"He acts the part," said the elder. "Have you found anything?"

"Nothing! It's not in the safe nor the writing-table--nor anywhere else
that is reasonable. I've been through everything and there's nothing
doing."

"You're not going?" Harleston remarked.

"You're asleep, Mr. Harleston!" Marston reminded. "The letter is here:
we've simply got to find it."

"A letter is easy to conceal," the younger replied. "There's nothing but
to overturn everything in the place--and so on; and that will require a
day."

"So that you replace things, I've not the slightest objection,"
Harleston interjected. "Bang away, sirs, bang away! Anything to relieve
me from suspicion."

"It prevents him from sleeping!" Sparrow laughed.

"Also yourselves," Harleston supplemented. "However, you for it,
remembering that cock-crow comes earlier now than in December, and the
people too are up betimes. You risk interruption, I fear, from my
solicitous friends."

And even as he spoke the corridor door opened and a man stepped in.

From where he lay, Harleston could see him; the others could not.