CHAPTER XIII.
IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger.
If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or table.

Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well hidden when he went out.
Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved.
In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor.

I pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap round the fallen chair.

I disentangled myself from its coils, only to slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards.
The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was chilled and dying now.
"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought.

And if there had been a struggle--what of the treaty?
There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot.
A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles prickled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I knew what it would prove to be.
It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid.