Until this moment his own grace-of-God escape from death had swept away everything else.
"The alarm-bell," he said, "was ringing from Pentecost The alarm-bell from the condemned cell Stannard… What happened there?"
Lady Brayle regarded him coolly.
"You have had your orders," she informed him. "You must not excite yourself." And she went out and closed the door.
Martin stumbled over his slippers when he sprang forward. Then he stopped and put them on. Pain knifed across his forehead, the effect of opiates still lingered, and (to tell the truth) not many of his joints seemed to work well. But he had his wits with him.
Thank the Lord he had brought that suitcase across from the inn last night across the room stood a gigantic wardrobe, with a long mirror. As he reached out to open the door of the wardrobe, he saw his own face.
Wow! Though the bandage was small enough, he had not counted on the swelling and discolouration of the forehead, which made him resemble someone out of a horror-film. Never mind appearances; and somebody had given him a shave. Inside the wardrobe were clothes: clean, fresh clothes.
When Lady Brayle opened the door, it bad disclosed a modern bathroom. Martin brushed his teeth, doused and doused his face and head in water, and felt better. Physically, that is. While he dressed, automatically putting on his wrist-watch, the full implications of this business spread through his mind.
Whatever had happened to Sir George Fleet his own fall had been no accident Some person, man or woman, had lunged with a solid pair of bands and sent him over the edge to crush his skull on flagstones. Someone hated him that much. Why, for God's sake? And who?
It was nonsense. It couldn't be anybody he had met hereabouts. In imagination, their faces all smiled at him. And yet Stannard's 'spiritual evil,' his 'man-eating tiger’ of fancy, might be close. What made Martin Drake shiver was not so much the attempted murder as the consciousness of all that hatred directed against himself.