“It would be dead against the law if you did,” said Jimmy. “You’ve got to make quite sure the beggar’s housebreaking, you know, before you pot at him. You mustn’t jump to conclusions. Otherwise you’d have to explain why you shot a guest on a perfectly innocent errand like mine.”

“By the way, what did you come down for?”

“I was hungry,” said Jimmy. “I rather fancied a dry biscuit.”

“There are some biscuits in a tin by your bed,” said Rupert Bateman.

He was staring at Jimmy very intently through his horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Ah! That’s where the staff work has gone wrong, old boy. There’s a tin there with ‘Biscuits for Starving Visitors’ on it. But when the starving visitor opened it⁠—nothing inside. So I just toddled down to the dining room.”