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me. I left. Miss Angela was coming along the passage. Then the lights went out.”
    “Did Miss Grant come from the bathroom?”
    Florence hesitated. “I think not, sir. Miss Grant bathed earlier — before Miss Angela.”
    “Thank you very much. I think that’s all I wanted to ask you.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    The door shut behind Florence. No one had looked at Rosamund Grant. No one had spoken.
    Alleyn turned a page of his note-book.
    “By the way, Miss Grant,” he said, “did you not say that apart from your visit to the bathroom you did not leave your room until the gong sounded?”
    “Wait a moment!” ejaculated Doctor Young.
    “Rosamund — it’s all right,” cried Angela, running across to her friend. But Rosamund Grant had slid from her chair to the floor in a dead faint.
    In the sort of horribly false confusion that followed, Nigel was aware only of one thing, and that was the pounding at the bell-push in answer to some confused order of Sir Hubert’s.
    “Brandy — that’s what she wants.” Handesley was shouting.
    “Better some sal volatile,” said Doctor Young. “Just open those windows one of ye.”
    “I’ll fetch some,” Angela said and hurried away.
    The flustered Mary had reappeared.
    “Tell Vassily to bring some brandy,” said Handesley.
    “Please, sir, I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Oh, sir, he’s gone — he’s disappeared, sir, and none of us liked to tell you!”
    “Hell’s teeth!” ejaculated Alleyn.

Chapter VI
Alleyn Does His Stuff
    Detective-Inspector Alleyn had been most particular about the state of the house. Nothing must be touched, he said, until he had finished what he called his nosey-parkering. Nothing had been touched. Little Doctor Young, in his capacity as police surgeon for the district, had stressed the point from the moment of his arrival and Bunce, P.C., in his brief and enjoyable supremacy, had scared the life out of the servants, keeping them all confined to their own quarters. He had, however, set no watch at the gate and Vassily apparently escaped by the simple method of walking out at the back door.
    Alleyn recovered from his momentary rage at the disappearance of the butler, rang up the station and found that the old Russian had, with peculiar ingenuousness, caught the ten-fifteen for London. The Inspector telephoned the Yard and gave orders that he should be traced and detained immediately.
    By this time a detachment of plainclothes men had appeared at Frantock. Alleyn had the tall and quite unsurmountable fence inspected, mounted a guard of helmets, felt hats and waterproofs at the gates, and invited Detective-Sergeant Bailey, the finger-print expert who had come down with him, to attend him in the house. Mr. Bunce was also on tap in the hall. Handesley had been requested to detain his guests in the library or to let them loose in the garden.
    “Now,” said Detective-Inspector Alleyn, “I’ll see Ethel, the only housemaid remaining. Ask her to come in, Bunce.”
    Mary had been scared and Florence calm. Ethel, a pretty girl of about twenty-seven, was intelligent and interested.
    “Where were you,” Alleyn asked her, “at ten to eight last night?”
    “I was in my room upstairs, sir, at the end of the back corridor. I had just changed my apron and noticed the time and thought I would go downstairs and help Mary tidy the hall. So I came along the back corridor into the passage past the best bedrooms.”
    “You mean past Mr. Bathgate’s room?”
    “Yes, sir, that’s right. I got as far as the head of the stairs and looked over and I saw Mr. Rankin was still in the hall. Mary was there too, sir, locking the front door, and she looked up at me and jerked her head like, so I said to myself that I’d wait till the hall was clear before I came down. I turned back and as I passed Mr. Bathgate’s door I remembered I hadn’t brought his shaving water and that there was only two cigarettes left in his box. So I tapped on the