"Is there anything in this room which gives you a hint? Look around and see."
"I have been looking round, and I confess there isn't. Nor do I think it likely that the fortune would be hidden in the same room which contained the will."
"Very well; then we'll all of us go over the house together, and we'll all of us look out for hints."
Madge led the way, and they went over the house.
It was a tiny one. Behind the solitary sitting-room was the kitchen. The kitchen was an old-fashioned one, with brick floor, and bare brick walls coloured white. In one corner a door led into the pantry; in another was a door into the scullery; there was nothing remarkable about either of these. Under the staircase was a roomy cupboard. They examined it with some thoroughness, by the aid of a lamp, without discovering anything out of the way. On the floor above were the bedrooms used by Ella and Madge, and a smaller room in which they stored their lumber. The walls of these were papered from floor to ceiling, and in none of them did there seem to be anything calculated to convey a hint as to the meaning of the cabalistic allusion.
"It seems to me," observed Jack, when the work of exploration was completed, "that there's nothing about these premises breathing of either dogs or cats."
"It is just possible," said Graham, "that they may be in the grounds. For instance, several of them may be buried there, and the reference may be to one of their graves."
"Then do you propose to dig up the whole of the back garden till you light upon their hallowed bones?"
Graham smiled.
"I propose to do nothing."