-table had been left untouched. As far as was known, Mr. and
Mrs. Dewar were a perfectly happy and united couple. Dewar had been last
seen alive about ten o'clock on the Saturday night getting off a car
near his home. At eleven a neighbour had noticed a light in the Dewars'
house. About five o'clock on the Sunday morning another neighbour
had been aroused from his sleep by the sound as of something falling
heavily. It was a wild and boisterous night. Thinking the noise might be
the slamming of his stable door, he got up and went out to see that
it was secure. He then noticed that a light was burning in the bedroom
window of the Dewars' cottage.

Nothing more was known of what had occurred that morning until at
half-past six Robb saw the smoke coming from Dewars' house. Mrs. Dewar,
who alone could have told something, never recovered consciousness
and died on the day following the crime. Three considerable wounds
sufficient to cause death had been inflicted on the unfortunate woman's
head, and five of a similar character on that of her husband. At the
head of the bed, which stood in the corner of the room, there was a
large smear of blood on the wall just above the door; there were spots
of blood all over the top of the bed, and some smaller ones that had to
all appearances spurted on to the panel of the door nearest to the bed.

The investigation of this shocking crime was placed in the hands of
Detective Bain, whose duty it had been to keep an eye on Robert Butler,
but he did not at first associate his interesting charge with the
commission of the murder. About half-past six on Sunday evening Bain
happened to go to a place called the Scotia Hotel, where the landlord
informed him that one of his servants, a girl named Sarah Gillespie, was
very anxious to see him. Her story was this: On the morning of Thursday,
March 11, Robert Butler had come to the hotel; he was wearing a dark
lavender check suit and carried a top coat and parcel. Butler had stayed
in the hotel all Thursday and slept there that night. He had not slept
in the hotel on the Friday night, and Sarah Gillespie had not seen him
again until he came into the house about five and twenty minutes to
seven on Sunday morning. The girl noticed that he was pale and excited,
seemed afraid and worried, as if someone were coming after him. After
giving her some money for the landlord, he went upstairs, fetched his
top coat, a muffler, and his parcel. Before leaving he sa