“Just a moment, please! Cut it short, Perrin. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know. Yesterday afternoon Mr. Butler leaves a letter for me, which I’m to mail early this morning, special delivery. It’s to you. I reckon you got it, sir?”
“That’s why I’m here. Go on.”
“Well, after that, he locks himself up in his workroom, so Mrs. Perrin says, she being housekeeper, as you know, sir, leaving word not to disturb him for dinner.
“We don’t think so much of that, Mr. Butler being took with streaks of working at all hours, as you know. But when Miss Hope came home unexpected this morning—”
“What?”
“She cut her visit a few days short, her aunt having other house guests turn up unexpected like, and Miss Hope arrives first thing this morning, being here when I return from town after mailing the letter to you, sir.
“Mrs. Perrin had just told her about the master, and Miss Hope looks into his room. He isn’t there, and the bed hasn’t been slept in. ‘The poor dear,’ she says, ‘he’s worked himself half to death, and dropped off on that horrible cot he keeps in his laboratory,’ says Miss Hope. ‘I’ll let him sleep.’
“But just a few minutes ago, just before you arrived, sir, she became nervous like, and rapped on the door. There wasn’t a sound. So she went up to the master’s room and found a key, and went in. And now she don’t answer, and we were just about ready to call the police!”
“Let’s go inside!” I hurried by Perrin and through the cool, quiet hall to the broad door that opened into the big room at the back of the house, which was Vic’s laboratory.