“Well, no one did pull it.”
“That’s what I’m pointing out, Finch,” said Reggie sweetly. “Why are you so cross?”
“The trouble is, Fortune, the Carwell butler’s bolted,” Lomas said.
Reggie walked across the room and took one of Lomas’s cigars and lit it, and made himself comfortable in his chair. “That’s a new fact,” he said softly.
“Nonsense,” Finchampstead cried. “It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t affect the issue. The verdict stands.”
“I noticed you didn’t call the butler at the trial,” Reggie murmured.
“Why the devil should we? He knew nothing.”
“Yet he bolts.”
Lomas smiled. “The unfortunate thing is, Fortune, he bolted before the trial was over. At the end of the second day the local police were told that he had vanished. The news was passed on to Finchampstead. But the defence was not informed. And it didn’t come out at the trial.”
“Well, well. I thought you were riding rather hard, Finch. You were.”