Away to the left was another door, matching those by the fireplace—that leading into the botanist’s bed-chamber; and wherever a space was left on the panelling, there was a portrait, in an old tarnished gilt frame, of some ancestor, each—dimly seen though it was—as the sergeant made the light play round the walls—bearing a striking resemblance to that which faced them.
“Looks as if he was watching us,” said the workman huskily; and he placed a piece of tobacco in his mouth, making Guest start as he closed the brass box from which he had extracted it with a loud snap.
“Yes,” said the sergeant, in a whisper, as if to himself, and he made the light of his bull’s-eye play from easy-chair to couch, and then all about the floor; “I always wondered how they managed them eyes.”
Everything looked in order, with one exception. The thick Turkey carpet and heavy rug were exactly as they had been laid; the fireplace showed the coal, wood, and paper neatly laid; and the chairs were all duly ranged in their places; but the sergeant’s light rested upon the table—a heavy, oblong affair, with four massive carven legs—a part of whose top was bare, for the thick green cloth cover, with bullion braiding at the border, had been half dragged off, and lay in folds from the top to floor, only kept from gliding right off by the heavy lamp, and looking as if it had been hastily dragged down to cover something by the table, or caught by someone’s foot when passing hastily to the door.
The sergeant made his light play on the dark folds for a few moments, and then jerked it away.
“Do you gentlemen mean to stop?” he said, speaking now a little more rapidly.
There was no reply and the man stepped forward to the table, raised one corner of the cloth quickly, and then swung it right up and steadily lowered it again, while Guest uttered a sigh of relief, for there was nothing visible but the heavy legs of the table.
“Enough to deceive any man,” said the sergeant, who then stopped and listened, walked back, and softly closed both doors.
“May as well be private, gentleman,” he said. “Eh?”
This last to the workman, who had muttered something in a low voice.