down among the rest of the servants. I told them--I didn't know how.
And I don't remember any more, for I fell in a faint. When I came to I
was alone--the rest were up in the nursery. I got up and joined
them--that's everything I know about it."

Ellen Butters retired, and William Hooper was called. This is Mr.
Hooper's evidence:

"I have been butler in Sir Victor Catheron's family for twenty years.
On the night of Friday last, as I sat in the servants' hall after
supper, the young woman, Ellen Butters, my lady's London maid, came
screeching downstairs like a creature gone mad, that my lady was
murdered, and frightened us all out of our senses. As she was always a
flighty young person, I didn't believe her. I ordered her to be quiet,
and tell us what she meant. Instead of doing it she gave a sort of
gasp and fell fainting down in a heap. I made them lay her down on the
floor, and then follow me up to the nursery. We went in a body--I at
the head. There was no light but the moon-light in the room. My lady
lay back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, bleeding and quite dead. I
ran up to Miss Inez's room, and called her. My master was not at home,
or I would have called him instead. I think she must have been dead
some minutes. She was growing cold when I found her."

"William Hooper," continued the _Chesholm Courier_, communicatively,
"was cross-examined as to the precise time of finding the body. He
said it was close upon half-past eight, the half hour struck as he
went up to Miss Inez's room."

James Dicksey was next called. James Dicksey, a shambling lad of
eighteen, took his place, his eyes rolling in abject terror, and under