"Let's get this straight," he begged. "I fell off a forty-odd-foot roof on to flagstones? And all I've got are some bruises and five stitches in my head? How did that happen?"
"You owe your life to Providence. Remember that, Captain Drake, in your prayers tonight"
"Yes, but how did Providence operate?"
Lady Brayle's lips tightened.
"Also," she said, and looked away, "to an accident I believe your acquaintance, the unspeakable Merrivale, was somehow concerned in it"
"Old H.M.? What did he do?’
"You may or may not have observed," said Lady Brayle, "that outside this house, some distance above the front door, there is a very large awning coloured orange. This is usually, kept folded up on an iron frame."
"Wow!"
"I beg your pardon?"
Only too well Martin remembered that orange-coloured awning; and, yesterday, H.M. standing in the middle of the gravel path, his fists oh his hips and an expression of malevolence on his face, looking up at the awning above Martin's and Ruth Callice's heads.