it that way, better almost than her mother—although I have no real reason for saying this.”

Derrick glanced at him shrewdly. “Nevertheless, I’m glad you mentioned it. Anything else?”

“No, sir. Perkins was the next witness. She had been in Mrs. Millicent’s employ for nearly five years. An Englishwoman, aged thirty-eight, she had traveled a good deal before she went into service. She stated that on the night in question she was on her way up-stairs from the servants’ hall—there was no other servant there at the time—and passed the study. The door was closed, and there was no sound; but she could see the lamplight under the door. A little later, when she was ready for bed, she went back to the servants’ hall for a book and noticed that the door was ajar and the lamp still burning.

“She went in, thinking that Mr. Millicent had gone to bed and forgotten to put it out. There she found him, bent forward over the desk, his head on one side and a deep wound in his neck from which the blood had poured in a pool. She said that for a moment she could not move, then ran up-stairs, hammered at Mrs. Millicent’s door, and told the latter that there had been an accident in the study. Mrs. Millicent called to her to send Martin at once for the doctor, so she raced down to the cottage at once without going again into the study. She found Martin, who ran for Dr. Henry, coming back a little later with the doctor and groom in the cart. Then the groom came for me. As you probably know, Beech Lodge is about half-way between Bamberley and the doctor’s house.”

“Did Perkins admit having missed anything from the desk?”

“She mentioned the paper-knife but said nothing about the image till she was questioned.”

“And then?”

The sergeant reflected a moment. “I didn’t make much of what she said then. She was very upset, and rambled a good deal, till I think the coroner was glad to have done with her. I almost thought she attached as much importance to that as to the paper-knife, but of course she was hysterical.”

“Possibly,” murmured Derrick. “So I take it that Martin could not actually have seen the body till he returned with the doctor?”

“That is his evidence, which I will come to in a minute, and also Perkins statement. It would be a matter of perhaps twenty or twenty-five minutes after Perkins waked Mrs. Millicent.”

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