“You will answer it as I have directed,” Bernadine insisted. “Only remember this—if you speak a single ill-advised word, the end will be as I have said.”
Peter picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.
“Who is there?” he asked.
It was Violet whose voice he heard. He listened for a moment to her anxious flood of questions.
“There is not the slightest cause to be alarmed, dear,” he said. “Yes, I am down at the High House, near St. Mary’s. Bernadine is here. It seems that those reports of his death were absolutely unfounded.... Danger? Unprotected? Why, my dear Violet, you know how careful I always am. Simply because Bernadine used once to live here, and because the Baroness was his friend, I spoke to Sir John Dory over the telephone before we left, and an escort of half-a-dozen police followed us. They are about the place now, I have no doubt, but their presence is quite unnecessary. I shall be home before long, dear.... Yes, perhaps it would be as well to send the car down. Any one will direct him to the house—the High House, St. Mary’s, remember. Good-by!”
Peter replaced the receiver and turned slowly round. Bernadine was smiling.
“You did well to reassure your wife, even though it was a pack of lies you told her,” he remarked.
Peter shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
“My dear Bernadine,” he said, “up till now I have tried to take you seriously. You are really passing the limit. I must positively ask you to reflect a little. Do men who live the life that you and I live, trust any one? Am I—is the Marquis de Sogrange here—after a lifetime of experience, likely to leave the safety of our homes in company with a lady of whom we knew nothing except that she was your companion, without precautions? I do you the justice to believe you a person of commonsense. I know that we are as safe in this house as we should be in our own. War cannot be made in this fashion in an over-policed country like England.”
“Do not be too sure,” Bernadine replied. “There are secrets about this house which have not yet been disclosed to you. There are means, my dear Baron, of transporting you into a world where you are likely to do much less harm than here, means ready at hand, and which would leave no more trace behind than those crumbling ashes can tell of the coal mine from which they came.”