H.M. had somehow foreseen this. He must get to HM. And the old man, Lady Brayle had said, was downstairs now.
Trying to find the position of his own bedroom, Martin threw open the window-curtains on windows wide up in the breath of a perfect summer night deepening from dimness into dark. Sunday would be early closing for the Dragon; across the road he could see the last customers being turned out against a background of lighted door and small-paned lighted windows.
His bedroom was at the north-east corner front Hence—
Martin went through the bathroom, obviously an addition making two rooms smaller. The room beyond was dark. Groping across it he felt his knees begin to shake and the sensation mat someone was following, just behind, to push him over an edge.
"Steady!" Martin said. But you can't argue with feelings like that
Groping wildly, he bumped into a desk and after a moment found the chain of a desk-lamp. When the light sprang up, healing to nerves, he sat back heavily in the desk's swivel-chair.
And Martin waited to get his breath back.
He was in Sir George Fleet's study, no doubt of it That was where Stannard had sat with his host before Fleet hurried up to the roof, just as Martin had heard Stannard speak of it
Along the west wall were the gun-racks, behind folding glass doors. A ledge of silver cups, kept bright ran round the other walls. Cricket-bats, once the whitest of white ash and now brown-grey from use and age, were inscribed in red with the dates when George Fleet had made a century. Between the windows, where the desk stood sideways, hung a picture of a man who must be Fleet himself. Aunt Cicely — old ghosts, old and deep loves;—must have put it there.
Stem kind of bloke, Martin thought, thin military-looking face, ridged hair parted in the middle, cropped moustache. Then Martin glanced down at the desk-blotter, and in a few seconds began to grin.'