The bartender shook his head.
“No one understands very much about this house, sir,” he said, “except that it offers the most wonderful entertainment in Europe. That is for the guests to find out, though. We servants have to attend to our duties. Will you let me mix you another drink, sir?”
“No, thanks,” Francis answered. “The last was too good to spoil. But you haven't answered my question, Jimmy. What did you mean when you asked if we were going down?”
Jimmy's face had become wooden.
“I meant nothing, sir,” he said. “Sorry I spoke.”
The two men turned away. They recognised many acquaintances in the supper-room, and in the long gallery beyond, where many couples were dancing now to the music of a wonderful orchestra. By slow stages they made their way back to the winter-garden, where Lady Cynthia and Margaret were still lost in admiration of their surroundings. They all walked the whole length of the place. Beyond, down a flight of stone steps, was a short, paved way to the river. A large electric launch was moored at the quay. The grounds outside were dimly illuminated with cunningly-hidden electric lights shining through purple-coloured globes into the cloudy darkness. In the background, enveloping the whole of the house and reaching to the river on either side, the great wall loomed up, unlit, menacing almost in its suggestions. A couple of loiterers stood within a few yards of them, looking at the launch.
“There she is, ready for her errand, whatever it may be,” one said to the other curiously. “We couldn't play the stowaway, I suppose, could we?”
“Dicky Bell did that once,” the other answered. “Sir Timothy has only one way with intruders. He was thrown into the river and jolly nearly drowned.”
The two men passed out of hearing.
“I wonder what part the launch plays in the night's entertainment,” Wilmore observed.