"The doctor, Mr.Mannering, wished him to do so.He desired to have a companion.""Have you anything further that you would care to tell us?""Only this, that I think Mr.Hardcastle, with whom I had a long conversation on his arrival, gave it as his opinion that it was not in the Grey Room we must look for an explanation.I believe he regarded his visit to the room itself as a comparatively unimportant part of the case.He was really more interested in the life of my son-in-law and his relations with other people.I think he regarded May's death as a matter which had been determined outside the Grey Room.But, if I may presume to advise you, this view of his is surely proved mistaken in the light of his own destruction and what has happened since.It is certain now that the cause of danger lies actually in the room itself, and equally certain that what killed my son-in-law also killed Mr.Hardcastle and, last night, killed the Reverend Septimus May.""On the fact of it, yes," admitted Frith."I think, after we have considered the situation now developed and visited the Grey Room, we shall agree that there, at any rate, we may begin the work that has brought us.You understand we rule out the possibility of any supernatural event, as Hardcastle, of course, did.While he very properly centred on the history of Captain May, and, from his point of view, did not expect to find the accident of the captain's death in this particular place would prove important, we shall now assume otherwise, and give the room, or somebody with acccess to it, the credit for this destruction of human life.We shall fasten on the room therefore.Our inquiry is fairly simple at the outset, simpler than poor Hardcastle's.It will lie along one of two channels, and it depends entirely upon which channel we have to proceed whether the matter is going to take much time, and possibly fail of explanation at the end, or but a short time, and be swiftly cleared up.I hope the latter.""I shall be glad if you can explain that remark," answered Sir Walter; but Mr.Frith was not prepared immediately to do so.
"Fully when the time comes, Sir Walter; but for the moment, no - not even to you.You will understand that our work must be entirely secret,and the lines on which we proceed known only to ourselves.""That is reasonable, for you cannot tell yet whether I, who speak to you, may not be responsible for everything.At least, command me.I only hope to Heaven you are not going to discover a great crime.""I share your hope.That is why I speak of two channels for inquiry," answered the detective."Needless to say, we four men shall discuss the new light thrown upon the situation very fully.At present the majority of us are inclined to believe there is no crime, and the death of Mr.May does not, to my mind, increase the likelihood of such a thing.Indeed, it supports me, I should judge, in my present opinion.What that is will appear without much delay.We'll get to our quarters now, and ask to see the Grey Room later on.""May I inquire concerning Mr.Hardcastle? I hope he had no wife or family to mourn him""He was a bachelor, and lived with his mother, who keeps a shop.The intention is to examine his body this morning, and submit it to certain conclusive tests.Nobody expects much from them, but they're not going to lose half a chance.He was a great man.""You will hear at once from London if anything transpires to help you?""We shall hear by noon at latest."
Sir Walter left them then, and Masters took the four to their accommodation.Their rooms were situated together in the corridor, as near the east end of it as possible.But the four were not yet of one mind, and when they met presently, and walked together in the garden for an hour, it appeared that while two of them agreed with Inspector Frith, under whom all acted, the fourth held to a contrary view, and desired to take the second of the two channels his chief had mentioned.
Thus three men believed some extraordinary concatenation of circumstances, probably mechanical in operation, was responsible for all that had happened in the Grey Room; but the fourth, a man older than Frith, and in some sort his rival for many years, held to it that the reason of these things must be sought in an active and conscious agency.He trusted in a living cause, but felt confident that it was not a sane one.Hehad known a case when a madman, unsuspected of madness, had operated with extraordinary skill to destroy innocent persons and escape detection, and already he was disposed to believe that among the household of Chadlands might hide such an insane criminal.
On a similar plane, it was in his personal experience that weak-minded persons, possessed with a desire to do something out of the common, had often planned and perpetrated apparent physical phenomena, and created an appearance of supernatural visitations, only exposed after great difficulty by professional research.Along such lines, therefore, this man was prepared to operate, and he believed it might be possible that a maniac, in possession of some physical secret, would be found among the inhabitants of the manor house.He did not, however, elaborate this opinion, but kept it to himself.Indeed, the human element of jealousy, so often responsible for the frustration of the worthiest human ambitions, was not absent from the minds of the four now concerned with this problem.
Each desired to solve it, and while no rivalry existed among them, save in the case of the two older men, it was certain that the eldest of the four would not lose his hold on his own theory, or be at very vital pains to stultify it.All, however, were fully conscious of the danger before them, and Frith, from the first, directed that none was to work alone, either in the Grey Room or elsewhere.
