At The Villa Rose

From these agreeable reflections Ricardo was shaken. Lemerre

stopped. The raiders had reached the angle made by the side wall

of the garden and the house. A whisper was exchanged, and the

party turned and moved along the house wall towards the lighted

window on the ground floor. As Lemerre reached it he stooped. Then

slowly his forehead and his eyes rose above the sill and glanced

this way and that into the room. Mr. Ricardo could see his eyes

gleaming as the light from the window caught them. His face rose

completely over the sill. He stared into the room without care or

apprehension, and then dropped again out of the reach of the

light. He turned to Hanaud.

"The room is empty," he whispered. Hanaud turned to Ricardo.

"Pass under the sill, or the light from the window will throw your

shadow upon the lawn."

The party came to the back door of the house. Lemerre tried the

handle of the door, and to his surprise it yielded. They crept

into the passage. The last man closed the door noiselessly, locked

it, and removed the key. A panel of light shone upon the wall a

few paces ahead. The door of the lighted room was open. As Ricardo

stepped silently past it, he looked in. It was a parlour meanly

furnished. Hanaud touched him on the arm and pointed to the table.

Ricardo had seen the objects at which Hanaud pointed often enough

without uneasiness; but now, in this silent house of crime, they

had the most sinister and appalling aspect. There was a tiny phial

half full of a dark-brown liquid, beside it a little leather case

lay open, and across the case, ready for use or waiting to be

filled, was a bright morphia needle. Ricardo felt the cold creep

along his spine, and shivered.

"Come," whispered Hanaud.

They reached the foot of a flight of stairs, and cautiously

mounted it. They came out in a passage which ran along the side of

the house from the back to the front. It was unlighted, but they

were now on the level of the street, and a fan-shaped glass window

over the front door admitted a pale light. There was a street lamp

near to the door, Ricardo remembered. For by the light of it

Marthe Gobin had seen Celia Harland run so nimbly into this house.

For a moment the men in the passage held their breath. Some one

strode heavily by on the pavement outside--to Mr. Ricardo's ear a

most companionable sound. Then a clock upon a church struck the

half-hour musically, distantly. It was half-past eight. And a

second afterwards a tiny bright light shone. Hanaud was directing

the light of a pocket electric torch to the next flight of stairs.

Here the steps were carpeted, and once more the men crept up. One

after another they came out upon the next landing. It ran, like

those below it, along the side of the house from the back to the

front, and the doors were all upon their left hand. From beneath

the door nearest to them a yellow line of light streamed out.