“Hullo, Bude,” said the boy, “you’ve grown very inhospitable all of a sudden!”
“God bless my soul if it isn’t young Mr. Wright!” exclaimed the butler. “And I thought it was another of those dratted reporters. It’s been ring, ring, ring the whole blessed morning, sir, you can believe me, as if they owned the place, wanting to interview me and Mr. Jeekes and Miss Trevert and the Lord knows who else. Lot of interfering busybodies, I call ’em! I’d shut up all noospapers by law if I had my way ...”
“Is Mr. Jeekes here, Bude?” asked Bruce.
“He’s gone off to London in the car, sir ... But won’t you come in, Mr. Wright? If you wouldn’t mind coming in by the side door. I have to keep the front door closed to shut them scribbling fellows out. One of them had the face to ask me to let him into the library to take a photograph ...”
He led the way round the side of the house to the glass door in the library corridor.
“This is a sad business, Bude!” said Bruce.
“Ah, indeed, it is, sir,” he sighed. “He had his faults had Mr. Parrish, as well you know, Mr. Wright. But he was an open-handed gentleman, that I will say, and we’ll all miss him at Harkings ...”
They were now in the corridor. Bude jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“It was in there they found him,” he said in a low voice, “with a hole plumb over the heart.”
His voice sank to a whisper. “There’s blood on the carpet!” he added impressively.