"Tell Wilkins to see that no one disturbs Lady Loudwater.

I'll break the news myself when she is dressed." "Yes, sir," said Holloway, and ran down the corridor.
Mr.Manley was much quicker than usual making his toilet, but thorough.
He foresaw a hard and trying day before him, and he wished to start it fresh and clean.

He would come into contact with new people; he saw himself playing an important role in a most important affair; he would naturally and as usual make himself valued.

A slovenly air did not conduce to that.

It seemed fitting to put on his darkest tweed suit and a black necktie.
When he came--briskly for him--downstairs he found a group of women servants in the hall, outside the door of the smoking-room, three of them snivelling, and Wilkins and Holloway in the smoking-room itself, standing and staring with a wholly helpless air at the body of Lord Loudwater, huddled in the easy chair in which he had been wont to sleep after dinner every evening.
"He's been stabbed, sir.