"I'll trouble you to take me in there for a moment, please," said the man decisively. Stratton drew a deep breath, and without a word led the way out into the passage and round to his own door. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. RUN TO EARTH. "What the dickens does it all mean?" thought Guest wonderingly, as he followed into Stratton's chambers, with a strange feeling of expectancy exciting him. Something was going to happen, he felt sure, and that something would be connected with his friend. And now he began to regret bitterly having urged on the quest. It had had the effect of rousing Stratton for the moment, but he looked horrible now, and Guest asked himself again, what did it mean? The sergeant looked sharply round Stratton's room, and noted where the chamber lay; but his attention was at once riveted upon the fireplace with its two doors, and he walked to the one on the right, seized the handle, and found it fast. "Yes," he said, "been open once, but closed, I should say, for many years." "Want it opened, pardner?" said his companion. "Not that one," said the sergeant meaningly; and he went to the door on the left, Stratton watching him fixedly the while, and Guest, in turn, watching his friend, with a sense of some great trouble looming over him, as he wondered what was about to happen. "Hah! yes," said the sergeant, who began to show no little excitement now; "fellow door sealed up, too." Guest started and glanced quickly at his friend, who remained drawn up, silent and stern, as a man would look who was submitting to a scrutiny to which he has objected. The sergeant shook the door, but it was perfectly fast, and the handle immovable. "Some time since there was a way through here," he said confidently; and, as he spoke, Guest again gazed at Stratton, and thought of how short a time it was since he had been in the habit of going to that closet to fetch out soda water, spirits, and cigars. What did it mean? What could it mean, and why did not Stratton speak out and say: "The closet belongs to this side of the suite." But no; he was silent and rigid, while the sense of a coming calamity loomed broader to mingle with a cloud of regrets. He was trying to think out some means of retiring from the scrutiny, as the sergeant turned to his companion and said a few words in a low tone--words which Guest felt certain meant orders to force open the closet door, which, for some reason, Stratton had fastened up, when the sergeant spoke out: "Now, gentlemen, please, we'll go back to the other chambers." Guest drew a deep breath, full of relief, for the tension was, for the moment, at an end. He followed with Stratton, whose eyes now met his; and there was such a look of helplessness and despair in the gaze that Guest caught his friend's arm. "What is it, old fellow?" he whispered; but there was no reply, and, after closing the door, they followed into Brettison's room, where the sergeant stood ready for them with his companion.