“Mr. Knebworth told you, I presume?” said Michael with a smile.
“He told me,” agreed the other gravely. “I went in really to seek you, having an intuition that you had some more important position in life than what I had first imagined. I confess I thought at first that you were one of those idle young men who have nothing to do but to amuse themselves. It was a great gratification to me to learn that I was mistaken. It is all the more gratifying”—(Michael smiled inwardly at the verbosity of age)—“because I need advice on a point of law, which I imagine my lawyer would not offer to me. My position is a very peculiar one, in some ways embarrassing. I am a man who shrinks from the eye of the public and am averse from vulgar intermeddling in other people’s affairs.”
What had he to tell, Michael wondered—this old man, with his habit of nocturnal strolls, might have been a witness to something that had not yet come out.
They stopped at the Dower House, and the old man got out and opened the gate, not closing it until Michael had passed through. Instead of going direct to his sitting-room, he went upstairs, beckoning Michael to come after, and stopped before the room which had been occupied by Adele on the night of her terrible experience.
“I wish you to see these people,” said Mr. Longvale earnestly, “and tell me whether I am acting in accordance with the law.”
He opened the door, and Mike saw that there were now two beds in the room. On one, heavily bandaged and apparently unconscious, was the brown-faced man; on the other, sleeping, was the woman Michael had seen in the tower! She, too, was badly wounded: her arm was bandaged and strapped into position.
Michael drew a long breath.
“That is a mystery solved, anyway,” he said. “Where did you find these people?”
At the sound of his voice the woman opened her eyes and frowned at him fearfully, then looked across to the man.
“You have been wounded?” said Michael in Dutch, but apparently her education had been neglected in respect of European languages, for she made no reply.