“My own belief,” said Seton, “is that he must have started to destroy his things as soon as you knocked. He was certainly in a great hurry for he smashed the neck of the petrol bottle when he found he could not get the cork out—it’s still in the neck of the broken bottle—and cut his hand in doing so.”
“But there wouldn’t have been time,” I said, impatiently.
“I think so,” said Seton. “The coat was a light one and saturated with petrol, it would burn very quickly. You stood at the door probably for ten minutes before you called me and it was certainly another quarter of an hour, or even more, before I forced the door. That coat would burn in that time.”
“Yes, perhaps, but that doesn’t explain how he got away from the locked room, or where he went to.”
Lord Kenhythe’s ex-butler shrugged his broad shoulders and with a mystified look upon his clean-shaven face, replied—
“How he got out, sir, and where he has gone to, is to me a complete mystery. But I feel sure he’ll come back, or he’ll write and tell me about it. Besides, he’s not a gentleman to leave without settling his bill.”
“Well,” I said, laughing, “you won’t lose much. He’s left you two hundred odd pounds.”
I left, promising to call again on the following afternoon. This I did, eager to know whether he had any further news of his missing guest.
As I entered the room, I saw that the man’s face was graver and more puzzled than before.
“Well, Mr. Seton?” I asked. “What’s happened?”