"Good God, Beaumaroy, are you keeping a lunatic in this house?" He might raise his voice as loud as he pleased now, it was drowned by that other.
"I'm not keeping him, he's keeping me. And, anyhow, his medical adviser tells me there is no reason to suppose that my old friend is not compos mentis."
"Irechester says that?"
"Mr. Saffron's medical attendant is Dr. Arkroyd."
As he spoke, the noise from above suddenly ceased. Since neither of the men in the parlour spoke, there ensued a minute of what seemed intense silence; it was such a change.
Then came a still small sound—a creaking of wood—from overhead.
"I think you'd better go, Naylor, if you don't mind. After a—a performance of that kind he generally comes and tells me about it. And he may be—I don't know at all for certain—annoyed to find you here."
Alec Naylor got up from the big chair, but it was not to take his departure.
"I want to see him, Beaumaroy," he said brusquely and rather authoritatively.
Beaumaroy raised his brows. "I won't take you to his room, or let you go there, if I can help it. But if he comes down—well, you can stay and see him. It may get me into a scrape, but that doesn't matter much."