“No,” I said. “You have never seen me before. But I’m an old friend of the family.”

“Then why didn’t you ring at the front door?”

“I didn’t want to give any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble answering front doors, that being what you’re paid for,” said the parlourmaid, virtuously. “I’ve never seen him before in my life,” she added, perfectly gratuitously. A horrid girl.

“Well, look here,” I said, with an inspiration, “the undertaker knows me.”

“What undertaker?”

“The cove who was waiting at table when I dined here the night before last.”

“Did the undertaker wait at table on the sixteenth instant?” asked the policeman.

“Of course he didn’t,” said the parlourmaid.