We stood amazed. The room was empty.
In a few seconds we had searched the big old-fashioned wardrobe and had looked beneath the bed and behind the curtains. But nobody was there. And, moreover, while the key was still in the door on the inside the window was closed and latched!
The fireplace was a small one with a flue through which not even a small boy could pass. In the grate were smoldering ashes of something, apparently a coat that had been hastily burned. There was an odor of consumed petrol, and it occurred to me at once that some clothing had been hurriedly saturated from a bottle of motor-spirit and set fire to—for the room was still heavy with smoke.
Seton crossed to the window and saw at once that it had not been opened. I glanced out and down. From the narrow window-sill there was a sheer drop to the paved basement forty or fifty feet below with not even a stackpipe by which an active man might have escaped.
“Well, this is extraordinary,” cried Seton. “How could Mr. Graydon possibly get out of the room and leave it still locked on the inside?”
Seton bent suddenly over the fireplace. “Well, we may as well see what he was burning,” he said as he picked up a half charred piece of paper that had apparently been crumpled up hastily and thrown into the grate. He smoothed it out and looked at it in amazement.
It was a portion of a fifty-pound Bank of England note! It was partly burned but quite enough was left to identify it without any possibility of a mistake.
“Well,” I exclaimed, “burning fifty-pound notes is certainly a new kind of pastime. What on earth can it mean?”
“I can’t imagine,” replied Seton. “And how can Mr. Graydon have gone? Certainly not through the door or the window.”
“And before he went,” I added, “he burnt a coat or something of the kind and a fifty-pound note!”