No other sound followed, until the breeze came again, whispered in the coppice, and shook the shutter.
Then the chauffeur's whistle came, faintly, and with something tremulous in its note; for the adventure, though it offered little novelty to the experience of the Scotland Yard man, was dangerously unique from the mechanic's point of view. But where the Right Hon. Walter Belford led it was impolitic, if not impossible, to decline to follow. Yet, the whistle spoke of a man not over-confident. "Séverac Bablon" was a disturbing name!
Sheffield pressed the knob of the torch and stepped into the bare and dirty room beyond.
The beam of the torch swept the four walls, with faded paper peeling in strips from the damp plaster; showed a grate full of rubbish, a battered pail, and a bare floor littered with debris of all sorts, great cavities gaping between many of the planks. A cupboard was searched, and proved to contain a number of empty cans and bottles—nothing else.
Into the next room went the investigator, to meet with no better fortune. The third was a big kitchen, empty; the fourth a paved scullery, also empty—with the chauffeur at the door, holding his spanner in readiness for sudden assault.
"Upstairs!" said Sheffield shortly.
Up the creaking stairs they passed, their footsteps filling the place with ghostly echoes.
A square landing offered four doors, all closed, to their consideration.
Sheffield paused, and listened.
The owl had hooted again.