"Was he drunk?" Esdaile asked. He was walking about, head down, frowning.

The old man stroked his grizzled beard.

"Well, I won't say he hadn't had a few. I saw him have two or three liqueur brandies. And he's a crossish sort of man when he's at home, especially when it's wearing off a bit, but he isn't easily bowled over, isn't Harry. Well, as I was telling you. He gets home about tea-time that day, and the first thing he sees is one of the children playing with something or other in his mouth. He was popping it in and out. You know what children are, Mr. Esdaile—everything goes straight into their mouths. So Westbury asked the child how much oftener he wants telling about putting things into his mouth, and takes it away from him. And what do you think it was, Mr. Esdaile? It was a bullet!"

"A bullet?" said Esdaile with a show of astonishment.

"A bullet. And it had been fired, because it was all out of shape. Well, you don't find bullets everywhere, like leaves off the trees, do you?"

"Where on earth did the child get it?" Esdaile asked.

"Ah, that's what Harry wants to know!" The gray old head was wagged a few times. "Shouts for his missis, and there's a bit of a scene. The child says he found the bullet in the bedroom. How did it get there? Harry wants to know. It seems the window was wide open to air the room a bit. Then Harry asks what the child was doing in the bedroom, and what time he went up, and what time he came down again, and I don't know what else. Then he has a bit of a sleep and a cup of tea and a wash and goes off out again. I believe he went straight to Inspector Webster with the bullet, but he won't say either Yes or No. He's very mysterious about it. A man told me, though, that he'll be an important witness when the Case comes on."

"What Case?" Esdaile asked.

"Well, Westbury he looks at it like this, Mr. Esdaile: If that bullet came in at his window it might have hit somebody, he says, and he's great on the window being just opposite this house of yours. And he's worked it out, from the time it was when his wife cleaned the bedroom and where the children were and all that, that the bullet must have come in at the same time that accident was."

"But what's a flying accident got to do with a bullet?"

"Ah, that I can't tell you; but he's very mysterious. And I know he's written a letter to the papers about dangerous flying, because I heard him reciting bits of it. He says he'll make a Case of it or his name isn't Harry Westbury."

"What paper has he written to?"

"I can't remember the name just for the moment, but it's one of the papers. And I heard him reciting one bit about three million pounds' damage. I don't suppose he's written to the papers about the bullet; that's the tit-bit, that is, and he's keeping that to himself, except for Inspector Webster. Westbury's a difficult sort of man once he gets started on a thing. Stares you down like. You say you don't know him by sight? It was him brought that ladder into your garden—he was there when Mr. Rooke went up on the roof——"

And that (to pass on) was the gist of the discussion on the framing of Esdaile's fÊtes-champÊtre.