The detective sighed. “Well, light your lantern now,” he said “and we'll go and see if they've made the room untidy.”
But the room seemed just as he had left it except that the loose boards at the end were now gaping open and the ether-like smell had gone.
He thanked the gardener for his services, and then a great feeling of faintness coming over him, he asked the man to help him up to his room. “And we'll go up the back stairs, please, so that we'll be less likely to meet anyone.”
The gardener looked very concerned and well he might, for it seemed the detective could hardly stand. The many emotions of the last hour, following upon his sufferings of the previous night, had proved too much, even for the iron constitution that he possessed.
The man saw him to his room and was then despat
