'What a horrid smell!' said Lesley, as Jack Raymond took a step inside and held up the match.
'Begging your parding, miss,' put in Jân-Ali-shân, 'it's a dead rat, that's w'ot it is--"once known, loved for ever, oh! my darling."'
'Horrid!' echoed Jack Raymond, in rather an odd tone of voice. 'Stand back, and let me close the door; there's no use in any one running the gauntlet of it.'
He had acted on the words before any one could raise an objection, and they could only hear his voice inarticulately from within.
'He's got the ghost!' cried Jerry triumphantly. 'I knew'd he was here. I see'd him all along.'
'Seems a peaceable sort, anyhow,' remarked Jân-Ali-shân, as something like a faint whimper filtered through the closed door.
It was lighter now. The sky had paled. The shadows were turning grey.
That was perhaps why Jack Raymond's face showed so pale, and grey, and stern above his political uniform, as he came out, closed the door behind him, and, flinging down the lighted match he carried, trod it under foot.
'It s only a poor devil of a stowaway,' he said calmly. 'Been living here, I expect, some days. Ellison or Budlu, you'd better go and call the police. Stay, I'll give you a note. And Miss Drummond, it is high time that young ghost-hunter was out of the dew--and you also.'
Lesley looked at him with a new swiftness and light in her eyes. 'Dew!' she echoed, 'there is no dew! I'm not a bit wet--feel that!' She walked deliberately up to where he stood, his back still against the door, and catching her long green sleeve in her hand, held it out.