steel pick was probing about among the wards of the lock with a curious clicking sound, above which Guest could hear the intermittent, harsh breathing of his friend, who watched the illuminated door with a stern, fixed gaze. The second pick was after a time withdrawn. "No good?" said the sergeant. "Not a bit," growled the man, and he held his bunch of keys up to the glass of the bull's-eye lantern. "Don't worry, old chap," said the sergeant. Then, turning to Guest: