“Who?  Why, everyone knows!—­that scoundrel, Merton,” answered Marston, in an irritated tone—­“Merton murdered him in his bed, and fled last night; he is gone—­escaped—­and I suspect Sir Wynston’s man of being an accessory.”

“Which was Sir Wynston’s bedroom?” asked the young man.

“The room that old Lady Mostyn had—­the room with the portrait of Grace Hamilton in it.”

“I know—­I know,” said the young man, much excited.  “I should wish to see it.”

“Stay,” said Marston; “the door from the passage is bolted on the inside, and I have locked the other; here is the key, if you choose to go, but you must bring Hughes with you, and do not disturb anything; leave all as it is; the jury ought to see, and examine for themselves.”

Charles took the key, and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he made his way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room, which, as we have said, intervened between the valet’s chamber and Sir Wynston’s.  After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key in the door, and stood.

“In the dark chamber of white death.”

The shutters lay partly open, as the valet had left them some hours before, on making the astounding discovery, which the partially admitted light revealed.  The corpse lay in the silk-embroidered dressing gown, and other habiliments, which Sir Wynston had worn, while taking his ease in his chamber, on the preceding night.  The coverlet was partially dragged over it.  The mouth was gaping, and filled with clotted blood; a wide gash was also visible in the neck, under the ear; and there was a thickening pool of blood at the bedside, and quantities of blood, doubtless from other wounds, had saturated the bedclothes under the body.  There lay Sir Wynston, stiffened in the attitude in which the struggle of death had left him, with his stern, stony face, and dim, terrible gaze turned up.

Charles looked breathlessly for more than a minute upon this mute and unchanging spectacle, and then silently suffered the curtain to fall back again, and stepped, with the light tread of awe, again to the door.  There he turned back, and pausing for a minute, said, in a whisper, to the attendant—­

“And Merton did this?”

“Troth, I’m afeard he did, sir,” answered the man, gloomily.

“And has made his escape?” continued Charles.

“Yes, sir; he stole away in the night-time,” replied the servant, “after the murder was done” (and he glanced fearfully toward the bed); “God knows where he’s gone.”

“The villain!” muttered Charles; “but what was his motive? why did he do all this—­what does it mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, sir, but he was very queer for a week and more before it,” replied the man; “there was something bad over him for a long time.”

“It is a terrible thing,” said Charles, with a profound sigh; “a terrible and shocking occurrence.”