A little way up the stairs, outlined against the tall arched window, stood Aunt Cicely. Just below her was Ricky, asking questions. They were oblivious to any newcomers.
"Really, Ricky. It is nothing at all I only wish to lie down." The voice floated, with whispering-gallery effect through the cool dim hall.
"But they said—"
" They said.' They always say." Seen closer at hand, in Aunt Cicely's faded prettiness there was some quality which was eerily familiar to Martin. Was it a faint resemblance to Jenny? Jenny thirty years older? "But there is something," she continued, "that you have got to learn. Very soon, I'm afraid. I have telephoned to Lady Brayle. Now don't detain me, please."
In her filmy Edwardian-looking dress, against the pallor of the arched window, she hurried upstairs. Ricky hesitated, irresolute, and then followed her. Ruth Callice almost impelled Martin to the left
They went through a high, square, green-painted room, on whose walls hung a collection of ancient fire-arms ranging from the match-lock to the Brown Bess. They emerged into a well-appointed library, of the same size and shape, with gilt cornice mouldings.
"Ah, my dear fellow!" said a familiar husky, powerful voice.
Stannard, in somewhat ungainly plus-fours, stood with his back to a white marble mantelpiece. On a round Regency table in front of him lay a large crackling document, once folded into many squares, now pressed open.
"Our hunt for man-eating tigers, in the psychical sense," he went on, "is almost ready. I have here—" he tapped the document with a pencil—"a plan of Pentecost Prison.. I’ve investigated it this afternoon. Come here, my dear fellow! Let me show you the condemned cell and the execution shed."
Martin braced himself. "Mr. Stannard, I can't go with you."