didn't watch the door, and you lost your
master through your own foolishness!"

"But, sir, nobody could 'ave gotten through the door. Hit was locked
and bolted on the hinside, sir! I 'e'rd Mr. Stockbridge do that when
you left 'im! I did, sir!"

"We may have been mistaken when we thought we heard that! Perhaps he
just fumbled with the locks, and left it unlocked." Drew eyed the
servant's red face with a keen-lidded glance. He waited.

"That cawn't be right, sir," said the butler, after thought and a wild
glance about. "'Ow can that be right? I tried the door when the
telephone loidy called me hup! I tried hit twice. James tried hit! 'E
fixes hall the locks in the 'ouse, sir. 'E says it was most excellently
secured, sir."

"How about that?" asked Drew, turning to the second-man. "What of that,
James?"

"'E's right. I'm a little of everythin' about the 'ouse. I tends the
door and I watches the lights and locks, sir. I was born in Brixton,
sir, where the old man kept a lock-shop, sir. That's twenty years, and
more ago, sir. Beggin' your pardon, sir."

Drew swung upon the butler. The second-man was the living picture of
truth. His dereliction, if any, might consist in sly tapping of the
wine-cellar. His nose attested to this habit, in a brilliant rosette.

"You're partly to blame!" Drew told the butler. "There's nobody in this
room who could have committed the murder. There was nobody here when we
left Mr. Stockbridge. There is no way for anybody to get in, save
through this door. The same applies in getting out--escaping. If you
were awake and always here, and if you were honest," he added, "I could
presume that the master was slain by--well, let us say, unnatural
causes. Such things do not exist. This is a material age. Nothing as
much as a pin-head or point was ever moved save through a natural
cause. No bullet could be fired into a man's brain without a hand which
planned or pulled the trigger."

The butler stared at Drew with blank expression. He gulped. His eyes
dropped. "I'm thinking," he said, "that the whole blym occurrence his
unnatural. I never left that door until they told me the telephone
company's loidy wanted me on the wire. It was then I left it."

"Ah!" said Drew. "We're getting there. Then, if you are speaking truth,
and I won't help you if you are not, we have reached a point in the
case which will bear considerable thought. It is evident that
Stockbridge was murdered by a pistol shot, at or a