"It was the key in the outside of Mr. Glenthorpe's room which led to us finding out that he was not in the room. As I told you upstairs, sir, he used to always lock his door when he went to bed and put the key under the pillow. Ann noticed the key in the outside of the door when she went up with his breakfast tray--he never took early morning tea but he always breakfasted in his room. That would be about eight o'clock. She thought it strange to see the key in the door, and as she could get no answer to her knock she tried the door, found it unlocked and the room empty. She came downstairs and told me. I thought at first that Mr. Glenthorpe might have got up early to go and look at his excavations, but I went up to his room and saw the signs of a struggle and blood-stains on the bed-clothes, and I knew that something must have happened to him. I went into the village and told Constable Queensmead. He came to the inn, and made a search inside and outside and found the footprints leading to the pit on the rise. One of Mr. Glenthorpe's men who had been down the pit for flints was lowered by a rope, and brought up the body." The innkeeper took a leather wallet from his pocket and produced from it a Treasury L1 note. "This is the note the young gentleman left behind with Ann to pay his bill," he explained, pushing it across the table to the chief constable. "I would draw your attention, sir, to the fact that this Treasury note is one of the first issue--printed in black on white paper," remarked Superintendent Galloway to his superior officer. "Constable Queensmead has ascertained that the L300 which Mr. Glenthorpe drew out of the bank yesterday was all in L1 notes of the first issue. That money is missing from the dead man's effects." The chief constable looked thoughtfully at the note through his glasses, and then passed it to Colwyn, who examined it closely, and took a note of the number, and held it up to the light to see the watermark. "Did you or the servant find any weapon in Mr. Glenthorpe's room?" asked the chief constable. "No, sir." "You have missed a knife though, have you not?" asked Superintendent Galloway. "Yes, sir." "What sort of a knife?" "A table-knife." "Was it one of the knives sent up to the sitting-room last night?" "Yes, sir. At least Charles says so. He has charge of the cutlery." "Then Charles had better tell us about it," interposed the chief constable. "You say you went to bed before ten o'clock, Benson. Did you hear anything in the night?" "No, sir, I fell asleep almost immediately. My room is a good distance from Mr. Glenthorpe's room." "I do not think we have any more questions to ask you, Benson." "Pardon the curiosity of a medical man, Mr. Cromering," remarked Sir Henry, "but would it be possible to ask the innkeeper whether he noticed anything peculiar about Mr. Ronald's demeanour, when he arrived at the inn, or when he saw him at dinner subsequently?"