“She couldn’t get out there,” said he, “even if she could climb up to it.  Unless she could swarm a rope.”

And he touched one of the ropes which dangled from a huge beam.

The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, and stopped short, pointing to something which was lying on the floor under the window.

It was the body of a man, lying in a heap.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

Max helped the detective raise the man from the ground.  He was quite dead, and from the position in which they had found him, both men concluded that he had been in the act of climbing up to the high window, when the rope by which he was holding broke under his weight.  It was evident that he had fallen upon an old millstone which was among the lumber on the floor beneath, and that the shock of the fall had broken his neck.

They had found out all this before Max could form any opinion as to the identity of the dead man.  He was short of stature, and apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, slightly built, but muscular.  The body was dressed in the clothes of a respectable mechanic.

There was very little light in the barn by this time, and Max directed the groom, who had been standing outside, and who had entered, attracted by Max’s shout of discovery, to bring a lantern.

“I suppose we’d better send for a doctor,” said Max, “though the man’s as dead as a doornail.  In the meantime, just give a look around and see whether the woman is anywhere about.”

The detective appeared to follow the suggestion, for he at once proceeded to a further inspection of the building by the aid of one of the two lanterns which the groom had by this time brought.  And presently he came back to Max with a bundle in his hand.

Max, by the light of the lantern which the groom was holding for him, was looking at the face of the dead man, whom he guessed to be one of Mrs. Higgs’s accomplices, perhaps the mysterious person whose influence over the old woman, according to Carrie, was so bad.

While he was staring intently at the dead face, he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, saw that Carrie had stolen into the barn behind the groom, and had her eyes fixed upon the body.

Max sprang up.

“Do you know him?  Is it the man who used to get into the place by night?” asked he, eagerly.

Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead man to the detective, and from him to the bundle he was carrying.

“Ah!” exclaimed she.

Max looked in his turn.  The detective was displaying, one by one, a woman’s skirt, bodice, bonnet, shawl and a cap with a “front” of woman’s hair sewn inside it.

“I think you can guess, sir, what’s become of the woman now?” said the officer, grimly.

Max started violently, shocked by a surprise which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had been discounted some time ago.