That Gatton’s thoughts had been running parallel with my own was presently made manifest, for: 

“Without a moment’s delay, Mr. Addison,” he said, speaking like a man newly awakened from slumber, “we must proceed to The Laurels and test the truth of what we have heard.”

He crossed to the door, threw it open, and: 

“Sergeant!” he cried.  “Come in!  The prisoner is dead!”

As the sergeant and the constable who were waiting came into the study and stood looking in stupefaction at the body stretched on the floor, I heard the telephone bell ring.  I started nervously.  That sound awakened ghastly memories, and I thought of the man who only a few hours before had met his death in the room where now the bell was ringing its summons.

I doubted if I could ever spend another night beneath that roof, for here Dr. Damar Greefe, the arch-assassin, and one of his victims both had met their ends.  I heard the voice of Coates speaking in the adjoining room, and presently, as Gatton went to the door: 

“Miss Merlin wishes to speak to you, sir,” said Coates.

I ran eagerly to the ’phone, and: 

“Hello!” I cried.  “Is that you, Isobel?”

“Yes!” came her reply, and I noted the agitation in her voice.  “I am more dreadfully frightened than I have ever been in my life.  If only you were here!  Is it possible for you to come at once?”

“What has alarmed you?” I asked anxiously.

“I can’t explain,” she replied.  “It is a dreadful sense of foreboding—­and all the dogs in the neighborhood seem to have gone mad!”

“Dogs!” I cried, a numbing fear creeping over me.  “You mean that they are howling?”

“Howling!” she answered.  “I have never heard such a pandemonium at any time.  In my present state of nerves, Jack, I did the wrong thing in coming to this funny lonely little house.  I feel deserted and hopeless and, for some reason, in terrible danger.”

“Are you alone, then?” I asked, in ever growing anxiety.

To my utter consternation: 

“Yes!” she replied.  “Aunt Alison was called away half an hour ago—­to identify some one at a hospital who had asked for her—­”

“What! an accident?”

“I suppose so.”

“But the servants?”

“Cook left this morning.  You remember Aunt told you she was leaving.”

“There is the girl, Mary?”

“Aunt ’phoned for her to join her at the hospital!”

“What!  I don’t understand! ’Phoned, you say?  Was it Mrs. Wentworth herself who ’phoned?”

“No; I think not.  One of the nurses, Mary said.  But at any rate, she has gone, Jack, and I’m frightened to death!  There’s something else,” she added.

“Yes?” I said eagerly.

She laughed in a way that sounded almost hysterical.

“Since Mary went I have thought once or twice that I have seen some one or something creeping around outside the house in the shadows amongst the trees!  And just a while ago something happened which really prompted me to ’phone you.”