He, too, approached the bed and reverently lifted the covering.  Lord Ashleigh was lying there, his body a little doubled up, his arms wide outstretched.  On his throat were two black marks.

“Where is the valet—­Williams?” Quest asked, as he turned away.

The man came forward.

“Tell us at once what you know?” Quest demanded.

“I came in, as usual, to call his lordship before I called you,” the man replied.  “He did not answer, but I thought, perhaps, that he was sleepy.  I filled his bath, which, as you see, opens out of the room, and then came to attend on you.  When you went down to breakfast, I returned to his lordship’s room expecting to find him dressed.  Instead of that the room was silent, the bath still unused.  I spoke to him—­there was no answer.  Then I lifted the sheet!”

They had led Lady Ashleigh from the room.  The Professor and Quest stood face to face.  The former’s expression, however, had lost all his amiable serenity.  His face was white and pinched.  He looked shrivelled up.  It was as though some physical stroke had fallen upon him.

“Quest!  Quest!” he almost sobbed.  “My brother!—­George, whom I loved like nobody else on earth!  Is he really dead?”

“Absolutely!”

The Professor gripped the oak pillar of the bedstead.  He seemed on the point of collapse.

“The mark of the Hands is upon his throat,” Quest pointed out.

“The Hands!  Oh, my God!” the Professor groaned.

“We must not eat or drink or sleep,” Quest declared fiercely, “until we have brought this matter to an end.  Craig must be found.  This is the supreme horror of all.  Pull yourself together, Mr. Ashleigh.  We shall need every particle of intelligence we possess.  I begin to think that we are fighting against something superhuman.”

The butler made an apologetic appearance.  He spoke in a hushed whisper.

“You are wanted downstairs, gentlemen.  Middleton, the head-keeper, is there.”

As though inspired with a common idea, both Quest and the Professor hurried out of the room and down the broad stairs.  Their inspiration was a true one.  The gamekeeper welcomed them with a smile of triumph.  By his side, the picture of abject misery, his clothes torn and muddy, was Craig!

“I’ve managed this little job, sir,” Middleton announced, with a smile of slow triumph.

“How did you get him?” Quest demanded.

“Little idea of my own,” the gamekeeper continued.  “I guessed pretty well what he’d be up to.  He’d tumbled to it that the usual way off the moor was pretty well guarded, and he’d doubled back through the thin line of woods close to the house.  I dug one of my poachers’ pits, sir, and covered it over with a lot of loose stuff.  That got him all right.  When I went to look this morning I saw where he’d fallen through, and there he was, walking round and round at the bottom like a caged animal.  Your servants have telephoned for the police, Mr. Ashleigh,” he went on, turning to the Professor, “but I’d like you just to point out to the Scotland Yard gentleman—­called us yokels, he did, when he first came down—­that we’ve a few ideas of our own down here.”