“No,” she disclaimed; “she could not have done that.  I was careful to lock the library door behind her before I ran out into the hall.”

“Then,” concluded Violet, with all the emphasis of conviction, “it is here, and nowhere else we must look for that document till we find it.”

Thus assured of the first step in the task she had before her, Miss Strange settled down to business.

The room, which towered to the height of two stories, was in the shape of a huge oval.  This oval, separated into narrow divisions for the purpose of accommodating the shelves with which it was lined, narrowed as it rose above the great Gothic chimney-piece and the five gorgeous windows looking towards the south, till it met and was lost in the tracery of the ceiling, which was of that exquisite and soul-satisfying order which we see in the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey.  What break otherwise occurred in the circling round of books reaching thus thirty feet or more above the head was made by the two doors already spoken of and a narrow strip of wall at either end of the space occupied by the windows.  No furniture was to be seen there except a couple of stalls taken from some old cathedral, which stood in the two bare places just mentioned.

But within, on the extensive floor-space, several articles were grouped, and Violet, recognizing the possibilities which any one of them afforded for the concealment of so small an object as a folded document, decided to use method in her search, and to that end, mentally divided the space before her into four segments.

The first took in the door, communicating with the suite ending in Mr. Brooks’s bedroom.  A diagram of this segment will show that the only article of furniture in it was a cabinet.

It was at this cabinet Miss Strange made her first stop.

“You have looked this well through?” she asked as she bent over the glass case on top to examine the row of mediaeval missals displayed within in a manner to show their wonderful illuminations.

“Not the case,” explained Hetty.  “It is locked you see and no one has as yet succeeded in finding the key.  But we searched the drawers underneath with the greatest care.  Had we sifted the whole contents through our fingers, I could not be more certain that the paper is not there.”

Violet stepped into the next segment.

This was the one dominated by the huge fire-place.  A rug lay before the hearth.  To this Violet pointed.

Quickly the woman answered:  “We not only lifted it, but turned it over.”

“And that box at the right?”

“Is full of wood and wood only.”

“Did you take out this wood?”

“Every stick.”

“And those ashes in the fire-place?  Something has been burned there.”

“Yes; but not lately.  Besides, those ashes are all wood ashes.  If the least bit of charred paper had been mixed with them, we should have considered the matter settled.  But you can see for yourself that no such particle can be found.”  While saying this, she had put the poker into Violet’s hand.  “Rake them about, Miss, and make sure.”