This, it occurred to him, was true. It checked him in mid-flight while Ruth smiled.
"Oh, Martin!" Her tone softened. "We've been such good —’’ the trailing of the voice implied 'friends.' She put out her hand, and he took it "Now let's go in and see John Stannasd!"
"Where is he?"
Ruth nodded to wards the second two of the four windows to the left of the front door.
"In the library. Cicely, I'm sorry to say, hasn’t been very well You may not meet her yet",
"Tell me, Ruth. Do you know anything about what happened here nearly twenty years ago?"
"Yes. Almost everything."
With a common impulse they glanced over their shoulders. In the middle of the gravel path, down towards the gate, stood Sir Henry Merrivale. But he did not see them. H.M.'s fists were on his hips, his big bald head raised; and he was glaring with malignancy at something which appeared to be just over their heads.
Martin, looking up, could see mi thing except the white-painted iron frame, crossing near the tops of the Corinthian columns, and folding flat a large old-fashioned awning, coloured orange. It could be let down to shade a long space before the front door. Then Ruth hurried him into the cool, sot to say chilly, front hall. But her hand suddenly fell on his arm, warning him to say nothing as they saw what was ahead.
Fleet House had been built in the very early nineteenth century, in that pseudo-Greek classicism which began with the French Revolution and was continued by Bonaparte. The wide, dim hall had at its far end an arched window. A staircase had been built against that wall, sideways as Martin and Ruth faced it