"I called out, but received no answer, so I hurried on."
Colwyn scrutinized the butler with a thoughtful penetrating glance. The butler bore the look with the meek air of a domestic animal who knows that he is being appraised.
"Am I the first person to whom you have told this story?" the detective asked after a pause.
"Yes, sir."
"Why did you not inform the police officers when they were investigating the case?"
"For several reasons, sir. It seemed to me, when I came to think it over, that it must have been my fancy, and then it passed out of my mind in the worry and excitement of the house. Then, when I did think of it again, I didn't like to mention it to Superintendent Merrington, because he was such a bullying sort of gentleman that I felt quite nervous of him. Really, for a gentleman who has travelled with Royal Highnesses, as I've heard tell, and might be supposed to know how gentlemen behave, the way he treated the servants while he was here was almost too much for flesh and blood to bear." The butler's withered cheeks flushed faintly at the recollection. "I couldn't bring myself to tell him, sir."
Colwyn smiled slightly. He was not unacquainted with Merrington's methods of cross-examination.
"You could have spoken to Detective Caldew, the other officer engaged in the case," he said.
"Young Tom Caldew!" exclaimed the butler, in manifest surprise.
"You know him then?"