Part 1 - Chapter 5 - Page 2

into the hall, where Ames had turned the windlass
which lowered the drawbridge. Mr. Barker had then hurried off
to get the police.

Such, in its essentials, was the evidence of the butler.

The account of Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, was, so far as it
went, a corroboration of that of her fellow servant. The
housekeeper's room was rather nearer to the front of the house
than the pantry in which Ames had been working. She was
preparing to go to bed when the loud ringing of the bell had
attracted her attention. She was a little hard of hearing.
Perhaps that was why she had not heard the shot; but in any case
the study was a long way off. She remembered hearing some sound
which she imagined to be the slamming of a door. That was a good
deal earlier--half an hour at least before the ringing of the
bell. When Mr. Ames ran to the front she went with him. She saw
Mr. Barker, very pale and excited, come out of the study. He
intercepted Mrs. Douglas, who was coming down the stairs. He
entreated her to go back, and she answered him, but what she said
could not be heard.

"Take her up! Stay with her!" he had said to Mrs. Allen.

She had therefore taken her to the bedroom, and endeavoured to
soothe her. She was greatly excited, trembling all over, but
made no other attempt to go downstairs. She just sat in her
dressing gown by her bedroom fire, with her head sunk in her
hands. Mrs. Allen stayed with her most of the night. As to the
other servants, they had all gone to bed, and the alarm did not
reach them until just before the police arrived. They slept at
the extreme back of the house, and could not possibly have heard
anything.

So far the housekeeper could add nothing on cross-examination
save lamentations and expressions of amazement.

Cecil Barker succeeded Mrs. Allen as a witness. As to the
occurrences of the night before, he had very little to add to
what he had already told the police. Personally, he was
convinced that the murderer had escaped by the window. The
bloodstain was conclusive, in his opinion, on that point.
Besides, as the bridge was up, there was no other possible way of
escaping. He could not explain what had become of the assassin
or why he had not taken his bicycle, if it were indeed his. He
could not possibly have been drowned in the moat, which was at no
place more than three feet deep.

In his own mind he had a very definite theory about the murder.
Douglas was a reticent man, and there were some chapters in his
life of which he never spoke. He had emigrated to America when
he was a very young man. He had prospered well, and Barker had
first met him in California, where they had become partners in a
successful mining claim at a