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. "So," he continued, "what strikes me about it is that you're more interested now than you were then. Now we'll pass on to another point. All the time this is happening you're all inside except one of you, and he's on the roof. He's the only person up there till the police came--has the field to himself so to speak. Then he comes down the ladder in a very shaky sort of state." "Do you wonder?" I interposed with a quickness that surprised myself. "You were on that jury----" "In a very shaky state," he repeated. "Nervous as a cat, as you might say. That was the state he was in when he came down that ladder. Why?" His manner changed suddenly to truculence. "Why? Hah! That's the question, isn't it? Some of you'd like to make out you know nothing at all about it, but they laugh best that laugh last, and don't you make any error about it!" Apprehensive as I was, I forced myself also to laugh. "And you're doing your laughing in the newspapers? Well, do you know, Mr. Westbury, I see very little in all this. Your letter certainly raises a very interesting subject, and I'm quite of your opinion that flying ought to be better regulated; but I wonder if you'd resent a piece of advice from an older man?" "Much obliged, I'm sure." Those were the words. The tone in which they were uttered bore no relation to them.