Only for a brief second they paused, then Cleek's head went up.
"Now," he whispered, and in they went, with a rush that sent the old panelled door crashing back on its hinges with a queer sort of groan.
But again, as on the previous day, no figure at bay rose to fight them. Once more only the squeal and rustle of countless mice behind the oak-panelled walls came to their listening ears.
To all appearances the dining room was exactly in the same condition as when Cleek had first entered it with the girl they now were seeking so strenuously. The room was empty. A guttering candle contrasted strangely with the rich polished mahogany of the table on which it had been placed, but its faint light revealed no living thing.
They stared at one another in mute astonishment, then Cleek switched on his electric torch and swept it from ceiling to floor.
It swung around like a miniature searchlight, then stopped abruptly, and ejaculations of horror fell from the lips of the watching men.
On the hearth-rug on the opposite side of the room from where they stood, half hidden by the great divan chair, lay the figure of a woman. The life-blood was oozing from a gun-wound above the breast and it needed only one brief glance to tell them that she was already past their aid! Blankly they stared into each other's faces as recognition came.
Hideous fact though it was, there could be no doubt as to her identity. The golden, curled hair, the beringed hands were identically the same as Cleek had seen, and it seemed to his almost dazed senses, seen in the same position--just a month ago in the ballroom! It was the same woman who had driven the constable and himself away, barely an hour after that dreadful discovery and certainly the same who had glared at them so threateningly on the previous day!
Yet here she was in an apparently empty house.
For a moment all three men stood staring in appalled silence.
Then Constable Roberts backed shudderingly away.
"The Lord deliver us," he said in a quaking whisper. "It's Miss Cheyne herself, sir, and dead just as the young officer said a month ago."
At any other time Cleek would have noted this compliment paid to his disguise, but now he stood staring down at the grimly grotesque figure, all the colour drained from his lips and cheeks.