“No,” replied Pegge. “Just before four o’clock I began to feel as if I could do with a cup of tea. I’d got a teapot with some tea in it, but, of course, I wanted boiling water. Now, we’ve a gas-stove in a little room at the end of the stables that our coachman uses as a sort of sitting-room for himself, d’ye see, so I went off there to light it, and boil some water in a kettle. It struck four while I was in there. I’d just put on the kettle, when I heard it strike four. Now, there’s a window in that little room as looks out on the back gardens—they run from the back of the Dower House to the foot of the park, where it begins to rise towards the downs. There’s a thick plantation of pine and larch between the gardens and the park, and I suddenly see this here Baron come out of it, as if he’d come down from the high ground above.” “Was he alone?” asked Blick. “Oh, he was alone, right enough, just as before,” replied Pegge. “How far away were you from him?” “Twenty-five or thirty yards.” “Where did he go that time?” “Walked down the side of a big holly-hedge towards the same door that I reckon he’d come out of.” “Could he be seen from the house?” “No—I reckon not,” said Pegge. “There’s a thick belt of trees—beeches, just come into leaf—between the house and those gardens.” “You saw him pass that?” “Saw him go into it,” said Pegge. “Once through it, he’d be close to that side-door I spoke of.” “I suppose you know the Dower House pretty well, Pegge?” asked Blick. “Yes,” asserted Pegge. “I was there before Mrs. Tretheroe came and took it. Been there, off and on, ever since I was a young ’un. Went there first when I was fourteen.” “Well, that side-door, now? What is it. Where does it lead, when you get in?” ”Into a lobby that runs along the back of the house. There’s a staircase opens from it—a wide staircase—that comes out, through a double door at the top, into the big staircase in the hall.” “So that anybody coming from the bedrooms could easily get at it?” “Easy enough!” assented Pegge. “I suppose there’d be none of the servants about at four o’clock in the morning?” enquired Blick, after a moment’s thought. Pegge opened his mouth in a broad grin. “Not likely!” he said. “Servants’ getting-up bell goes at six o’clock. Catch any of ’em being up before that!” “Talking about servants,” observed Blick, “do you know Mrs. Tretheroe’s maid?” Pegge smiled. “Daffy Halliwell?” he answered. “Course I do!” “Well, and who is Daffy Halliwell? And what’s her proper Christian name?” “Daphne,” said Pegge promptly. “Who is she? Why, her father was a bit of a farmer t’other side of the downs, beyond Markenmore Hollow. Dead now he is. There was two o’ them girls—Daffy and Myra. Daffy went out to India with Mrs. Tretheroe, and come back with her. Myra—I don’t know what’s become o’ she. Disappeared, like, just about that time—though I recollect now she was going to be married to a chap as lived near them—Jim Roper, woodman, to Sir Anthony.”