’Then where can this mysterious old gentleman have got to,—­can you suggest an explanation?  It is strange, to say the least of it, that the cabman should be the only person to see or hear anything of him.’

’Some devil’s trick has been played,—­I know it, I feel it!—­my instinct tells me so!’

I stared.  In such a matter one hardly expects a man of Paul Lessingham’s stamp to talk of ‘instinct.’  Atherton stared too.  Then, on a sudden, he burst out,

’By the Lord, I believe the Apostle’s right,—­the whole place reeks to me of hankey-pankey,—­it did as soon as I put my nose inside.  In matters of prestidigitation, Champnell, we Westerns are among the rudiments,—­we’ve everything to learn,—­Orientals leave us at the post.  If their civilisation’s what we’re pleased to call extinct, their conjuring—­when you get to know it!—­is all alive oh!’

He moved towards the door.  As he went he slipped, or seemed to, all but stumbling on to his knees.

‘Something tripped me up,—­what’s this?’ He was stamping on the floor with his foot.  ’Here’s a board loose.  Come and lend me a hand, one of you fellows, to get it up.  Who knows what mystery’s beneath?’

I went to his aid.  As he said, a board in the floor was loose.  His stepping on it unawares had caused his stumble.  Together we prised it out of its place,—­Lessingham standing by and watching us the while.  Having removed it, we peered into the cavity it disclosed.

There was something there.

‘Why,’ cried Atherton ‘it’s a woman’s clothing!’

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE REST OF THE FIND

It was a woman’s clothing, beyond a doubt, all thrown in anyhow,—­ as if the person who had placed it there had been in a desperate hurry.  An entire outfit was there, shoes, stockings, body linen, corsets, and all,—­even to hat, gloves, and hairpins;—­these latter were mixed up with the rest of the garments in strange confusion.  It seemed plain that whoever had worn those clothes had been stripped to the skin.

Lessingham and Sydney stared at me in silence as I dragged them out and laid them on the floor.  The dress was at the bottom,—­it was an alpaca, of a pretty shade in blue, bedecked with lace and ribbons, as is the fashion of the hour, and lined with sea-green silk.  It had perhaps been a ‘charming confection’ once—­and that a very recent one!—­but now it was all soiled and creased and torn and tumbled.  The two spectators made a simultaneous pounce at it as I brought it to the light.

‘My God!’ cried Sydney, ’it’s Marjorie’s!—­she was wearing it when I saw her last!’

‘It’s Marjorie’s!’ gasped Lessingham,—­he was clutching at the ruined costume, staring at it like a man who has just received sentence of death.  ’She wore it when she was with me yesterday,—­I told her how it suited her, and how pretty it was!’