Berwin--so called--was dead, his assassin had melted into thin air, and the Silent House had added a second legend to its already uncanny reputation.

Formerly it had been simply haunted, now it was also blood-stained, and its last condition was worse than its first.
The dead man had been found stabbed to the heart by some long, thin, sharp-pointed instrument which the murderer had taken away with him--or perhaps her, as the sex of the assassin, for obvious reasons, could not be decided.

Mrs.Kebby swore that she had left the deceased sitting over the fire at eight o'clock on Christmas Eve, and that he had then been fairly well, though far from enjoying the best of health.

When she returned, shortly after nine, on Christmas morning, the man was dead and cold.

Medical aid was called in at the same time as the police were summoned; and the evidence of the doctor who examined the body went to prove that Berwin had been dead at least ten hours; therefore, he must have been assassinated between the hours of eleven and twelve of the previous night.
Search was immediately made for the murderer, but no trace could be found of him, nor could it be ascertained how he had entered the house.
The doors were all locked, the windows were all barred, and neither at the back nor in the front was there any outlet left open whereby the man--if it was a man who had done the deed--could have escaped.
Blinders, the policeman on duty at the entrance of the square, gave evidence that he had been on duty there all night, and that although many servants and owners of houses belonging to the square had passed in from their Christmas marketings, yet no stranger had entered.