oesn't do any good."

"It's all very well to talk like that, sir," said Hutchings in a shaky
voice. "But I know what people are saying. It's enough to make any one
lose their temper."

"I should think that yours was pretty easy to lose," said Mr.
Flexen dryly.

"I know it. It is very short, sir. It always was; and I can't help it,"
said Hutchings in an apologetic voice.

"Then you'd better set about learning to help it, my man," said
Mr. Flexen.

He took out his pipe and filled it slowly. The flush faded a little from
Hutchings' face. Mr. Flexen lighted his pipe and rose.

Then as he went to the door he said: "I should advise you to get that
stupid temper well in hand. It makes a bad impression. Good afternoon."

Mr. Flexen drove back to the Castle, considering Hutchings carefully.
There was no doubt that he was, indeed, badly frightened; but he had
reason to be. Mr. Flexen could not decide whether he had worn the air of
a guilty man or an innocent. He could not decide whether the butler had
been too deeply absorbed in his own affairs to hear the snoring of Lord
Loudwater as he went through the library. It was possible that Lord
Loudwater was alive, asleep, and yet not snoring at the time. Snoring is
often intermittent.

He considered Hutchings' violent outburst. Certainly such an outburst
showed the man uncommonly unbalanced; it might, indeed, on occasion take
the form of uncontrollable murderous fury. But it seemed to him that an
actual meeting with Lord Loudwater would have been necessary to provoke
that. But Lord Loudwater had been sitting in his chair when he died; and
if he had not killed himself, he had been killed in his sleep. At any
rate, there was probably sufficient evidence, seeing what juries are, to
convict Hatchings. If he had been one of those not uncommon ministers of
the law, whose only desire is to secure a conviction, he would doubtless
arrest him at once. But it was not his only desire to secure a
conviction; it was his very keen desire to find the right solution of the
problem. He could not see where any more evidence against Hutchings was
to come from. What Mr. Manley had told him about the knife, that it had
been in general use, and that he had seen Hutchings cut string with it
the day before the murder, greatly lessened its value as evidence, even
if Hutchings' finger-prints were thick on it. He decided to dismiss
Hutchings from his mind for the time being, and devote all his energies