He heard the door of the next room open, and the voices proceeded along the passage. Then the handle of his own door turned. He had just time to slip behind the curtains before somebody entered. It was a woman, and at the sound of her voice he nearly jumped. She was speaking to somebody in the passage.
“He has gone to his room,” she said. “Have your breakfast. He will want you to go into Monte Carlo this morning.”
“By daylight?” said the person to whom she spoke, and again Timothy recognised the voice.
“He would not know you with those spectacles. Besides, you had a moustache when you saw him before.”
The man in the passage mumbled something, and Timothy heard the door of the room close. There was a desk, he had noticed, against the blank wall of the room, and it was to this she made her way. He heard the scratching of her pen on paper, then he walked from his place of concealment. Her back was to him and she did not hear him until his shadow fell across the table. Then, with a little cry, she leapt up.
“Good morning, Lady Maxell,” said Timothy.
CHAPTER XXI
SADIE MAXELL was as white as the paper on which she had been writing.
“How did you get in here?”
Timothy did not answer. He stepped round so that he was between the woman and the door.