“Has he ever shown any signs of being afraid of an attack, or anything of that sort?”
“Well, sir, there have been times when he seemed uneasy. He has asked whether there was anybody hanging round the house, and he always kept a loaded revolver in his room.”
“Oh, did he? And where is it now?”
The housekeeper led them into the library, now guarded by a plain-clothes man. She opened a drawer in the writing table. Within lay a small silver-plated revolver, fully loaded.
“You say that Sir James had one child, a daughter?” said Collins.
Mrs. Simmons hesitated. “Well, sir, I have been with the family twenty years. There was another, a son, but he was a wrong ’un, and went abroad many years ago, and, as far as I know, the family have heard nothing since.”
“But hasn’t Sir James kept in touch with him?”
“Of course, I do not know all that has happened, but I do know that Sir James used to make an allowance to him; but the time came when the firm of lawyers said they had lost all trace of him, and the money was stopped.”
“Where was he at that time—I mean in what country?”
“I don’t properly know, but it was in one of those South American States.”