At his nephew’s suggestion, Olwen had proposed that the police of Guernsey should be communicated with that very day. But old Mr Bayre flatly forbade this, and the prohibition seemed so strange, considering that the attack upon him had been a murderous one, that it was no wonder the suspicions of the two young people concerning old Mr Bayre himself began to grow strong again.
Why, unless he feared the result of an investigation into his house and his affairs, should the old man object to such an obvious measure for his own protection?
He gave as a reason for his objection that he was loth to treat old servants with harshness, and he added that he was sure Vazon had no intention of killing him, although he admitted that they had had a quarrel.
But this reason appeared very like a lame excuse, since old Mr Bayre was by no means now, whatever he might have been once, the benevolent old philanthropist, brimming over with loving-kindness towards his fellow-creatures, which such leniency would have seemed to imply that he was.
The wind began to rise soon after dark, and Bayre felt the weird influence of the great shut-up house when he was left to himself in the night silence, in the bare salon with its polished floor and its white walls.
Old Mr Bayre had managed, after rejecting the proffered help of his nephew, to get upstairs to his bedroom with the help of the stronger of the two servants; he was nervous, Olwen said, and peered and listened as he went slowly upwards.
He too seemed to have suspicions of the baffled blackmailers, so Olwen thought.
Now that he was left alone, young Bayre found his thoughts revert again to the mystery about the mansion; he began to listen for footsteps along the corridors above, to wonder whether this night-watch would bring him any nearer the clue to the secret.
Creeping softly about the room, he soon fancied that he could hear another step as stealthy as his own in one of the adjoining apartments, and after some time he was almost sure that he could make out the sound of whispering voices.
Opening the door at the end of the room very carefully, he became aware that the whispering came from a room beyond that, and that the voices were those of two persons.