"Exactly," smiled Beaumaroy. "It is all quiet; I think I'll have a look."
The candle on the table had burnt out. He took another from the sideboard and lit it from the one which Mary still held.
"Like the poker?" she asked, with a flicker of a smile on her face.
"No, you come and help, if I cry out!" He could not repress a chuckle; Doctor Mary was interesting him extremely.
Lighted by his candle, he went into the Tower. She heard him moving about there, as she stood thoughtfully by the extinct fire, still with her candle in her hand.
Beaumaroy returned. "He's gone—or they've gone." He exhibited to her gaze two objects—a checked pocket-handkerchief and a tobacco pouch. "Number one found on the edge of the grave. Number two on the floor of the dais, just behind the canopy. If the same man had drawn them both out of the same pocket at the same time—wanting to blow the same nose, Doctor Mary—they'd have fallen at the same place, wouldn't they?"
"Wonderful, Holmes!" said Mary. "And now—shall we attend to Mr. Saffron?"
They carried out that office, the course of which they had originally prepared. Beaumaroy passed with his burden hard by the Sergeant, and Mary followed. In a quarter of an hour they came downstairs again, and Mary again led the way into the parlour. She went to the window, and drew the curtains aside a little way. The lights of the car were burning; the Captain's tall figure fell within their rays and was plainly visible, strolling up and down; the ambit of the rays did not, however, embrace the Tower window. The Captain paced and smoked, patient, content, gone back to his own happy memories and anticipations. Mary returned to the table and set her candle down on it.
"All right. I think we can keep him a little longer."
"I vote we do," said Beaumaroy. "I reckon he's scared the fellows away, and they won't come back so long as they see his lights."