“Father’s forethought!” she answered.  “When I first came, he thought, and rightly enough, that I might get frightened with so many records of death and the tomb everywhere.  So he had this room and the little suite off it—­that door opens into the sitting-room—­where I slept last night, furnished with pretty things.  You see, they are all beautiful.  That cabinet belonged to the great Napoleon.”

“There is nothing Egyptian in these rooms at all then?” I asked, rather to show interest in what she had said than anything else, for the furnishing of the room was apparent.  “What a lovely cabinet!  May I look at it?”

“Of course! with the greatest pleasure!” she answered, with a smile.  “Its finishing, within and without, Father says, is absolutely complete.”  I stepped over and looked at it closely.  It was made of tulip wood, inlaid in patterns; and was mounted in ormolu.  I pulled open one of the drawers, a deep one where I could see the work to great advantage.  As I pulled it, something rattled inside as though rolling; there was a tinkle as of metal on metal.

“Hullo!” I said.  “There is something in here.  Perhaps I had better not open it.”

“There is nothing that I know of,” she answered.  “Some of the housemaids may have used it to put something by for the time and forgotten it.  Open it by all means!”

I pulled open the drawer; as I did so, both Miss Trelawny and I started back in amazement.

There before our eyes lay a number of ancient Egyptian lamps, of various sizes and of strangely varied shapes.

We leaned over them and looked closely.  My own heart was beating like a trip-hammer; and I could see by the heaving of Margaret’s bosom that she was strangely excited.

Whilst we looked, afraid to touch and almost afraid to think, there was a ring at the front door; immediately afterwards Mr. Corbeck, followed by Sergeant Daw, came into the hall.  The door of the boudoir was open, and when they saw us Mr. Corbeck came running in, followed more slowly by the Detective.  There was a sort of chastened joy in his face and manner as he said impulsively: 

“Rejoice with me, my dear Miss Trelawny, my luggage has come and all my things are intact!” Then his face fell as he added, “Except the lamps.  The lamps that were worth all the rest a thousand times. . . .”  He stopped, struck by the strange pallor of her face.  Then his eyes, following her look and mine, lit on the cluster of lamps in the drawer.  He gave a sort of cry of surprise and joy as he bent over and touched them: 

“My lamps!  My lamps!  Then they are safe—­safe—­safe! . . .  But how, in the name of God—­of all the Gods—­did they come here?”

We all stood silent.  The Detective made a deep sound of in-taking breath.  I looked at him, and as he caught my glance he turned his eyes on Miss Trelawny whose back was toward him.

There was in them the same look of suspicion which had been there when he had spoken to me of her being the first to find her father on the occasions of the attacks.