Godfrey looked at me quickly.
"Come, Lester," he said, soothingly, "don't let your nerves run away with you."
"It wasn't my nerves," I protested, a little hotly. "I heard it quite plainly. He can't be far away."
"Too far for us to catch him," Godfrey retorted, and, torch in hand, proceeded to examine the window-sill and the ground beneath it. "There is where he stood," he added, and the marks on the sill were evident enough. "Of course he had his line of retreat blocked out," and he flashed his torch back and forth across the grass, but the turf was so close that no trace of footsteps was visible.
We went slowly back to the house, and Godfrey sat down again to a contemplation of the cabinet.
"It's too much for me," he said, at last. "The only way I can find that drawer, I'm afraid, is with an axe. But I don't want to smash the thing to pieces—"
"I should say not! It would be like smashing the Venus de Milo."
"Hardly so bad as that. But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going to look up the subject of secret drawers—perhaps I'll stumble upon something that will help me."
"And then, of course," I said, disconsolately, "it is quite possible that there isn't any such drawer at all."
But Godfrey shook his head decidedly.