Mr. Doyle moved with dignity upstairs.
Guy, following him, looked back over his shoulder. “I think you’d better turn the library light out,” he said. “We don’t want any more unwelcome visitors. And turn all the other lights out as well, will you, Cynthia? I’ve been thinking that we may want an alibi later.”
Cynthia turned into the drawing-room to carry out this request; Dora made her way out into the garden to enter the library once more. She was an astute young woman, and she had recognised that a light turned out by somebody entering the library from the house instead of the garden might give the policeman material for thought upon the wrong lines.
Guy’s chance reference to further visitors proved to be not wide of the mark. As Dora was tap-tapping out into the garden again after extinguishing the light, a form loomed up out of the darkness in front of her.
“Hullo, Mrs. Nesbitt,” observed the form cheerfully. “Bit late to call, I know, but I saw a light as I was passing (seems to be out now) and it’s rather urgent, so I thought you wouldn’t mind. Oh, I—I beg your pardon. I thought it was Mrs. Nesbitt.”
If Dora had been nonplussed it was only for a moment. In rather less than a second and a half she had determined on her line of action. Drawing the chiffon scarf she was wearing across the lower part of her face, she clutched violently at the form’s arm. “Murder!” she exclaimed tensely. “There’s been murder done in there. No—don’t go in, you’ll only make matters worse. Go for the police—quick!”
The form (a thick, short form it was) staggered back. “M-Murder?” it echoed. “Good gracious, you don’t mean Mr. or Mrs. Nesbitt?”
“No!” Dora replied impatiently. “They’re out of the way. They’ve been got out of the way, if you must know. It’s nothing to do with them. It’s the Crown Prince of—no, I daren’t tell you. My own life hangs by a hair. Quick, I must go; I can’t keep them waiting any longer. The police—run for the police!”
“Th-th-them?” repeated the now thoroughly agitated form. “Good Heavens, do you mean the—the murderers?”
Dora laughed bitterly. “You can call them that, of course. They call themselves executioners. It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. But I mustn’t stay a moment longer. If he caught us we shouldn’t be alive another second!”