"I talked to you," said Masters with slow deadliness, "this afternoon. You said you knew nothing about what had happened last night. That'll tell against you, you know. Were you ever up before a magistrate?"
By degrees they got the story. Bennett, always with the twisted, despairing, and rather ludicrous figure of Rainger in his mind, wondered why he had not anticipated it. Psychologically, it was a!most inevitable with Rainger. He might even have anticipated the twisted and ludicrous sequel. Beryl Symonds had been told to light the fire and prepare Rainger's room when he arrived the afternoon before. He had seen her then; but he had done nothing but give her a certain jocose pinch ("which some gentlemen does, and some gentlemen doesn't"), and mutter arch incomprehensibilities as she left left the room. She had been All of a Flutter, really. And flattered. She had not seen him until late last night, at eleven o'clock, when she was going up to bed. The Master and his guests had been coming back from looking at King Charles's Room. Rainger was some little distance behind the rest, seeming "upset, and mad, and very funny." All of a sudden he stopped and looked at her, waiting till the others were out of sight.
Inevitable? Well, the idea had been that she was to come down to his room at two o'clock when the rest were asleep and he should tell her all about Hollywood. He said that he had a bottle of gin. He said to hell with everything. And she was so much All of a Flutter with the romantic adventure, "just like the films he makes, and think of me in them," that she had said maybe. She went upstairs with the flutter growing; she whispered it to Stella, who had the same room with her, and Stella had a fit and said, "Holy Mother, don't be a daft silly; suppose the master sees you?"
"Never mind that," said Masters. "Did you come down at two o'clock?
But both he and Bennett were beginning to realize the meaning of Rainger's last satiric snarl at Kate Bohun when he went upstairs at half-past one. Beryl cried out, and kept repeating over and over, that all she had meant was to come down and look at him. She seemed to derive strength from this notion of coming down for a last look, and reconnoitering, and making up her mind when she saw him then..
"But when I did go down, I knew I oughtn't to stay the minute I got inside the door. Because Mr. Rainger was a-drinking already, and walking about, and muttering things to himself. Then he turned round and saw me. He started to laugh. For a minute when I saw his face I was so clear awful frightened I couldn't move; that's when I knew it was wrong to come down… "
"Yes, yes; never mind that. What did you do?"
"'E started over after me, sir. And then I saw the key was in the outside of the door, so I got out and pulled the door shut and turned the key in the lock."
Masters looked at Bennett, and slowly rubbed his hand across his forehead.
"But you opened it again, I daresay?" he demanded.