"No one at present, my lady."
"Then we'll go in there."
Alfred produced a key and opened the door. Bundle passed in. Alfred, troubled and sheepish, followed her. Bundle sat down and looked straight at the uncomfortable Alfred.
"I suppose you know," she said crisply, "that what you're doing here is dead against the law?"
Alfred shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
"It's true as we've been raided twice," he admitted. "But nothing compromising was found, owing to the neatness of Mr. Mosgorovsky's arrangements."
"I'm not talking of the gambling only," said Bundle. "There's more than that—probably a great deal more than you know. I'm going to ask you a direct question, Alfred, and I should like the truth, please. How much were you paid for leaving Chimneys?"
Alfred looked twice round the cornice as though seeking for inspirations, swallowed three or four times, and then took the inevitable course of a weak will opposed to a strong one.
"It was this way, your ladyship. Mr. Mosgorovsky, he come with a party to visit Chimneys on one of the show days. Mr. Tredwell, he was indisposed like—an ingrowing toe-nail as a matter of fact—so it fell to me to show the parties over. At the end of the tour, Mr. Mosgorovsky, he stays behind the rest, and after giving me something handsome, he falls into conversation."
"Yes," said Bundle encouragingly.