“‘Mr. Bellingham!’ says he.  ’I didn’t know he was here.  Why didn’t you tell me?’ he says.  ‘I thought he was with you, sir,’ I said.  ’I showed him into the study,’ I said.  ‘Well, he wasn’t there when I came in,’ he said, ‘and he isn’t there now,’ he said.  ’Perhaps he has gone to wait in the drawing-room,’ he said.  So we went and looked in the drawing-room, but he wasn’t there.  Then Mr. Hurst said he thought Mr. Bellingham must have got tired of waiting and gone away; but I told him I was quite sure he hadn’t, because I had been watching all the time.  Then he asked me if Mr. Bellingham was alone or whether his daughter was with him, and I said that it wasn’t that Mr. Bellingham at all, but Mr. John Bellingham, and then he was more surprised than ever.  I said we had better search the house to make sure whether he was there or not, and Mr. Hurst said he would come with me; so we went all over the house and looked in all the rooms, but there was not a sign of Mr. Bellingham in any of them.  Then Mr. Hurst got very nervous and upset, and when he had just snatched a little dinner he ran off to catch the six-thirty train up to town.”

“You say that Mr. Bellingham could not have left the house because you were watching all the time.  Where were you while you were watching?”

“I was in the kitchen.  I could see the front gate from the kitchen window.”

“You say that you laid the table for two.  Where did you lay it?”

“In the dining-room, of course.”

“Could you see the front gate from the dining-room?”

“No, but I could see the study door.  The study is opposite the dining-room.”

“Do you have to come upstairs to get from the kitchen to the dining-room?”

“Yes, of course you do!”

“Then might not Mr. Bellingham have left the house while you were coming up the stairs?”

“No, he couldn’t have done.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would have been impossible.”

“But why would it have been impossible?”

“Because he couldn’t have done it.”

“I suggest that Mr. Bellingham left the house quietly while you were on the stairs?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How do you know he did not?”

“I am quite sure he didn’t.”

“What makes you feel sure he did not?”

“I am quite certain he didn’t.”

“But how can you be certain?”

“Because I should have seen him if he had.”

“But I mean when you were on the stairs.”

“He was in the study when I was on the stairs.”

“How do you know he was in the study?”

“Because I showed him in there and he hadn’t come out.”

Mr. Loram paused and took a deep breath, and his lordship flattened his eyelids.

“Is there a side gate to the premises?” the barrister resumed wearily.

“Yes.  It opens into a narrow lane at the side of the house.”