“The chair,” Reggie mumbled. “Why was the man in his chair?”
“Lord Carwell, sir?” Bell struggled to adjust his mind. “Well, he was. That girl was telling the truth.”
“I know, I know. That’s the difficulty. You smash the side of a man’s head in. He won’t sit down to think about it.”
“Perhaps he was sitting when he was hit.”
“Then he’d be knocked over just the same.”
“I suppose the murderer might have picked him up.”
Superintendent Bell sighed heavily. “I judge we’ve some way to go, sir. And we don’t seem to get any nearer the butler.”
“Your job,” said Reggie, and again the Superintendent sighed.
That night through a drizzling rain, lanterns moved in the village churchyard. The vault in which the Carwells of a hundred and fifty years lie crumbling was opened, and out of it a coffin was borne away. One man lingered in the vault holding a lantern high. He moved from one coffin to another, and came up again to the clean air and the rain. “All present and correct,” he said. “No deception, Bell.”
Superintendent Bell coughed. Sometimes he thinks Mr. Fortune lacking in reverence.
“Division of labour,” Reggie sank into the cushions of the car and lit a pipe, “the division of labour is the great principle of civilization. Perhaps you didn’t know that? In the morning I will look at the corpse and you will look for the butler.”
“Well, sir, I don’t care for my job, but I wouldn’t have yours for a hundred pounds.”
“Yet it has a certain interest,” Reggie murmured, “for that poor devil with the death sentence on him.”
To their hotel in Southam Reggie Fortune came back on the next day rather before lunch time.
“Finished at the mortuary, sir?” said Bell. “I thought you looked happy.”
“Not happy. Only pleased with myself. A snare, Bell, a snare. Have you found the butler?”
Bell shook his head. “It’s like a fairy tale, sir. He went out on that evening, walked down the village street, and that’s the last of him they know. He might have gone to the station, he might have gone on the Southam motor-bus. They can’t swear he didn’t, but nobody saw him. They’ve searched the whole country-side and dragged the river. If you’ll tell me what to do next, I’ll be glad.”
“Sir Brian’s been asking for me, they say,” said Reggie. “I think we’ll go and call on Sir Brian.”