Whose hand had secured that portrait before the Leithcourt’s flight?  Why, indeed, should I, for the second time, discover the unhappy girl’s picture missing?

“Has the gentleman who called on the evening of Mr. Leithcourt’s disappearance been back here again since he left the hospital?” I inquired as a sudden idea occurred to me.

“Yes, sir.  He called here in a fly on the day he came out, and at his request I took him over the castle.  He went into the library, and spent half-an-hour in pacing across it, taking measurements, and examining the big cupboard in which he was found insensible.  It was a strange affair, sir,” added the young woman, “wasn’t it?”

“Very,” I replied.

“The gentleman might have been in there now had I not gone into the library and found a lot of illustrated papers, which I always put in the cupboard to keep the place tidy, thrown out on to the floor.  I went to put them back but discovered the door locked.  The key I afterwards found in the grate, where Mr. Leithcourt had evidently thrown it, and on opening the door imagine the shock I had when I found the visitor lying doubled up.  I, of course, thought he was dead.”

“And when he returned here on his recovery, did he question you?”

“Oh, yes.  He asked about the Leithcourts, and especially about Miss Muriel.  I believe he’s rather sweet on her, by the way he spoke.  And really no better or kinder lady never breathed, I’m sure.  We’re all very sorry indeed for her.”

“But she had nothing to do with the affair.”

“Of course not.  But she shares in the scandal and disgrace.  You should have seen the effect of the news upon the guests when they knew that the Leithcourts had gone.  It was a regular pandemonium.  They ordered the best champagne out of the cellars and drank it, the men cleared all the cigar-boxes, and the women rummaged in the wardrobes until they seemed like a pack of hungry wolves.  Everybody went away with their trunks full of the Leithcourt’s things.  They took whatever they could lay their hands on, and we, the servants, couldn’t stop them.  I did remonstrate with one lady who was cramming into her trunk two of Miss Muriel’s best evening dresses, but she told me to mind my own business and leave the room.  One man I saw go away with four of Mr. Leithcourt’s guns, and there was a regular squabble in the billiard-room over a set of pearl and emerald dress-studs that somebody found in his dressing-room.  Crane, the valet, says they tossed for them.”

“Disgraceful!” I ejaculated.  “Then as soon as the host and hostess had gone, they simply swept through the rooms and cleared them?”

“Yes, sir.  They took away all that was most valuable.  They’d have had the silver, only Mason had thrown it into the plate-chest, all dirty as it was, locked it up and hid the key.  The plate was Mr. Gilrae’s, you know, sir, and Mason was responsible.”

“He acted wisely,” I said, surprised at the domestic’s story.  “Why, the guests acted like a gang of thieves.”