The Mystery of the Downs | Page 5

upstairs," he said cheerfully, as he returned.
He noted with a smile that his companion made a point of keeping behind him in all his movements. When they had climbed the first flight of stairs, they stood for a moment or two on the landing, listening, but could hear no sound.
"Let us try this room first," said Marsland, pointing to a door opposite the landing.
The door was closed but not shut, for it yielded to his touch and swung open, revealing a large bedroom with an old-fashioned fourposter in the corner furthest from the door. Marsland glanced round the room curiously. It was the typical "best bedroom" of an old English farm-house, built more than a hundred years before the present generation came to life, with their modern ideas of fresh air and light** and sanitation. The ceiling was so** low** that he** had** almost touched it with his head as bodya** small narrow-paned windows, clo** **sh with-* out, looked as though they had been hermetically sealed for centuries.
The room contained furniture as ancient as its surroundings: quaint old chests of drawers, bureaux, clothes-presses, and some old straight-backed oaken chairs. On the walls were a few musty old books on shelves, a stuffed pointer in a glass case, a cabinet of stuffed birds, some dingy hunting prints. The combination of low ceiling, sealed windows, and stuffed animals created such a vault-like atmosphere that Marsland marvelled at the hardy constitution of that dead and gone race of English yeomen who had suffered nightly internment in such chambers and yet survived to a ripe old age. His eyes wandered to the fourposter, and he smiled as he noticed that the heavy curtains were drawn close, as though the last sleeper in the chamber had dreaded and guarded against the possibility of some stray shaft of fresh air eluding the precautions of the builder and finding its way into the room.
"Nothing here," he said, as he glanced round the floor of the room for broken pieces of glass or china ornaments that might have been knocked over by the wind or by a cat. "Let us try the room opposite."
She was the first to reach the door of the opposite room to which they turned. It occurred to Marsland that her fears were wearing off. As he reached the threshold, he lifted up the lamp above his head so that its light should fall within.
T** as ** **bedroom also, deep and narrow as **** sneezed into the house as an af** with a** **small, deep-set window high up in ** *os* the door. The room was fur-* *nished in the old-fashioned style of the room opposite, though more sparsely. But Marsland and the girl were astonished to see a man sitting motionless in a large arm-chair at the far end of the room. His head had fallen forward on his breast as though in slumber, concealing the lower part of his face.
"By heavens, this is extraordinary," said Marsland, in a low hoarse voice. With a trembling hand he placed the lamp on the large table which occupied the centre of the room and stood looking at the man.
The girl crept close to Marsland and clutched his arm.
"It is Frank Lumsden," she whispered quickly. "Do you think there is anything wrong with him? Why doesn't he speak to us?"
"Because he is dead," he answered swiftly.
"Dead!" she exclaimed, in an hysterical tone. "What makes you think so? He may be only in a fit. Oh, what shall we do?"
Marsland pushed her aside and with a firm step walked to the chair on which the motionless figure sat. He touched with his fingers the left hand which rested on the arm of the chair, and turned quickly.
"He is quite dead," he said slowly. "He is beyond all help in this world."
"Dead?" she repeated, retreating to the far end of the table and clasping her trembling hands together. "What a dreadful lonely death."
He was deep in thought and did not respond to her words.
"As we have discovered the body we must inform the police," he said at length. "I did not know he was ill," she said, in a soft whisper. "He must have died suddenly."
Marsland turned on her a searching questioning look. Her sympathy had conquered her vague fears of the presence of death, and she hesitatingly approached the body. Something on the table near the lamp attracted her attention. It was an open pocket-book and beside it were some papers which had evidently been removed from it.
"What does this mean?" she cried. "Some one has been here."
"It is extraordinary," said Marsland.
He stood between her and the arm-chair so as to hide the dead body from her. She stepped aside as if to seek in the appearance of the dead man an explanation of the rifled pocket-book.
"Don't!"