"You didn't happen to come anywhere near this spot, or walk upon the mould there?" He nodded at the place he had just been examining. "No; as a matter of fact, I avoided it. The Mater warned me to be careful." Malcolm Sage nodded his head. "Did the butler join you in your search?" he enquired. "About five minutes later he did. He had to go back and put on some things; he was rather sketchy when he turned up in the Mater's room." Glanedale grinned at the recollection. "And you?" Malcolm Sage flashed on him that steel grey look of interrogation. For a moment the young man seemed embarrassed, and he hesitated before replying. "As a matter of fact, I hadn't turned in," he said at length. "I see," said Malcolm Sage, and there was something in his tone that caused Glanedale to look at him quickly. "It was such a rippin' night that I sat at my bedroom window smoking," he explained a little nervously. "Which is your bedroom window?" Glanedale nodded in the direction of the farther end of the house. "That's the governor's dressing-room," he said, indicating the window on the left of that through which the burglar had escaped, "and the next is mine." "Did you see anything?" enquired Malcolm Sage, who, having unscrewed the mouthpiece of his pipe, proceeded to clean it with a blade of grass. Again there was the slightest suggestion of hesitation before Glanedale replied. "No, nothing. You see," he added hastily, "I was not looking out of the window, merely sitting at it. As a matter of fact, I was facing the other way." "You heard no noise?" Glanedale shook his head. "So that the first intimation you had of anything being wrong was what?" he asked. "I heard the Mater at her door calling for assistance, and I went immediately." Malcolm Sage turned and regarded the water-pipe speculatively. "I wonder if anyone really could climb up that," he said. "I'm sure I couldn't." "Nothing easier," said Glanedale. "I could shin up in two ticks," and he made a movement towards the pipe. "No," said Malcolm Sage, putting a detaining hand upon his arm. "If you want to demonstrate your agility, try the other. There are marks on this I want to preserve." "Right-o," cried Glanedale with a laugh, and a moment later he was shinning up the further pipe with the agility of a South Sea islander after coker-nuts. Malcolm Sage walked towards the pipe, glanced at it, and then at the footprints beneath. "You were quite right," he remarked casually. Then a moment later he enquired: "Do you usually sit up late?" "We're not exactly early birds," Glanedale replied a little irrelevantly. "The Mater plays a lot of bridge, you know," he added. "And that keeps you out of bed?" "Yes and no," was the reply. "I can't afford to play with the Mater's crowd; but I have to hang about until after they've gone. The governor hates it. You see," he added confidentially, "when a man's had to make his money, he knows the value of it."