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