In less than fifteen minutes the motor, with Dixon and the new chauffeur, Tonson, had left the Tower, and was rushing at forty miles an hour along the Pengarth road.

Meanwhile, Faversham and the farm-labourers were searching the garden, the hanging woods, and the river banks.  Footprints were found all along the terrace, and it was plain that the murderer had climbed the low enclosing wall.  But beyond, and all in the darkness, nothing could be traced.

Faversham returned to the house, and began to examine the gallery.  The hiding-place of Melrose’s assailant was soon discovered.  Behind the Nattier portrait, and the carved and gilt chair which Melrose had himself moved from its place in the morning, there were muddy marks on the floor and the wainscotting, which showed that a man had been crouching there.  The picture, a large and imposing canvas—­Marie Leczinska, sitting on a blue sofa, in a gala dress of rose-pink velvet with trimming of black fur—­had been more than sufficient to conceal him.  Then—­had he knocked to attract Melrose’s attention, having ascertained from Dixon’s short colloquy at the library door, after Faversham had left the room, that the master of the Tower was still within?—­or had Melrose suddenly come out into the gallery, perhaps to give some order to Dixon?

Faversham thought the latter more probable.  As Melrose appeared, the murderer had risen hastily from his hiding-place, upsetting the picture and the chair.  Melrose had received a charge of duck shot full in the breast, with fatal effect.  The range was so short that the shot had scattered but little.  A few pellets, however, could be traced in the wooden frames of the tapestries; and one had broken a majolica dish standing on a cabinet.

A man of the people then—­using probably some old muzzle-loader, begged or borrowed?  Faversham’s thought ran to the young fellow who had denounced Melrose with such fervour at Mainstairs the day of Lydia Penfold’s visit to the stricken village.  But, good heavens!—­there were a score of men on Melrose’s estate, with at least as good reason—­or better—­for shooting, as that man.  Take the Brands!  But old Brand was gone to his rest, the elder son had sailed for Canada, and the younger seemed to be a harmless, half-witted chap, of no account.

Yet, clearly the motive had been revenge, not burglary.  There were plenty of costly trifles on the tables and cabinets of the gallery.  Not one of them had been touched.

Faversham moved to and fro in the silence, while Mrs. Dixon sat moaning to herself beside the dead man, whose face she had covered.  The lavish electric light in the gallery, which had been Melrose’s latest whim, shone upon its splendid contents; on the nymphs and cupids, the wreaths and temples of the Boucher tapestries, on the gleaming surfaces of the china, the dull gold of the ormolu.  The show represented the desires, the huntings, the bargains of a lifetime; and in its midst lay Melrose, tripped at last, silenced at last, the stain of his life-blood spreading round him.