We talked with the servants and I did find their situations interesting. All of them as Mawther had said were new hires, all of them were uniformly handsome, muscular and healthy as Mawther, and some of them were quite reticent about their pasts. I found myself asking more questions of them than Holmes, who seemed content enough with a query or two. And he was more interested in the night before and their quite brief acquaintance with His Lordship. He seemed to have met two of them in pubs, and two more he picked up on the streets at night it appeared. I found that more to speak to their own possible culpability, especially when they were silent upon the exact circumstances, but Holmes left it at little more than that.

Mawther champed about. “But Holmes, what about the chair?” he asked after a time.

“Yes, the chair.” Holmes said. “Still, I did have to rule out all reasonable possibilities, sir, and felt that the people, who are inclined to flee as did your friend, Mr. Douglass, should get priority. Now, though, having decided that none of the regular inhabitants of this house had any hand in Lord Venable’s death, we now must examine the location of his demise and see if that leads to any further deductions.”

I followed Holmes to the room where Lord Venable had placed the chair.

It was indeed an extraordinary chair. Some levers near one side apparently operated the electrical aspects of it. I was quite out of my depth here, having mastered medicine instead of engineering. Holmes, however, was in his element, and I saw him measuring various parts of it.

“Mr. Mawther.” Holmes asked of our young retainer, who had followed us carefully. “Should you be so kind as to give me a physical description of both His Lordship and of your friend, Mr. Douglass.”

“Lord Venable was of a lesser stature.” Mawther began. “He scarcely tipped the scale at seven stone, I should think and his height was five foot two. Mark was a much larger man, of course, as he dealt with the horses. He is over six foot tall and perhaps fourteen stone.”

“I should imagine he finds life in a small, cramped space to be terribly uncomfortable, then.” Holmes said, rather enigmatically.

“Yes, I think so.” Mawther said, then gave a start. “Mr. Holmes, what are you insinuating?” he said accusingly.

“Nothing at all, as of yet.” Holmes smiled. “If you would give Watson and myself some privacy here, I think I can give you your answer quite soon.”

“Of course, of course.” Mawther withdrew in some confusion and distress.

Holmes chuckled. “Well, that had the double benefit of both confirming my theory and ridding us of his presence.” he said.

“You have a theory?” I asked.

“Yes.” Holmes said. “Mr. Douglass is not missing, but is still in this very house, in a hiding place we aren’t supposed to know about.”

I remembered the measurements he made of the sitting room and understood its purpose. “Marvelous. So once we establish Douglass as the murderer, we can pick him up easily.” I said, remembering the old gentleman Holmes had tricked out of such a hiding place in a past adventure.

“I am certain that young Douglass is innocent, but to prove that, we must establish the method of Lord Venable’s death.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” I asked.

“You and I, Watson, must place ourselves in the chair and activate it.”

“Indeed?”

“You will remember that when Douglass came down last night, he was rumpled and in a state of partial dishabille?”

“Yes.” I said.

“It was occasioned by Douglass getting dressed after determining Lord Venable was dead, and before going downstairs.” Holmes said. “Both of them were quite nude when the chair was operated.”

“So you want the two of us to...get disrobed?” I said, aghast.

“And further, my dear Watson, I need you to trust me enough to sit where Lord Venable was found, in the chair itself.” Holmes said. “I will take the position indicated by the footmarks on the space in front of the chair.”

“I thought those were for the placement of the seated person.” I said.

“If you’ll look, you’ll notice that the feet are too far forward for that.” Holmes indicated. “You could not place your feet flat in those marks and sit properly in the chair.

“But do you really need to put us in harm’s way?” I asked.

“My dear Watson, I guarantee that you will not suffer any harm.” Holmes said. “In fact, I am the one more likely to be injured by this chair if it operates as I suspect.”

“Then why was Lord Venable killed instead of Douglass?” I asked.

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