Before I could move, before I could draw my breath after that discovery, I was horror-struck by a heavy thump against the door from the inside. I heard the key worked violently in the lock⁠—I heard a man’s voice behind the door, raised to a dreadful shrillness, screaming for help.

The servant who had followed me staggered back shuddering, and dropped to his knees. “Oh, my God!” he said, “it’s Sir Percival!”

As the words passed his lips the clerk joined us, and at the same moment there was another and a last grating turn of the key in the lock.

“The Lord have mercy on his soul!” said the old man. “He is doomed and dead. He has hampered the lock.”