Chapter 24
WORN OUT as he was, he fell asleep at once. But his rest was troubled by a strange and terrifying dream. He fancied he was back in the library at Oldholme Priory, that dreadful exemplar of the Byronic age, with its sham Gothic groining and ugly stained glass, its musty, calfbound tomes, row upon row, its frigid, lifeless busts. There was the safe, open as the thief had left it, with its litter of empty jewel-cases and tissue paper, and there at its foot the dead butler spread-eagled on his face. This Hassock was an old man and his bald pate shone dully white like wax, his fringe of snowy hair all dabbled with blood from the dark pool that had welled out beneath him.
Manderton was in the dream, Manderton with his heavy, masklike countenance and spry air, mooning about the room
