One was Swain's dazed and
incoherent manner; the other was the absence of servants.
As to Swain, I believed him to be a well-poised fellow, not easily
upset, and certainly not subject to attacks of nerves. What had
happened to him, then, to reduce him to the pitiable condition in
which he had come back to us over the wall, and in which he was still
plunged? The discovery of the murder and of Miss Vaughan's senseless
body might have accounted for it, but his incoherence had antedated
that--unless, indeed, he knew of the murder before he left the
grounds. That thought gave me a sudden shock, and I put it away from
me, not daring to pursue it farther.
As to the house, its deserted condition seemed sinister and
threatening. It was absurd to suppose that an establishment such as
this could be carried on without servants, or with less than three or
four. But where were they? And then I remembered that Godfrey and I
had not completed our exploration of the house. We had stopped at the
gruesome room where the adept and his serpent gazed unwinking into the
crystal sphere. There was at least one suite on the same floor we had
not looked into, and no doubt there were other rooms on the attic
floor above.
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