“Not quite: he seldom worked after dinner, and usually went to bed early. But I’ve known him do it when interested in any new development, and on the whole it was a fairly ordinary day for a day here.” “What do you mean by that?” “He used to go to Southampton two or three times a week. As a matter of fact, he was busy just now, and even when he wasn’t he liked to pretend that he was and make work. Is that clear?” “Perfectly, please go on.” “Well, we worked together for about an hour and a half; he read the _précis_ and even commended it—that perhaps was the one unusual thing of the evening. Then he dictated his letters to me and left me to go to bed.” “What time was that? Can you say at all precisely?” “Yes, I think I can tell you exactly, for I glanced at the clock as he left the room: by that it was thirteen minutes to twelve.” “And then?” “I debated whether I should write the letters then or get up early to do them; he would require them to be ready for signature when he came down to breakfast. I decided to finish them; there were a dozen or more to write, and they took me over an hour to do. I was not through till nearly half-past one; found I had run out of cigarettes and came along to get one here before going to bed.” “What time was that?” “As nearly as I can fix it, about twenty-five minutes past one. I came along the passage——” “By the passage you mean that passage behind you now?” asked Humblethorne, referring to the one leading between the dining-room and billiard-room. “It is important to have that quite clear.” Castle nodded wearily. “That’s the one,” he said. “My ordinary way from my room up to bed would be up the back stairs, but, as I say, I wanted to get a cigarette and so I came along that passage, feeling my way. The lights had all been turned out—Sir Roger had a passion for small economies—but it was a bright night with a bit of a moon and there was a certain amount of light coming in from that small window on the landing.” Castle paused and a look of vivid remembrance passed across his face; he had been speaking quietly and evenly, but now his voice rose, and it was obvious that he was painfully agitated. “I had got almost to the stairs,” he went on, “before I noticed anything. Then I trod on something, a cigarette, I think, and I looked down. I saw something dark and round just in front of me at the foot of the stairs. I couldn’t think what it could be. I bent over. God! shall I ever forget that hideous, blood-stained face?” He ended with a half-hysterical cry and sank down into a chair, white and shaking. Humblethorne, upon whom the clearness and quietness of the earlier part of his narrative had made, in spite of his first prejudice against the secretary, a distinctly favourable impression, watched him curiously for a moment and then said with sudden, deliberate sharpness, “Yes, and what did you do then?”