"I can't tell you the name of the drug. He said it was some vegetable preparation used by the negroes. Then I died--apparently--and I was buried. They had bored holes in the coffin, and that night, when you were all absent, Joe and Warrender took me out of the vault and carried me to the hut on the heath, where Warrender revived me. It was while he was doing this that he heard a noise, and ran out. He never came back, and when I was myself again we went out to find his body. He was quite dead, stabbed to the heart, and lying some distance from the hut. Who killed him I do not know."
"But how did his body get into the vault?"
"Joe did it. After he had got me away, he dragged the body into the hut, and next night came back and took it to the vault. He put it into the coffin, never dreaming that any one would look for it there. Nor would they, and all would have been well had it not been for that man Cicero Gramp. He saw too much, and----"
He was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
HE BEGINNING OF THE END
Alan started to his feet at that imperative summons. Had Beauchamp been overheard by Mrs. Marry? Had his disguise been penetrated? Had she brought some one to witness the discovery? These thoughts rushed through his mind with lightning speed, and for the moment he lost his presence of mind. Not so the man who was truly in danger. Adopting the peculiar shuffle of the Quiet Gentleman, he crossed the room and opened the door. As the key turned in the lock Alan fully expected to see Lestrange, menacing and sinister, on the threshold. But the newcomer proved to be Blair.
"How are you getting on, Mr. Thorold?" he said, stepping through the door, which Beauchamp locked behind him. "You know now who the Quiet Gentleman is. Don't look so scared, sir."
"Can't help it," muttered the young man.
"This business has been rather too much for me. I thought when you knocked, that Lestrange had run his prey to earth."