“Mercy on us!” he let out.  “What’s all this?  The man’s lying dead!”

“Dead enough, Chisholm!” said I, gradually getting the better of my fright.  “And murdered, too!  But who murdered him, God knows—­I don’t!  He trapped me in here, not ten minutes ago, and had me at the end of a revolver, and we came to terms, and he left me—­and he was no sooner down the stairs here than I heard a bit of a scuffle, and him fall and groan, and I ran out to find—­that!  And somebody was off and away—­have you seen nobody outside there?”

“You can’t see an inch before your eyes—­the night’s that black,” he answered, bending over the dead man.  “We’ve only just come—­round from the house.  But whatever were you doing here, yourself?”

“I came to see if I could find any trace of Miss Dunlop in this old part,” I answered, “and he told me—­just before this happened—­she’s in the tower above, and safe.  And I’ll go up there now, Chisholm; for if she’s heard aught of all this—­”

There was another policeman with him, and they stepped past the body and followed me into the little room and looked round curiously.  I left them whispering, and opened the door that Hollins had pointed out.  There was a stair there, as he had said, set deep in the thick wall, and I went a long way up it before I came to another door, in which there was a key set in the lock.  And in a moment I had it turned, and there was Maisie, and I had her in my arms and was flooding her with questions and holding the light to her face to see if she was safe, all at once.

“You’ve come to no harm?—­you’re all right?—­you’ve not been frightened out of your senses?—­how did it all come about?” I rapped out at her.  “Oh, Maisie, I’ve been seeking for you all day long, and—­”

And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a glass of water to my lips that she snatched up from a table, and encouraging me, who should have been consoling her—­all within the minute of my setting eyes on her, and me so weak, as it seemed, that I could only cling on to her hand, making sure that I had really got her.

“There, there, it’s all right, Hugh!” she murmured, patting my arm as if I had been some child that had just started awake from a bad dream.  “There’s no harm come to me at all, barring the weary waiting in this black hole of a place!—­I’ve had food and drink and a light, as you see—­they promised me I should have no harm when they locked me in.  But oh, it’s seemed like it was ages since then!”

“They?  Who?” I demanded.  “Who locked you in?”

“Sir Gilbert and that butler of his—­Hollins,” she answered.  “I took the short cut through the grounds here last night, and I ran upon the two of them at the corner of the ruins, and they stopped me, and wouldn’t let me go, and locked me up here, promising I’d be let out later on.”