Manley had just helped himself a second time to eggs and bacon when
Wilkins brought in Robert Black, the village constable. Mr. Manley had
seen him in the village often enough, a portly, grave man, who regarded
his position and work with the proper official seriousness. Mr. Manley
told him that he had locked the door of the smoking-room and of the
library, in order that the scene of the crime might be left undisturbed
for examination by the Low Wycombe police. Robert Black did not appear
pleased by this precaution. He would have liked to demonstrate his
importance by making some preliminary investigations himself. Mr. Manley
did not offer to hand the keys over to him. He intended to have the
credit of the precautions he had taken with the constable's superiors.

He said: "I suppose you would like to question the servants to begin
with. Take the constable to the servants' hall, give him a glass of beer,
and let him get to work, Wilkins."

He spoke in the imperative tone proper to a man in charge of such an
important affair, and Robert Black went. Mr. Manley could not see that
the grave fellow could do any harm by his questions, or, for that
matter, any good.

He finished his breakfast and lighted his pipe. Elizabeth Twitcher came
to tell him that Lady Loudwater was dressed. He told her to tell her that
he would like to see her, and followed her up the stairs. The maid went
into Lady Loudwater's sitting-room, came out, and ushered him into it.

His strong sense of the fitness of things caused him to enter the room
slowly, with an air grave to solemnity. Olivia greeted him with a faint,
rather forced smile.

He thought that she was paler than usual, and lacked something of her
wonted charm. She seemed rather nervous. She thought that he had come
from her husband with an unpleasant and probably most insulting message.

He cleared his throat and said in the deep, grave voice he felt
appropriate: "I've come on a very painful errand, Lady Loudwater--a very
painful errand."

"Indeed?" she said, and looked at him with uneasy, anxious eyes.

"I'm sorry to tell you that Lord Loudwater has had an accident, a very
bad accident," he said.

"An accident? Egbert?" she cried, in a tone of surprise that sounded
genuine enough.

It gave Mr. Manley to understand that she had expected some other kind of
painful communication--doubtless about the divorce Lord Loudwater had
threatened. But he had composed a series of phrases leadin