The chairman turned next to the secretary.
"Mr. Raikes is in your office, Mr. Hunter," he said. "Can you remember if he was absent on the fourth instant?"
"I do not think he was," replied the secretary; "but I am not prepared to speak positively. I have been away most afternoons myself lately, and Mr. Raikes might easily have absented himself if he had been disposed."
At this moment the under-secretary returned with the day-book under his arm.
"Be pleased to refer, Mr. Raikes," said the chairman, "to the entries of the fourth instant, and see what Benjamin Somers' duties were on that day."
Mr. Raikes threw open the cumbrous volume, and ran a practised eye and finger down some three or four successive columns of entries. Stopping suddenly at the foot of a page, he then read aloud that Benjamin Somers had on that day conducted the 4.15 express from London to Crampton.
The chairman leaned forward in his seat, looked the under-secretary full in the face, and said, quite sharply and suddenly:—
"Where were you, Mr. Raikes, on the same afternoon?"
"I, sir?"
"You, Mr. Raikes. Where were you on the afternoon and evening of the fourth of the present month?"