He arose, and, taking the candle with him, walked heavily into the passage, and having opened the other door passed into the tower-room, and locked the door of that room, leaving his own key in the lock.
Remembering the second key, he lowered the candle and looked for it on the dark oak floor. He saw it and picked it up. As he did so his eyes caught another metallic glitter on the floor, and stepping towards it he took up something.
Holding the metallic object next the light, he seemed for a moment perplexed.
"What brings a burglar's jemmy here? How can it have come here?"
He looked very cautiously and slowly round the room.
"I did not notice until now," he thought, "those open drawers. Why, the place has been broken into."
His first impulse was to rush to the window. But he curbed that. It would be just as well not to be seen at that window now. Suppose by any chance the burglar happened to be lurking in the neighbourhood, in the Park. No part of the house or grounds commanded this room, and so long as he did not go near the window all would be well.
He had stumbled over that jemmy before—before he had added to the perfidy of Judas the sin of Cain.
He approached the couch. All was quiet there. Not a sound, not a breath.
He went still nearer. Now for the first time he noticed close by the couch an empty decanter, the one into which James had poured brandy, and by it a glass.