Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

There was a muttered exclamation of horror. The door was thrown open. Dick sprang into the brilliantly lighted room.

Chapter XXIII “Orme from Sacha”

Dr. Hailey tried to reach a point from which he might be able to see and hear what was passing in the bedroom. But before he could accomplish that purpose, it was rendered futile. There was a buzz of whispered voices, an angry buzz, like the “piping” sound which honey bees make when their hive is disturbed, and then Dick came staggering back out of the room.

The door was immediately closed behind him. Dr. Hailey heard the key grate in the lock. Then he heard the railing of the gallery creak, as the young man grasped it, apparently to steady himself. He stood still and waited to see how this strange adventure would end. He was not held long in suspense. Dick shuffled to the stair and began to mount it with stumbling feet.

The doctor lingered until he head a door on the top story close. Then he descended to the great hall and listened again. The old house now was filled with silence. He reascended the stair and listened again.

If the women were still talking, their voices were completely muted by the heavy walls and doors. He passed his hand across his brow. What did it all mean? Why had Sacha gone to the medium’s bedroom at this deep hour of the night? And why had Dick Lovelace followed her there? Again, why had he been so swiftly ejected from the room.

And where, during this time, was Lord Templewood?

He moved back along the corridor to Lord Templewood’s room. As he came to the door, an exclamation of amazement escaped him. He had left it open. It was shut. He grasped the handle and turned it. He entered the room. Lord Temple-wood was lying in bed, apparently fast asleep.

Utter bewilderment overwhelmed him. The corridor ended blindly at his own bedroom door; nobody, certainly, had passed him during the term of his vigil. He started as the truth flashed across his mind. Lord Templewood must have been hiding in the wardrobe or behind one of the pieces of furniture.

He crossed the room and came to his patient. The old man’s sleep was as gentle as that of a child. For what possible reason had he played this strange trick?

Suddenly the doctor’s eyes narrowed. He passed his hand gently under his patient’s pillow. The bundle of notes had not been replaced under the pillow.

He went to the wardrobe and opened it. He glanced inside. The notes were not in the wardrobe.

He kept his vigil until the gray light of morning began to fill the room. The danger that Lord Templewood might be seized with a fit of sleepwalking was remote now; he seemed to be resting in the utmost tranquillity. Dr. Hailey rose and left the room. He went to his own bedroom and lay down for a couple of hours.

When he awoke the day had already ridden into the sky. Level sunbeams were streaming through the open window. He got up and glanced out at the delectable spectacle of this March morning, which promised a day of genial spring. Even the dark waters of the moat seemed to be kindled with laughter.

He visited his patient, and then went out into the young morning. He walked through the shrubbery where, already, almond trees were in full bloom, and came to the Temple of Peace. He gazed in wonder at this strange edifice, trying, as was his habit, to probe the mind of the man who had built it.

He started, and approached closer to the building, shielding his eyes with his hand from the sunlight. Round the walls there was a frieze depicting galloping horsemen. A vacant look came into the doctor’s eyes. So, from the beginning, he thought, have men decorated their shrines with the object of their greatest fear.

He walked on toward the open fields. It was strange, certainly, that the old legend of the horseman should have fitted so exactly the tragedy of Lord Templewood’s own life. He wondered what message of sorrow it was which the girl, Beatrice, had brought with her on that last visit of hers to The Black Tower, when she came galloping through the night to her lover. She had been killed the next morning.

He stopped suddenly and reached out his hand. He picked up an object which his keen eyes had detected lying among the rank weeds under one of the laurel bushes. It was a cigarette case, of silver, heavily tarnished by the weather. He set his eyeglass in his eye and examined it.

As he did so, an exclamation of astonishment broke from his lips.

On the outside of the case were engraved the words: “Orme from Sacha.”

Chapter XXIV When It Began

He opened the case. It was half filled with a shapeless mass of decaying tobacco.