Taking the lamp he entered the bath-closet to try the old door at the end; but this was firmly screwed up again, and unless he broke through one of the panels, entrance was impossible that way. Stratton returned to his chair, hesitating to take so extreme a course; and sitting down he tried to think out a likely place for Brettison to have gone. As he thought, he called to mind various places where he knew him to have stayed in the past; and selecting one at haphazard--an old-world place in Kent--he determined to start for there at once, perfectly aware of the wildness of the scheme and how easily he might spend his life in such a chase, but there was nothing else to be done. He could trust no one--get no help. It must be his own work entirely. Brettison was master of his secret, and there could be no rest for him until the old man was found. He started at once, hurrying away from his carefully closed-up chambers by the northern gate, so that he should not be seen at the porter's lodge, and was half-way to the station when a thought assailed him, which made him turn back, suffering all the agony of a guilty man in dread of discovery. Brettison could not have taken that body away from the chambers; such a task was impossible without discovery. It must, after all, be hidden somewhere within his rooms. He turned into an embayment over a pier of the bridge he was crossing, and sat down to think. He knew Brettison's rooms so well--as well as his own. Where could the body be concealed? He mentally wandered from one room to the other, and paused in a little pantry-like place, peering into each nook and corner, and searching every article of furniture likely to contain a bulky object; but all in vain. Then he recalled the fact that the police officer--a man of experience-- had searched carefully and given the matter up. Still Brettison must have practiced a great deal of cunning for his friend's sake, and there was no knowing what he might have done. There were the floors of the rooms--boards might have been taken up, and concealment made between the joists; or there was the wainscot; some panel might have been taken out in front of a recess, and the body placed there. But Stratton shook his head, and his chin went down upon his chest in despair. There were sufficient reasons, for Brettison not choosing such a hiding-place as that. Detection in a short time was certain. "Seems impossible," thought Stratton; "but he must have taken it away." "Hadn't you better go home?" said a gruff voice. Stratton looked up, to find a burly policeman had stopped by his side, and was watching him keenly. "Go--go home?" stammered Stratton.