“Where is Fergusson now?”
“I can answer that,” exclaimed Hume. “He is my father’s butler. When Capella came to Beechcroft, the old man wrote and said he could not take orders from an Italian. It was like receiving instructions from a French cook. So my father brought him to Glen Tochan.”
“Then your father must send him to London. He may be very useful. I understand he was very many years at Beechcroft?”
“Forty-six, man and boy, as he puts it.”
“Write to-morrow and bring him to town. He can stay at your hotel. I will not keep him long; just one conversation—no more. Can you or your father tell me anything else about that sword?”
“I fear not. Admiral Cunningham—”
“I guess I’m the authority there,” broke in Winter. “I got to know all about it from Mr. Okasaki.”
“And who, pray, is Mr. Okasaki?”
“A Japanese gentleman, who came to Ipswich to hear the first trial. He was interested in the case, owing to the curious fact that a murder in a little English village should be committed with such a weapon, so he came down to listen to the evidence. And, by the way, he took a barmaid back with him. There was rather a sensation.”
“The Japs are very enterprising. What did he tell you about the sword?”