"Because Mona asked me to stop and support her. She expected further trouble with her uncle. I lay awake, trying to bear the pain as best I could, for my ankle got worse when I lay down. About a quarter to ten I heard Mona pass my door and go down the stairs." "How did you know that it was Miss Chent?" "I would know her footstep amongst a hundred; and she admitted afterwards that she had gone down to the library at that hour. I wondered where she was going, but lay quiet, listening for her return. At length, some fifteen minutes or so after ten o'clock, I could bear the suspense no longer, and hobbled downstairs in my dressing-gown. I thought that she might have gone to the library to see her uncle, and that further trouble might be brewing. As I promised to stand by her, ankle or no ankle, it seemed right that I should learn what was going on." "Very reasonable of you, Ned. Continue." Prelice was deeply interested. "I opened the library door, and saw her seated in the armchair." "Was there any sign of smoke?" "No! But there was a peculiar smell in the room." "What kind of a smell?" Shepworth wrinkled his brows. "I can scarcely describe it," he said after some thought; "a sweetish, heavy, sickly scent--like a tuberose. That's as near as I can get. Mona told me afterwards that she also thought it resembled the thick perfume of a tuberose. It came from the smoke, of course--it must have come from the smoke." "You believe in the smoke then?" "Oh yes. Sir Oliver had evidently been trying some magical experiment." Prelice looked doubtful. "Magic is all bosh," he remarked. "I'm not so certain of that, Dorry. There are queer things done, even in this twentieth century." "H'm! Then you believe Miss Chent's improbable story?" "I do--because I saw her insensible in the chair." His listener reflected. "Was Sir Oliver dead then?" "Yes! Sitting in his chair and lying half on the desk. He had been stabbed in the back." "Was the window, or one of the windows, open?" "I never noticed. And remember, Jadby did not say that the middle window was ajar, but only that the latch had been unfastened." "I remember that. What happened next?" Shepworth explained. "I found Sir Oliver dead, and Mona unconscious." "One moment, please." Prelice became quite like a cross-examining barrister himself. "Had she fainted?" "It was more than a faint, Dorry. She was in a kind of trance--quite like a person seized with catalepsy. I know; I am sure; because I shook her, and pinched her, and tried my best to rouse her." "You should have opened the window to admit the fresh air." "I never thought of doing so. I was too agitated."