"Be as quick as you can," said the butler, taking a chair. Sergeant Lumbe went into an inner room, where his wife followed him. Tufnell heard them whispering as they moved about. Then Sergeant Lumbe hastily emerged buttoning his tunic. There was an eager look on his face. "The wife has been saying that we ought to take her brother along," he said. "He belongs to Scotland Yard. He's spending his holidays with us." "Where is he?" asked Tufnell, impressed by the magic of the name of Scotland Yard. "He's just stepped over to the _Fox and Knot_ to have a game of billiards, finding it a bit lonesome here, after London. Do you think we might send for him and take him with us?" "I think it would be a very good idea," said Tufnell. "But can he be got at once?" he added, with a glance at the little clock on the mantelpiece. "The sooner we return the better." "The wife can bring him while I am changing my boots. Hurry down to the _Fox_, Maggie, and tell Tom he's wanted at once." "Don't tell him what it's for until you get him outside," hastily counselled the butler as the policeman's wife was departing on her errand. "Sir Philip won't like it if he hears that what happened to-night was discussed in the _Fox_ tap-room." The little clock on the mantelpiece had barely ticked off five additional minutes when Mrs. Lumbe returned in a breathless state, accompanied by a young man with billiard chalk on his coat and hands. "This is my brother, Detective Caldew," said Mrs. Lumbe, between pants, to the butler. "I told him about the murder, and we hurried back as fast as we could." "It's a horrible crime, and we must lose no time while there is still a chance of catching the murderer," said the young man, regaining his breath more easily than his stout sister. He brushed the billiard chalk off his clothes as he spoke. "Let us go at once." Tufnell cast a curious glance at the new-comer. He saw a man of about thirty-five, tall, well-built and dark, with a clean-shaven face and rather intelligent eyes under thick dark brows. He had some difficulty in recognizing Detective Caldew as the village urchin of a score of years before who had touched his cap to the moat-house butler as a great personage, second only in importance to Sir Philip Heredith himself.