Thomas, when he had ascertained the main facts about the two men-servants, did not for a moment suspect that either of them was guilty, or think it likely that either had any knowledge of the crimes. His first step was to ask Walter Brooklyn himself whether he supposed that either of the servants could throw any light on the matter. Supposing his client to be at the least fully cognisant of the night’s events, he thought that the question could hardly fail to give him some guidance. But Walter Brooklyn displayed little interest, and by doing so confirmed the lawyer’s opinion that the servants had nothing at all to do with it. “Go and see them by all means,” Brooklyn had said, “but I don’t suppose they know anything about it.” That was all he would say, and he still stuck to the story he had first told Thomas, and maintained that he himself was equally ignorant of what had taken place. A marked coolness, which did not increase Thomas’s zest for the case, had sprung up between him and his client, and although certain questions had to be asked and answered, it was clear enough that Walter Brooklyn greatly preferred the solitude of his cell to his lawyer’s society. It was on his own initiative, therefore, that Thomas went to see both Winter and Morgan, and received from them a repetition of what they had told the police. From them he learnt nothing new. But from one of the maid-servants he picked up a fact which had escaped Inspector Blaikie’s attention. A few days before the murders the butler, Winter, had quarrelled violently with John Prinsep, and, in the heat of the quarrel, Prinsep had practically given the man notice to leave. The notice had not been quite definite, and the maid had heard Winter confide to Morgan that he intended to hang on and see what happened, and to get the matter cleared up with Prinsep the one way or the other before the month expired. She did not know what the quarrel had been about; and Thomas did not think it politic to push his inquiries further, or to ask either Morgan or Winter himself for an explanation. He, therefore, cautioned the girl against telling any one at all that there had been a quarrel. “It would only make further trouble,” he said; “and we have trouble enough on our hands already.” Thomas had thus found the first essential for building up a case on suspicion against Winter—an actual quarrel and therefore a possible motive for murder. But he recognised that the argument was very thin, and that he must, if possible, get something more definite. Inquiries, however, failed to give him anything at all that could be used to defame either Winter’s or Morgan’s character. They appeared to be persons of unblemished respectability, and Winter’s long service in the Brooklyn household seemed never to have been marred before by such an incident as his quarrel with Prinsep. The position did not look promising for Thomas’s client; but he determined to persist.