'Why, of course, Professor Flick, you have just got to stay. We are bound to stay, don't you see? We must throw all the light we can on this distressing business.'

'But I can't throw any light,' the hapless Professor said, 'upon anything. And I came to England about folk-lore, and not about cases of dynamite and fire and explosions.'

The dawn was now beginning to throw light on various things. It was flooding the corridor—there were splashes of red sunlight on the floors, which to the excited imagination of Helena seemed like little pools of blood. There was a stained window in the corridor which certainly caught the softest stream of the entering sunlight, and transfigured it there and then into a stream of blood. Helena and the Duchess had stolen back into the corridor; Mrs. Sarrasin and Miss Paulo were in attendance on Captain Sarrasin; the Duchess and Helena both felt in a vague manner that sense of being rather in the way which most women feel when some serious business concerning men is going on, and they have no particular mission to stanch a wound or smooth a pillow.

'I think, dear child,' the Duchess whispered, 'we had better go and leave these men to themselves.'

But Helena's eyes were fixed on the Dictator's face. She had heard about the easy way in which he had got the fire under, but just now she felt sure that he was thinking of something quite different and something very serious.

'Stay a moment, Duchess,' she entreated; 'they won't mind us—or my father will tell us to go if they want us away.'

Then there was a little commotion caused by the arrival of the coroner for that part of the county, two local doctors, and the local inspector of police. The coroner, Mr. St. John Raven, was very proud of being summoned to the house of so great a man as Sir Rupert Langley. Mysterious deaths and mysterious crimes in the home of a Minister of State are events that cannot happen in the lives of many coroners. The doctors and the police inspector were less swelled up with pride. The sore throat of a lady's maid would at any time bring a doctor to Seagate Hall; the most commonplace burglary, without any question of jewels, would summon the police inspector thither. After formal salutations, Mr. St. John Raven looked doubtfully adown the corridor.

'I think,' he suggested, 'we had better, Sir Rupert, request these ladies to withdraw—unless, of course, either is in a position to contribute by personal evidence to the elucidation of the case. Of course, if either can, or both——'

'I can't tell anything,' Helena said; 'I heard a crash, and that was all—I felt as if I were in an earthquake; I know nothing more about it.'

'I hardly know even so much,' the Duchess said, 'for I had not wits enough left in me even to think about the earthquake. Come, dear child, let us go.'