The officer was, I think, rather piqued at the persistency of my inquiries, for when I pointed out to him the suspicious circumstance of the locked door, he point-blank told me that the medical declaration was quite sufficient for him. The girl, Kate Hayes, who discovered her master--a dark-haired, good-looking maid, about twenty-six--had been eight years at Titmarsh Court. It was Mr Guy's habit always to read his paper before going to bed, she told me, as we stood in the long servants' hall. "I often find the library door unlocked before I go to my room, sir, and the night before last it was unlocked." "Did you lock it?" I asked quickly. "No, sir. I once locked Mr Guy in, so I always look inside now, before securing it," she replied. "I looked inside, and found Mr Guy there. He was then taking a book down from one of the shelves near the window. I apologised for intruding, and wished him good-night. `Good-night, Hayes,' he replied, and I closed the door and left him. I heard nothing in the night. But when I went to the library door next morning I found it locked. I recollect it was locked, because at first the key would not turn. At last I succeeded in opening the door, when the first sight that met my eyes in the faint grey light through the chinks of the shutters was poor Mr Guy lying crouched up, his knees nearly touching his chin and quite dead." "You are absolutely certain that the window was quite securely closed?" I asked. "Captain Cardew opened it, sir. I ran away to fetch the other servants." Here again the Captain showed some disinclination thoroughly to probe matters, for he interrupted, saying-- "I don't see how questioning the servants will assist us. We already know all that they know." "What we want to discover is whether poor Nicholson received any visitor clandestinely during the early hours of the morning," I said. "To me, it seems very much as though he did." "Then you are directly opposed to the medical theory?" he exclaimed. "And so are you, are you not?" I remarked. "In a manner, yes--but not altogether. We must credit doctors with a certain amount of knowledge where death is concerned." "I credit them with every knowledge," I hastened to assure him; "only in this case, I fear they have not sufficiently weighed over all the known and indisputable facts." "If there had actually been foul play, there would be traces of it," he said. "Not always," I replied. "Many cases of secret assassination have been declared by doctors to have been deaths from natural causes." I saw that the servants, all country-bred, ridiculed my suspicions. Doctor Redwood had said that their master had died of brain disease, and that was sufficient. The police, too, were quite satisfied, and the young man's relations, two of whom arrived in hot haste while I was there, of course accepted the verdict of the medical men--the evidence which would be given at the inquest on the following day.