“I think, to judge by the parish register, the Oatviles must have been very staunch recusants, and a great trouble to my predecessors. They were important people, too, in the neighbourhood, even before the great house was built, while they lived here at the Dower-house.” Gordon was not acquainted with the evening’s programme till after dinner; he accepted his part in it with a wry face; but with pleasurable tremors of excitement. It would be the first time, he said, his revolver would have been loaded since he shot off his last cartridges in November, 1918. There was a small, unoccupied room whose door faced that of Reeves; this door habitually stood ajar, and there was not much likelihood that any unauthorized wanderer would trespass there. Gordon and Reeves were to make their way there quietly at twelve o’clock, and sit there in the dark till one. They pleaded hard to be allowed to play bezique with an electric torch, but Carmichael was firm. Even whispering was not to be carried on except in case of necessity, and to crown their privations, they were warned not to smoke. Until twelve they sat playing bridge in Reeves’ room with Marryatt: then the company dispersed, although Carmichael insisted on being left behind for a little, while Reeves and Gordon went off and pretended to undress, “to make sure,” he said, “that our visitor doesn’t arrive too early.” It is extraordinary what a lot you can hear, even in a country house, when you sit for an hour in the dark on the alert. Expresses whistled through Paston Oatvile; and one goods train only passed its signals after several stoppages, each of which meant a repetition of the musical clink-clink-clink which goods trucks make as they hit one another. A dog somewhere at the back had a fit of loneliness, and howled; cats told their nightly tale of love and hate. Coals fell out of distant grates; the woodwork creaked uncannily at intervals. But at no moment was there a step in the passage: nor was any hand laid on the door of the room opposite. They both felt cramped and overwatched when one o’clock sounded from the belfry of the old stables, and they were free to creep back to their beds. “I say,” whispered Reeves, “why not come into my room and have a whisky-and-soda before we turn in?” “Oh,” replied Gordon, “didn’t Carmichael tell you? We are not to go into your sitting-room on any account.” “The old brute!” said Mordaunt Reeves. “But I suppose he knows what he’s doing.” Chapter XII A Search with Piano Accompaniment If Carmichael let his colleagues in for a late sitting, at least he made amends for it himself by unwontedly early rising. Reeves found him fully dressed when, pyjamaed himself, he set out for his morning bath. “What on earth are you doing,” he asked, “wandering about at this hour?”