Twelve o'clock at night and raining hard. So next night I was up at the house and, sure enough, master was off again. Stephens and I went after him, but it was jumpy work, for it would have been a bad job if he had seen us. He's a terrible man with his fists if he gets started, and no respecter of persons. So we were shy of getting too near, but we marked him down all right. It was the haunted crypt that he was making for, and there was a man waiting for him there.”

“What is this haunted crypt?”

“Well, sir, there is an old ruined chapel in the park. It is so old that nobody could fix its date. And under it there's a crypt which has a bad name among us. It's a dark, damp, lonely place by day, but there are few in that county that would have the nerve to go near it at night. But master's not afraid. He never feared anything in his life. But what is he doing there in the night-time?”

“Wait a bit!” said Holmes. “You say there is another man there. It must be one of your own stablemen, or someone from the house! Surely you have only to spot who it is and question him?”

“It's no one I know.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I have seen him, Mr. Holmes. It was on that second night. Sir Robert turned and passed us—me and Stephens, quaking in the bushes like two bunny-rabbits, for there was a bit of moon that night. But we could hear the other moving about behind. We were not afraid of him. So we up when Sir Robert was gone and pretended we were just having a walk like in the moonlight, and so we came right on him as casual and innocent as you please. ‘Hullo, mate! who may you be?’ says I. I guess he had not heard us coming, so he looked over his shoulder with a face as if he had seen the devil coming out of hell. He let out a yell, and away he went as hard as he could lick it in the darkness. He could run!—I'll give him that. In a minute he was out of sight and hearing, and who he was, or what he was, we never found.”

“But you saw him clearly in the moonlight?”

“Yes, I would swear to his yellow face—a mean dog, I should say. What could he have in common with Sir Robert?”

Holmes sat for some time lost in thought.

“Who keeps Lady Beatrice Falder company?” he asked at last.

“There is her maid, Carrie Evans. She has been with her this five years.”

“And is, no doubt, devoted?”

Mr. Mason shuffled uncomfortably.

“She's devoted enough,” he answered at last. “But I won't say to whom.”

“Ah!” said Holmes.

“I can't tell tales out of school.”

“I quite understand, Mr. Mason.