“Yes, I would swear to his yellow face — a mean dog, I should say. What could he have in common with Sir Robert?”

Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.

“Who keeps Lady Beatrice Falder company?” he asked at last.

“There is her maid, Carrie Evans. She has been with her this five years.”

“And is, no doubt, devoted?”

Mr. Mason shuffled uncomfortably.

“She’s devoted enough,” he answered at last. “But I won‘t say to whom.”

“Ah!” said Holmes.

“I can’t tell tales out of school.”

“I quite understand, Mr. Mason. Of course, the situation is clear enough. From Dr. Watson’s description of Sir Robert I can realize that no woman is safe from him. Don’t you think the quarrel between brother and sister may lie there?”

“Well, the scandal has been pretty clear for a long time.”

“But she may not have seen it before. Let us suppose that she has suddenly found it out. She wants to get rid of the woman. Her brother will not permit it. The invalid, with her weak heart and inability to get about, has no means of enforcing her will. The hated maid is still tied to her. The lady refuses to speak, sulks, takes to drink. Sir Robert in his anger takes her pet spaniel away from her. Does not all this hang together?”

“Well, it might do — so far as it goes.”

“Exactly! As far as it goes. goes How would all that bear upon the visits by night to the old crypt? We can’t fit that into our plot.”

“No, sir, and there is something more that I can’t fit in. Why should Sir Robert want to dig up a dead body?”

Holmes sat up abruptly.

“We only found it out yesterday — after I had written to you. Yesterday Sir Robert had gone to London, so Stephens and I went down to the crypt. It was all in order, sir, except that in one corner was a bit of a human body.”

“You informed the police, I suppose?”

Our visitor smiled grimly.

“Well, sir, I think it would hardly interest them. It was just the head and a few bones of a mummy. It may have been a thousand years old. But it wasn’t there before. That I‘ll swear, and so will Stephens. It had been stowed away in a corner and covered over with a board, but that corner had always been empty before.”

“What did you do with it?”

“Well, we just left it there.”

“That was wise. You say Sir Robert was away yesterday. Has he returned?”

“We expect him back to-day.”

“When did Sir Robert give away his sister’s dog?”

“It was just a week ago to-day. The creature was howling outside the old wellhouse, and Sir Robert was in one of his tantrums that morning. He caught it up, and I thought he would have killed it. Then he gave it to Sandy Bain, the jockey, and told him to take the dog to old Barnes at the Green Dragon, for he never wished to see it again.”

"I shall have done a fair stroke of business," he said to himself. "When all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; and it's not over yet."

Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:

"Have you a bag?"

"Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared."

"Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your room; and tell them that you are leaving."

When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.

The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker hamper covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse's room. Assisted by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put him in the trunk, in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid being fastened:

"I don't say that it's as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car, my dear deputy," Lupin observed. "But, all the same, it's better than a coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little holes in each side. You have nothing to complain of!"

Then, unstopping a flask:

"A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!... "

He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the Growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.

"Capital!" said Lupin. "That trunk is fit to go round the world. Lock it and strap it."

The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur's livery:

"The car's below, governor."

"Good," he said. "Take the trunk down between you. It would be dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants."

"But if any one meets us?"

"Well, what then, Masher? Aren't you a chauffeur? You're carrying the trunk of your employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who will also go down, step into her motor... and wait for me two hundred yards farther on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first lock the partition-door!"

Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt, walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.

In the office, he said:

"M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were to keep his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the key."

He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found Clarisse lamenting:

"We shall never be in Paris to-morrow! It's madness! The least breakdown...

"That's why you and I are going to take the train. It's safer... "

He put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two men:

"Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You're to drive and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you ought to be in Paris between six and seven to-morrow evening. But don't force the pace. I'm keeping Daubrecq, not because I want him for my plans, but as a hostage... and then by way of precaution... I like to feel that I can lay my hands on him during the next few days. So look after the dear fellow... Give him a few drops of chioroform every three or four hours: it's his one weakness... Off with you, Masher... And you, Daubrecq, don't get excited up there. The roof'll bear you all right... If you feel at all sick, don't mind... Off you go, Masher!