There was ample opportunity for concealment. Possibly Bhag had hidden there most of the time, sleeping off the effects of his labour and his wounds; for Michael had seen something that nobody else had noticed—the gashed skin, and the ear that had been slashed in half.
He came down the ladder again and rejoined Knebworth.
“I think that finishes our work for to-day,” said Jack dubiously. “I smell hysteria, and it will be a long time before I can get the girls to come up for a night picture.”
Michael drove the director back in his car, and all the way home he was considering this strange appearance of the ape. Somebody had handcuffed Bhag: he ought to have guessed that when he saw the torn link. No human being could have broken those apart. And Bhag had escaped—from whom? How? And why had he not returned to Griff Towers and to his master?
When he had dropped the director at the studio he went straight on to Gregory’s house, and found the baronet playing clock-golf on a strip of lawn that ran by the side of the house. The man was still heavily bandaged, but he was making good recovery.
“Yes, Bhag is back. He returned half an hour ago. Where he has been, heaven knows! I’ve often wished that chap could talk, but I’ve never wished it so much as I do at this moment. Somebody had put irons on him: I’ve just taken them off.”
“Can I see them?”
“You knew it, did you?”
“I saw him. He came out of the old tower on the hill.” Michael pointed; from where they stood, the tower was in sight.
“Is that so? And what the devil was he doing there?”