“In the library a footman, on duty in the room, maintained a good fire, and the French windows were left unfastened, as the young gentlemen would probably enter the house that way.  David did, in fact, do so.  The footman quitted the room, and a few minutes later the butler appeared.  He was an old favourite of David’s.  He asked if he should send some whisky and soda.

“The young man agreed, adding: 

“’Sir Alan and I have commenced the year badly, Ferguson.  We quarrelled over a silly mistake.  I have made up my mind not to sleep on it, so I will await his arrival.  Let me know if he comes in the other way.’

“The butler hoped that the matter was not a serious one.

“‘Under other circumstances it might be,’ was the answer, ’but as things are, it is simply a wretched mistake, which a little reasonable discussion will put right.’

“The footman brought the whisky and soda.

“Twenty minutes later he re-entered the room to attend to the fire.  Mr. David Hume-Frazer was curled up in an arm-chair asleep, or rather dozing, for he stirred a little when the man put some coal in the grate.  This was at 1 a.m. exactly.

“At 1.10 a.m. the butler thought he heard his master’s voice coming from the front of the house, and angrily protesting something.  Unfortunately he could not catch a single word.  He imagined that the ‘quarrel’ spoken of by David had been renewed.

“He waited two minutes, not more, but hearing no further sounds, he walked round to the library windows, thinking that perhaps he would see Sir Alan in the room.

“To his dismay he found his young master stretched on the turf at the side of the drive, thirty feet from the house.  He rushed into the library, where David was still asleep and moving uneasily—­muttering, the man thought: 

“‘Come quickly, sir,’ he cried, ’I fear something has happened to Sir Alan.  He is lying on the ground outside the house, and I cannot arouse him.’

“Then David Hume-Frazer sprang to his feet and shouted: 

“‘My God!  It was not a dream.  He is murdered!’

“Unquestionably—­”

But the barrister’s cold-blooded synopsis of a thrilling crime proved to be too much for his hearer’s nerves.  Hume stood up.  The man was a born fighter.  He could take, his punishment, but only on his feet.

Again he cried in anguish: 

“No!  It was no dream, but a foul murder.  And they blame me!”

CHAPTER II

DAVID HUME’S STORY

Brett closed the book with a snap.

“What good purpose can it serve at this time to reopen the miserable story?” he asked.

Curiously enough, Hume paid no heed to the question.  His lips quivered, his nostrils twitched, and his eyes shot strange gleams.  He caught the back of his chair with both hands in a grasp that tried to squeeze the tough oak.