“How many servants are there sleeping in the house?” Major Holmes enquired.
“Eleven, sir,” Rawson answered.
“I shall require to interview each one of them.”
“Get along with it then,” Sir Bertram assented resignedly. “Don’t forget we lunch at one. Rawson had better take you round to the servants’ quarters. When Major Holmes has finished, Rawson, bring him out on to the lawn and serve some sherry.”
He dismissed them all carelessly with a little wave of the hand, waited until the door was closed, waited until some minutes afterwards before his expression changed, or a sound escaped from his lips. Then he rose slowly to his feet, lit another cigarette and looked reproachfully at his shaking fingers.
“What a nerve these great criminals must have,” he murmured to himself, as he strolled out into the hall. “Henry—hullo, Henry!”
A still, motionless figure stood in the shadow of the staircase on the first landing, looking downward; a figure so still that except for his clothes he might have stepped out of one of the frames which lined the wall.
“Are you coming down or going up or rooted?” Sir Bertram enquired.
“I will descend,” Henry Ballaston replied.
He came down the stairs with slow yet even footsteps, one hand always upon the carved balustrade.