Boyne stood watching his pet nibbling at a scrap of sausage.
"Ah!" he gasped in a whisper. "If they knew—but they will never know. They can't!"
A few minutes later his actions were, to say the least, strange.
He flung himself into the old armchair from which the flock stuffing protruded from the worn-out American cloth, and unbuttoning his dusty boots, took them off. Then, in his socks, he crept upstairs, and on the landing listened at the deaf old woman's door. Sounds of heavy snoring apparently satisfied him.
Back again he returned to the parlour, and with a key opened the opposite cupboard beside the fireplace, from which he took a very long, loose coat which seemed to be made of white alpaca. This he shook out and submitted to close scrutiny. It was shaped like a monk's habit, with a leather strap around the waist—a curious garment, for it had a hood attached, with two slits in it for the eyes.
After careful examination of the strange garment, he put it on over his head, drawing down the hood over his eyes, which gave him a hideous appearance—like the ghost of an ancient Inquisitor of Spain, or a member of the mediæval Misericordia Society of Italy, dressed in white instead of black.
Thus attired, he fumbled beneath in his pocket, and then noiselessly ascended the two flights of stairs to an attic door upon which was the circular brass plate of a Yale lock. This he opened, and passing within, closed the door softly behind him.
Bernard Boyne naturally believed himself alone in the house with old Mrs. Felmore sound asleep—but, truth to tell, he was not!
As he ascended the stairs, Marigold's pale face peered around the corner. The shock of seeing such a hideous ghostly form moving silently upstairs proved almost too much for her. But clinging on to the banisters, she managed to repress the cry of alarm which rose to her lips, and she stood there rooted to the spot—full of wonder and bewilderment. She listened breathlessly, still standing in the dark passage which led to the kitchen stairs. Then she detected the sound of the key going into the lock of the upstairs room where she knew Mr. Boyne kept his private papers.
But was it Mr. Boyne? Or was it an intruder who had adopted that garb in order to frighten any person he might encounter? Besides, why should Mr. Boyne assume such a strange disguise before entering the room where his business papers were stored?