"Door's open!" he exclaimed. "Not even shut!" He pushed the door wide, and went into the building, the rest crowding after him. "Hullo!" he shouted. "Hullo!"
No answer came to the summons. The constable crossed the lobby in which they were all standing, and opened an inner door. And Hetherwick saw at once that the grocer's surmise as to the purpose to which the place was put had been correct—this was a chemical laboratory, well equipped, too, with modern apparatus. But there was not a sign of life in it.
"Nobody here, apparently," murmured one of the men. "Flown!"
Robmore went forward to another door, and opening it, revealed a room furnished as an office. There was a roll-top desk in it, and papers and documents lying there; he and Hetherwick began to finger and examine them. And Hetherwick suddenly saw something that made a link between this mysterious place and the house he had called at earlier in the afternoon. There, before his eyes, lay some of the azure-tinted notepaper which Mapperley had traced with the embossed address on it of which the stationer had told.
"There's no doubt we've hit on the place at last, Robmore," he said. "I wish we'd had Matherfield here. But——"
Before he could say more, a sudden shout came from Goldmark, who, while the others were investigating the lower regions, had courageously, and alone, gone up the low staircase to the upper rooms.
"Mithter!" he called. "Mithter Hetherwick! come up here—come up, all of you. Here'th a man here, a-thittin' in a chair—and th'elp me if I don't believe he'th a thtiff 'un—dead!"