"He says he doesn't know. A demon," said Lady Kay.
"Ask when it happened."
"It was after he had taken the presents from the tree," translated Lady Kay again. "He was struck, dragged down the back stairs, gagged, and left in the antiquity-room. He has only just now been able to free himself."
"How could he act the clown, then?" pursued Peter.
"He says he hasn't been a clown or seen a clown. Oh, Peter, it was some one else disguised! Who could it have been?" cried Miss Senter, running away as if to fly up the staircase, and then in her terror running back again.
The cook's eyes had now opened. "He says see what is stoled," said Mr. Pelham, administering more brandy. Mr. Pelham was seated, tailor fashion, on the pavement, his feet in their arctics under him.
"Giorgio knows something about it, too," said Peter. "Ask him, Barly."
But Miss Senter was incapable of speaking; she had hidden her face on Lady Kay's shoulder, shuddering. The clown with whom she had talked, who had danced all the evening with the children, was an assassin! A strange and savage murderer!
"I'll do it," said the Englishman. And bending over Giorgio, he asked, in correct, stiff Italian: "Do you know who hurt you?"
"A tall, dark man. I never saw him before," answered the cook, or rather his lips formed those words. "He stabbed me after he had struck down Ercole."