Audley, gazing about him, seemed satisfied. His face relaxed. “Yes,” he said, “you could not overlook anything in a place like this. I’m glad I’ve seen it.”
He was turning to go when a thought struck him. He lowered the light and scanned the floor. “All the same, somebody has been here!” he exclaimed. “There’s one of the things you are so pleased with—a lucifer!”
Stubbs stooped and looked. “A lucifer?” he repeated. He picked up the bit of charred wood and examined it. “Now how did that come here? I never used one till six months ago.”
My lord frowned. “Who is it?” he asked.
“Some one, I fear, who has had a key made,” the agent answered, shaking his head,
“I can see that for myself. But has he learned anything?”
Stubbs stared. “There’s nothing to learn, my lord,” he said. “You can see that. Whoever he is, he has cracked the nut and found no kernel!”
The young man looked round him again. He nodded. “I suppose so,” he said. But he seemed ill at ease and inclined to find fault. He threw the light of the candle this way and that, as if he expected the clean white walls to tell a tale. “What’s that?” he asked suddenly. “A crack? Or what?”
Stubbs looked, passed his hand over the mark on the wall, effaced it. “No, my lord, a cobweb,” he said. “Nothing.”
There was no more to be seen, yet Audley seemed loth to go. At length he turned and went out. Stubbs closed and locked the door behind them, then he took the candle from his lordship and invited him to go down before him. Still the young man hesitated. “I suppose we can learn nothing more?” he said.