I said, “Keep asking questions. That’s the best way to avoid answering them. Ask your stepbrother why they were calling on him at this hour of the night. Ask anybody anything, but don’t put your neck in a noose. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
I pushed her down the stairs. “Go on down and don’t let anyone know you’ve seen me. I’m going back to bed.”
I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I heard people talking downstairs, heard steps on the stairs, low voices in the corridor. Someone walked down the corridor to the door of my room, paused there, tense and listening. I didn’t know who it was. I hadn’t locked the door. There was just enough vague light in the room so I could make out the door. I waited for it to open.
It didn’t.
After a while it got daylight. Then, for the first time, I felt sleepy. I wanted to relax. My feet had been cold ever since I’d walked out into the corridor. Now they got warm, and a heavy drowsiness came over me.
The butler knocked on my door. It was time for me to go and give Henry C. Ashbury his physical culture lesson.
Down in the gymnasium Ashbury didn’t even take off his heavy woollen bathrobe. “Hear the commotion last night?” he asked.
“What commotion?”
“One of the men who’s been working for Robert’s company was killed.”