Chapter 32
In Musk's room there was more light. It lay under the closed door like a yellow rod. Carlton knocked gently. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Not a sound from within. Then the chill fell on him, and he entered ready for any discovery but the one he was to make. Neither the quick nor the dead lay within. A fire was burning as well as the lamp; the very bed looked warm, but was not; the sick man must have left it some minutes at least. The lame man, the man who could not walk, had left his bed if not the house! Carlton caught up the lamp to go in search. And even on the landing a voice came hailing him from the region below. "Mr. Carlton! Mr. Carlton! Quick, sir, quick!" George Mellis was still at the side door, and in the lamplight the other could not see an inch beyond. "Have
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