en had had a considerable surprise that afternoon. He had told
Robert Black to find William Roper and bring him to him. He wished to
hear the story he had told Lord Loudwater the evening before, for it
might be of a triviality to make the hypothesis that Lord Loudwater had
committed suicide yet less worthy of serious consideration. Black was a
long while finding William Roper, for he was at work in the woods.
Indeed, he had not yet heard that Lord Loudwater had been murdered, for
he had been up most of the night, risen late, got his own breakfast in
his out-of-the-way cottage in the depths of the West wood, and gone out
on his rounds. The constable found him at the cottage, in the act of
preparing his dinner, or rather his tea and dinner, at a quarter to four.

William Roper was startled, indeed, to hear of the murder, and then
bitterly annoyed. All the while on his rounds he had been congratulating
himself on his coming promotion, and reckoning up the many advantages
which would accrue from it, not the least of which was a wider prospect
of finding a wife. The cup was dashed from his lips. He had acquired no
merit in the eyes of the new Lord Loudwater, and he had most probably
made the present Lady Loudwater his enemy, if the murdered man had
divulged the source of his knowledge of her goings-on with Colonel Grey.
He ate his mixed meal very sulkily, listening to the constable's account
of the circumstances of the crime. Slowly, however, his face grew
brighter as he listened; the new information he had obtained for his
murdered employer might very well have an important bearing on the crime
itself. He might yet establish himself as the benefactor of the family.

On the way to the Castle he was so mysterious with Robert Black that the
stout constable became a prey to mingled curiosity and doubt. He could
not make up his mind whether William Roper really knew something of
importance or was merely vapouring. William Roper neither gratified his
curiosity, nor banished his doubt. He was alive to the advantage of
reserving his information for the most important ear, so as to gain the
greatest possible credit for it.

At the first sight of him Mr. Flexen felt that he had before him an
important witness, for he took a violent dislike to him, and he had
observed, in the course of his many years' experience in the detection of
crime, that the most important witness in hounding down a criminal was
very often of a repulsive type,