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‘He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall,’ he remarked.

‘Yes,’ said Hopkins. ‘I have some record of the fellow, and he is a rough customer.’

‘You should have no difficulty in getting him.’

‘Not the slightest. We have been on the look-out for him, and there was some idea that he had got away to America. Now that we know that the gang are here, I don’t see how they can escape. We have the news at every seaport already, and a reward will be offered before evening. What beats me is how they could have done so mad a thing, knowing that the lady could describe them and that we could not fail to recognize the description.’

‘Exactly. One would have expected that they would silence Lady Brackenstall as well.’

‘They may not have realized,’ I suggested, ‘that she had recovered from her faint.’

‘That is likely enough. If she seemed to be senseless, they would not take her life. What about this poor fellow, Hopkins? I seem to have heard some queer stories about him.’

‘He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend when he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom really went the whole way. The devil seemed to be in him at such times, and he was capable of anything. From what I hear, in spite of all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or twice. There was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum and setting it on fire–her ladyship’s dog, to make the matter worse–and that was only hushed up with difficulty. Then he threw a decanter at that maid, Theresa Wright–there was trouble about that. On the whole, and between ourselves, it will be a brighter house without him. What are you looking at now?’

Holmes was down on his knees, examining with great attention the knots upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured. Then he carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped off when the burglar had dragged it down.

‘When this was pulled down, the bell in the kitchen must have rung loudly,’ he remarked.

‘No one could hear it. The kitchen stands right at the back of the house.’

‘How did the burglar know no one would hear it? How dared he pull at a bell-rope in that reckless fashion?’

‘Exactly, Mr. Holmes, exactly. You put the very question which I have asked myself again and again. There can be no doubt that this fellow must have known the house and its habits. He must have perfectly understood that the servants would all be in bed at that comparatively early hour, and that no one could possibly hear a bell ring in the kitchen. Therefore, he must have been in close league with one of the servants. Surely that is evident. But there are eight servants, and all of good character.’

‘Other things being equal,’ said Holmes, ‘one would suspect the one at whose head the master threw a decanter. And yet that would involve treachery towards the mistress to whom this woman seems devoted. Well, well, the point is a minor one, and when you have Randall you will probably find no difficulty in securing his accomplice. The lady’s story certainly seems to be corroborated, if it needed corroboration, by every detail which we see before us.’ He walked to the French window and threw it open. ‘There are no signs here, but the ground is iron hard, and one would not expect them. I see that these candles in the mantelpiece have been lighted.’

‘Yes, it was by their light, and that of the lady’s bedroom candle, that the burglars saw their way about.’

‘And what did they take?’

‘Well, they did not take much–only half a dozen articles of plate off the sideboard. Lady Brackenstall thinks that they were themselves so disturbed by the death of Sir Eustace that they did not ransack the house, as they would otherwise have done.’