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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."

"No doubt that is true, and yet they drank some wine, I understand."

"To steady their nerves."

"Exactly. These three glasses upon the sideboard have been untouched, I suppose?"

"Yes, and the bottle stands as they left it."

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