He stood with his head slightly bent, gently whistling to himself; his hands in his pockets, as if nothing of importance was going on in the gloomy, looming castle a few feet away, but John Berwick was thinking, and his thinking, it chanced, was apt to be to some purpose. Then a curious smile came over his face, that was not exactly pleasant, and with fair reason.
The engineer had come to a decision, and hit upon a plan. He and the dead man were about of the same build, practically of the same height, and superficially they had a similarity of appearance, and he was dressed in his coat and hat. The latter he grasped firmly and pulled well down over his face. The coat and hat were the only conspicuous things about him.
Just now there was a sudden terrible clangor in the castle.
"Sounds like somebody was discharging the cook," he remarked with whimsical humor, "and that she was throwing the hardware around."
This tumult, as the reader well knows, was our esteemed friend, James, falling downstairs in his full suit of armor, which was sufficient to account for the racket. It did not take Berwick long after that to get ready, and you would have been certain that it was none other than the dead detective come to life, as he stooped hurriedly across the lawn. He did not try any roundabout way of making entrance into the castle, but ran directly to the massive front doors, hoping to find them unlocked, but in this he was doomed to disappointment.
CHAPTER XXIV
A REINCARNATION
It was no time to waste any precious moments on ceremony; he must act, and act immediately. There were on either side of the main door long panels of glass. John Berwick made use of the stout stick, his only weapon, which he had picked up from the midst of the copse, and broke the long panel glass into smithereens.