"Oh! Did he fall on his head?"
"Yessir. But he had a stiff felt hat on. I got help and as we carried him into the house he was bleeding awful."
"Curious that he should fall like that. Was he, well, was he quite himself should you think?"
It was a bow drawn at a venture, and it provoked a reply that instantly told Morton Sims what he wanted to know.
"Oh, yessir! By all means, sir! Most cert'nly! Master was as sober as a judge, sir!"
"Of course," Sims replied in a surprised tone of voice. "I thought that he might have been tired by the journey from London."
. . . So it was true then! Lothian was drunk. The thing was obvious. But this was a good and loyal fellow, not to give his master away.
Morton Sims liked that. He made a note that poor beery Tumpany should have half a sovereign on the morrow, when he was sober. Then the two men turned in through the gates of the Old House.
The front door was wide open to the night. The light which flowed out from the tall lamp upon an oak table in the hall cut into the black velvet of the drive with a sharply defined wedge of orange-yellow.
There was something ominous in this wide-set door of a frightened house.