Gregory watched him with eager interest, conscious of a surging resurrection of certain vague, far-fetched suspicions.
In the background Henry Ballaston, though his face showed no sign of emotion, also watched. It was his movement which dispelled those few seconds of paralysed silence. His voice, always a pleasant one notwithstanding its formal note, was softer and lower even than usual, but there was a curious glint in his cold blue eyes.
“You find our miniature Buddhas interesting, Mr. Johnson?” he asked.
The tenant of the Great House did not at first appear to hear him. His eyes were fixed almost to rigidity.
“Both here!” he muttered. “Both!”
The effect of his exclamation was disconcerting. His three companions closed in a little upon him. There was something menacing about their silence.
“Both?” Sir Bertram repeated at last, with the air of a puzzled man.
Mr. Johnson appeared to awake from his lethargy.
“Say, it seems to me,” he remarked, lapsing into his first Americanism, “that those two ought to be worth a great sum of money. I’ve seen photographs of them when I was travelling in the East. They were stolen from a temple, somewhere in China, I think it was. Miniature Buddhas, aren’t they?”
“Stolen!” Sir Bertram murmured.