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 been placed close outside the door of the dressing-room. By the General’s advice the Duke had been in the habit of keeping both doors locked at night, and the cans were never brought in by the servant who called him. A valet had not yet been engaged.

“And there by the wash-stand is the empty can he used overnight,” said the General. “Yes, there is the dirty water, in which he washed his hands before going to bed, in the waste-pail. We fix him, then, to having slept for some hours, and to having got up early and left the house in the small hours before anyone was about.”

“It looks as if he were playing a lone hand at some game of his own,” said Forsyth, doubtfully.

But the General would have no vague conjectures. Having settled within approximate limits the time when Beaumanoir quitted his room, he desired to learn how he had left the house. He himself had been sitting up from two, at which hour he relieved Forsyth, till five o’clock, and he would stake his reputation that no one had been moving during the period of his vigilance. The Duke must have left the