At noon a telegram arrived for Mr.Frith from Scotland Yard.It recorded the fact that Peter Hardcastle was dead, and that examination had revealed no cause for his end.The news reached Sir Walter at once, and if ever he rejoiced in the death of a fellow-creature, it was upon this occasion.It meant unspeakable relief both for him and his daughter.
The detectives began their operations after a midday meal, and having first carefully studied the Grey Room in every visible particular, they emptied it of its contents, and placed the pictures, furniture, and statuette outside in the corridor.They asked for no assistance, and desired that none should visit the scene of their labors.The apartment, empty to the walls, they examined minutely; with the help of ladders, they investigated the outer walls on the east and south side; and they probed the chimney from above and below.They searched the adjoining room - Mary's oldnursery - to satisfy themselves that no communication existed, and they drove an iron rod through the walls in various directions, only to prove they were of solid stone, eighteen inches thick within and two feet thick without.There was no apartment on the other side of the chamber.It completed the eastern angle of the house front, and behind it, inside, the corridor terminated at an eastern window parallel with the Grey Room oriel, but flat and ndecorated - a modern window inserted by Sir Walter's grandfather to lighten a dark corner.Not a foot of the walls they left untested, and they examined and removed a portion of the paper upon them also.Then, taking up the carpet, they broke into the flooring and skirting boards, but discovered no indication that the grime and dust of centuries had ever been disturbed.The desiccated mummy of a rat alone rewarded their scrutiny.It lay between great timbers under the planking - beams that supported the elaborate stucco roof of a dwelling-room below.
To the ceiling of the Grey Room they next turned their attention, fastened an electric wire to the nearest point, and, through a trap-door in the roof of the passage, investigated the empty space between the ceiling and the roof.Not an inch of the massive oaken struts above did they fail to scrutinize, and they made experiments with smoke and water, to learn if, at any point, so much as a pin-hole existed in the face of the stucco.But it was solid, and spread evenly to a considerable depth.They studied it, then, from inside the room, to discover nothing but the beautifully modeled surface, encrusted with successive layers of whitewash.The workmanship belonged to a time when men knew not to scamp their labors and art and craft went hand in hand.Such enthusiasms perished with the improvement of education.They died with the Guilds, and the Unions are not concerned to revive them.
The detectives had finished this examination when, at an hour in the late afternoon, Henry Lennox and Dr.Mannering returned.The authorities had been informed of the death of Septimus May, and desired that no more than the ordinary formalities should be taken, unless their representatives at Chadlands thought otherwise.But they did not.They were now convinced that no communication existed between the Grey Room and the outer world, and they declared their determination to watchin it during the coming night.As a preliminary to this course, however, they examined each piece of furniture and every picture and other object that they had removed from the room.These told them nothing, and presently they restored the chamber in every particular, re-laid and nailed the carpet, and placed each article as it had stood when they arrived.They continued to decline assistance, and made it clear that nobody was to approach the end of the corridor in which they worked.Alive to the danger, but believing that, whatever its quality, four men could hardly be simultaneously destroyed, they prepared for their vigil.Nor did they manifest any fear of what awaited them.Facts, indeed, may be stubborn things, but even facts will not upset the convictions of a lifetime.Not one of the four for an instant imagined that a supernatural explanation of the mystery existed.Their minds were open, and their wits, long trained in problems obscure and difficult, assured them that the problem was capable of solution and within the power of their wits to solve.They apprehended no discovery from the watch to be undertaken; but, at Frith 's orders, they set stolidly about it, as a preliminary to the proceedings of the following day.Once proved that the murderous force was powerless against men prepared and armed against it, and the practical inquiry as to these strange deaths would be entered upon.
They came with full powers, and designed to search the house without warning on the following morning, and examine all who dwelt in it.
