Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him.

He was young and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.
"A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but her own good," he remarked.

Yet, because he was a detective as well as a man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until it fell upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall directly opposite the bed.

"What's that ?" he asked.
"I don't know; I can't make it out, and I don't like to ask." Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed over, and scrutinised it more particularly.

It was a unique specimen.
What it lacked in height--it could not have measured more than a foot from the bottom to the top--it made up in length, which must have exceeded five feet.