The man was going on, directly, with the story.

“The following night, Excellency, the thing happened.  The Master had passed the day in the open.  He dined with a good appetite, like a man in health.  And there was a change in his demeanor.  He had the aspect of men who are determined to have a thing out at any hazard.

“After his dinner the Master went into the drawing-room and closed the door behind him.  He had not entered the room on this day.  It had stood locked and close-shuttered!”

The big Oriental paused and made a gesture outward with his fingers, as of one dismissing an absurdity.

“No living human being could have been concealed in that room.  There is only the bare floor, the Master’s table and the fireplace.  The great wood shutters were bolted in, as they had stood since the Master took the room for a workshop and removed the furniture.  The door was always locked with that special thief-proof lock that the American smiths had made for it.  No one could have entered.”

It was the report of the experts at the trial.  They showed by the casing of rust on the bolts that the shutters had not been moved; the walls, ceiling and floor were undisturbed; the throat of the chimney was coated evenly with old soot.  Only the door was possible as an entry, and this was always locked except when Rodman was himself in the room.  And at such times the big Oriental never left his post in the hall before it.  That seemed a condition of his mysterious overcare of Rodman.

Everybody thought the trial court went to an excessive care.  It scrutinized in minute detail every avenue that could possibly lead to a solution of the mystery.  The whole country and every resident was inquisitioned.  The conclusion was inevitable.  There was no human creature on that forest crest of the Berkshires but Rodman and his servant.

But one can see why the trial judge kept at the thing; he was seeking an explanation consistent with the common experience of mankind.  And when he could not find it, he did the only thing he could do.  He was wrong, as we now know.  But he had a hold in the dark on the truth — not the whole truth by any means; he never had a glimmer of that.  He never had the faintest conception of the big, amazing truth.  But as I have said, he had his fingers on one essential fact.

The man was going on with a slow, precise articulation as though he would thereby make a difficult matter clear.

“The night had fallen swiftly.  It was incredibly silent.  There was no sound in the Master’s room, and no light except the flicker of the logs smoldering in the fireplace.  The thin line of it appeared faintly along the sill of the door.”

He paused.

“The fireplace, Excellency, is at the end of the great room, directly opposite this door into the hall, before which I always sat when the Master was within.  The fireplace is of black marble with an immense black-marble hearth.  And the gift which I had brought the Master stands on one side of the fire, on this marble hearth, as though it were a single andiron.”