“If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself.  I have a confession to make, sir.  When I found your note asking me to open that desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke the lock as you told me, and was glad to do it, because I could hear the animal in the box making a great noise, and I thought it wanted food.  So I took out the box, sir, and got a cage, and was going to transfer it, when the animal got away.”

“What in the world are you talking about?  I never wrote any such note.”

“Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the floor on the day you and Mr. Saunders left.  I have it in my pocket now.”

It certainly seemed to be in Eustace’s handwriting.  It was written in pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.

“Get a hammer, Morton,” he read, “or some other tool, and break open the lock in the old desk in the library.  Take out the box that is inside.  You need not do anything else.  The lid is already open.  Eustace Borlsover.”

“And you opened the desk?”

“Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal hopped out.”

“What animal?”

“The animal inside the box, sir.”

“What did it look like?”

“Well, sir, I couldn’t tell you,” said Morton nervously; “my back was turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked up.”

“What was its color?” asked Saunders; “black?”

“Oh, no, sir, a grayish white.  It crept along in a very funny way, sir.  I don’t think it had a tail.”

“What did you do then?”

“I tried to catch it, but it was no use.  So I set the rat-traps and kept the library shut.  Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped.”

“And you think it was the animal that’s been frightening the maids?”

“Well, no, sir, not quite.  They said it was—­you’ll excuse me, sir—­a hand that they saw.  Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs.  She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white.  And then Parfit was washing up the dishes in the scullery.  She wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.  It was close on dusk.  She took her hands out of the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel, when she found that she was drying someone else’s hand as well, only colder than hers.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Saunders.

“Exactly, sir; that’s what I told her; but we couldn’t get her to stop.”

“You don’t believe all this?” said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the butler.

“Me, sir?  Oh, no, sir!  I’ve not seen anything.”

“Nor heard anything?”

“Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and there’s nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds of a night, as often as not somebody’s been there before us.  But as I says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the place.”