came in and found the body. No wonder she screamed like that! But
where are the servants? Where is everybody?"

The same thought was in my own mind. The utter silence of the house,
the fact that no one came, added, somehow, to the horror of the
moment. Those wild screams must have echoed from cellar to garret--and
yet no one came!

Godfrey made a rapid scrutiny of the room, which was evidently the
library, with a double door opening upon the grounds and another
opposite opening into the hall. On the wall beside the inner door, he
found an electric button, and he pushed it for some moments, but there
was no response. If it rang a bell, the bell was so far away that we
could not hear it.

A heavy curtain hung across the doorway. Godfrey pulled it aside and
peered into the hall beyond. The hall was dark and silent. With face
decidedly grim, he took his torch from one pocket and his pistol from
another.

"Come along, Lester," he said. "We've got to look into this. Have your
torch ready--and your pistol. God knows what further horrors this
house contains!"

He pulled back the curtain, so that the hall was lighted to some
extent from the open doorway, and then passed through, I after him.
The hall was a broad one, running right through the centre of the
house from front to rear. Godfrey proceeded cautiously and yet rapidly
the whole length of it, flashing his torch into every room. They were
all luxuriously furnished, but were empty of human occupants. From the