It struck me, too, as being both stupid and acute, at the same time hardly worth mentioning and yet unpleasantly significant. If his suggestion was that at the time of the accident we were all whispering together in some dark nefarious plot, it was too ridiculous to answer; but if he meant that it was at least remarkable that not one of us except Rooke, and Hubbard for one brief moment before his arrival, had taken the trouble to step outside to see what had happened, I could only reluctantly agree with him. You will remember that precisely the same observation had struck Hubbard and myself at the time.
"Yes," he repeated, seeing my discomfiture, "that's the first point that strikes me; where was Mr. Esdaile, for instance, that he didn't come out?"
I answered rather slowly. "I see what you mean. As a matter of fact that was very curious. I wonder if you'll believe me when I tell you that Mr. Esdaile knew nothing of that accident till it was all over?"
He stopped for a moment in his walk. Without noticing it we had begun to walk. "Why not?" he demanded.
"Because he was down in the cellar at the time. He'd gone down to fetch a bottle of wine."
He resumed his walk. "But he came up again. I saw him."
"That was some time after."
"That's right," he confirmed, as if he had been testing my truthfulness. "It was about half an hour after. Funny way to spend half an hour with all that going on, wasn't it?"
As I was entirely of his opinion, I made no reply.