“No, sir—we never heard anything—nothing unusual, at any rate.”
“You heard no sound of doors opening or being shut, nor of any conveyance coming to the door?”
“No, sir, nothing at all.”
“Well, one or two more questions, Hancock. You didn’t go into the room after first catching sight of the body? Just so—but you’d notice things, even in a hurried glance. Did you notice any sign of a struggle—overturned chair or anything?”
“No, sir. I did notice that Mr. Herapath’s elbow chair, that he always sat in at his desk, was pushed back a bit, and was a bit on one side as it were. That was all.”
“And the light—the electric light? Was that on?”
“No, sir.”
“Then all you can tell us comes to this—that you never heard anything, and had no notion of what was happening, or had happened, until you came down in the morning?”
“Just so, sir. If I’d known what was going on, or had gone on, I should have been down at once.”
Barthorpe nodded and turned to the coachman.