We then tried the back of the house, where there was a stable-yard. The snow was pretty heavy there, but not so heavy as in the front. Two men slept over the stable. I roused them up, got the keys of the stable, and went in. Balfour kept three horses, and they were in their stalls all right.
The stable-yard gate was barred, and it was very clear no one had been out that way.
I returned to the house, half frozen and very depressed. We then consulted together, and decided that nothing could be done until daylight.
It was an awful ending to our merry meeting, and the mystery of the whole affair weighed upon us like a nightmare.
The ladies of our party, who had gone to bed soon after we had drunk in the New Year, got up and dressed themselves. In the meantime we carried Maggie Stiven’s body into another room, where it was laid out on a table. James Macfarlane’s opinion was that she had died from a sudden shock of fright; and when that was taken in connection with the eldritch scream which had so startled us, and the mysterious disappearance of our host, we felt that there was something uncanny about the whole business.
The rest of the night was wearily passed. The others of our party, having been o’er fu’ when they went to sleep, continued to sleep through it all, and knew nothing of the tragic ending until they awoke in the morning.
With the coming of the morning our spirits revived a little, though we still felt miserable enough. It had almost ceased to snow, but the whole country was buried, and round about the house the drift was piled up until it reached to the lower windows.
As soon as it was broad daylight we made another careful search of the house, but not a sign of Raymond Balfour could we see.
Chunda helped us in our search. He was terribly cut up, and became so ill from grief and the cold that he was obliged to go to bed.
The only reasonable theory that we could find to account for Balfour’s strange disappearance was that, by some means we could not determine, he had managed to leave the house, and had perished in the snow.