‘Thank you,’ said Merton; ‘I see no better way.’  And while Logan went to pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow turnpike stair to the turret chamber.  A fire had been burning all day, and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable.  There was a small four-poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub, which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day.  Merton’s evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed, curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.

As he dressed he mused.  ‘Cursed spite,’ thought he, ’that ever I was born to be an amateur detective!  And cursed be my confounded thirst for general information!  Why did I ever know what Kurdaitcha and Interlinia mean?  If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be!  Suppose I drop the whole affair!  But I’ve been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an idea.  Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves.  Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’

Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for that purpose in old Scotch houses.  He found Logan standing by the fire in the hall.  They were waited on by the old man, Bower.  By tacit consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject that occupied their minds.  They had quite an edible dinner—­cock-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls, with a mysterious sweet which was called a ‘Hattit Kit.’

‘It is an historical dish in this house,’ said Logan.  ’A favourite with our ancestor, the conspirator.’

The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the late marquis.

‘In the circumstances, Logan,’ said Merton, when the old serving man was gone, ‘you have done me very well.’

‘Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler’s wife,’ said Logan.  ’She is a truly remarkable woman.  She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of an ancient family, our hereditary retainers.  One of them, Laird Bower, was our old conspirator’s go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of which you have heard so much.  Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower’s death too, luckily for both of them.  So you see we can depend on it that this pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.’

‘I am glad to hear that,’ said Merton.  ’I had invented a theory, too stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper.  To be sure it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the reverse.’