"Well, don't make it worse by talking any more. And let me know when your mistress is dressed, and I'll come up and break the news of this shocking affair to her." "Very good, sir," said Elizabeth, and with a gloomy face and depressed air she went back into the Castle. She had scarcely disappeared, when Holloway came out to tell Mr. Manley that his breakfast was ready for him in the little dining-room. Mr. Manley set about it with the firmness of a man preparing himself against a strenuous day. The frown with which Elizabeth Twitcher's suggestion had puckered his brow faded from it slowly, as the excellence of the chop he was eating soothed him. Holloway waited on him, and Mr. Manley asked him whether any of the servants had heard anything suspicious in the night. Holloway assured him that none of them had. Mr. Manley had just helped himself a second time to eggs and bacon when Wilkins brought in Robert Black, the village constable. Mr. Manley had seen him in the village often enough, a portly, grave man, who regarded his position and work with the proper official seriousness. Mr. Manley told him that he had locked the door of the smoking-room and of the library, in order that the scene of the crime might be left undisturbed for examination by the Low Wycombe police. Robert Black did not appear pleased by this precaution. He would have liked to demonstrate his importance by making some preliminary investigations himself. Mr. Manley did not offer to hand the keys over to him. He intended to have the credit of the precautions he had taken with the constable's superiors. He said: "I suppose you would like to question the servants to begin with. Take the constable to the servants' hall, give him a glass of beer, and let him get to work, Wilkins." He spoke in the imperative tone proper to a man in charge of such an important affair, and Robert Black went. Mr. Manley could not see that the grave fellow could do any harm by his questions, or, for that matter, any good. He finished his breakfast and lighted his pipe. Elizabeth Twitcher came to tell him that Lady Loudwater was dressed. He told her to tell her that he would like to see her, and followed her up the stairs. The maid went into Lady Loudwater's sitting-room, came out, and ushered him into it. His strong sense of the fitness of things caused him to enter the room slowly, with an air grave to solemnity. Olivia greeted him with a faint, rather forced smile. He thought that she was paler than usual, and lacked something of her wonted charm. She seemed rather nervous. She thought that he had come from her husband with an unpleasant and probably most insulting message. He cleared his throat and said in the deep, grave voice he felt appropriate: "I've come on a very painful errand, Lady Loudwater--a very painful errand." "Indeed?" she said, and looked at him with uneasy, anxious eyes. "I'm sorry to tell you that Lord Loudwater has had an accident, a very bad accident," he said.