The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,

of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I even

remarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.

We were all so intent on those steps in the wall that

we were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larry

and Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn a

revolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up to

fire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying through

the air.

"Only a moment now, gentlemen," said Bates, an odd

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smile on his face. He was looking past me toward the

right end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in the

air a feeling of something impending. Even Morgan

and his men, half-crouching ready for a rush at me, hesitated;

and Pickering glanced nervously from one to the

other of us. It was the calm before the storm; in a moment

we should be at each other's throats for the final

struggle, and yet we waited. In the wall I heard still

the sound of steps. They were clear to all of us now.

We stood there for what seemed an eternity-I suppose

the time was really not more than thirty seconds-inert,

waiting, while I felt that something must happen; the

silence, the waiting, were intolerable. I grasped my pistol

and bent low for a spring at Morgan, with the overturned

table and wreckage of the chandelier between me

and Pickering; and every man in the room was instantly

on the alert.

All but Bates. He remained rigid-that curious

smile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes bent toward the

end of the great fireplace back of me.

That look on his face held, arrested, numbed me; I

followed it. I forgot Morgan; a tacit truce held us all

again. I stepped back till my eyes fastened on the

broad paneled chimney-breast at the right of the hearth,

and it was there now that the sound of footsteps in the

wall was heard again; then it ceased utterly, the long

panel opened slowly, creaking slightly upon its hinges,

then down into the room stepped Marian Devereux.

She wore the dark gown in which I had seen her last,

and a cloak was drawn over her shoulders.

She laughed as her eyes swept the room.

"Ah, gentlemen," she said, shaking her head, as she

viewed our disorder, "what wretched housekeepers you

are!"

Steps were again heard in the wall, and she turned to

the panel, held it open with one hand and put out the

other, waiting for some one who followed her.

Then down into the room stepped my grandfather,

John Marshall Glenarm! His staff, his cloak, the silk

hat above his shrewd face, and his sharp black eyes were

unmistakable. He drew a silk handkerchief from the

skirts of his frock coat, with a characteristic flourish

that I remembered well, and brushed a bit of dust from

his cloak before looking at any of us. Then his eyes

fell upon me.




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