“Sir Bertram,” he began, “you have heard no doubt of the burglary at the Great House.”
“My dear Major!” was the reproachful reply. “This is a country village in Norfolk and the burglary happened as long ago as last night. I have heard seven versions of the affair and been given the names of at least seven suspectedly guilty parties.”
“I have come to call upon you in connection with that affair,” Major Holmes continued. “There is a person willing to declare upon oath that a quarter of an hour before the burglary occurred last night some one was seen to leave your house, cross the park, and enter the grounds of the Great House through a gap in the hedge beyond the stable wall.”
Sir Bertram sat quite still for a moment. Then his lips protruded slightly and he whistled.
“Well, that’s the eighth version,” he observed. “I like the last one, Holmes—spicy, to say the least of it!”
“This is not hearsay,” the Chief Constable went on. “I have seen the witness myself and heard the story from his own lips. I come to you naturally for help, Sir Bertram. I want a list of your male domestics and I wish to know from your staff whether any one was known or heard to leave this house last night.”
“Simple as A.B.C.,” Sir Bertram declared, ringing the bell. “Rawson keeps tabs on them all. We’ve a couple of lads—under footmen, I suppose they’d call themselves—whom I don’t know much about. The others are about as likely to commit a burglary as I should be to rob a hen roost. Send Rawson to me,” he ordered the man who answered the bell.
It was a matter of seconds only before the butler made his appearance. His master leaned back in his chair as he questioned him.
“Rawson,” he asked, “do you know any one—any man—who could have left this house between midnight and three or say four o’clock this morning?”
“Certainly not, sir,” was the confident reply.