Then he caught sight of Miss Blow, who was crossing the gravel sweep.
“Go back,” he said; “go back at once. This is no place for ladies.”
“I won’t go back,” said Miss Blow. “If I did you’d not enter the house at all. You would come back in ten minutes and say you had searched it and that there was nobody inside.”
“My dear Miss Blow,” said Lord Manton, “Mr. Goddard may perhaps deserve that, but surely I don’t. Be just. Give me credit for common honesty.”
“I’m sorry I can’t do that,” said Miss Blow.
“You might,” said Lord Manton. “I gave you tea yesterday.”
“You can come with us if you like,” said Mr. Goddard; “but how do you propose to get in? The door is locked.”
“The top of that is open,” said Miss Blow, pointing with her finger to the window at the left side of the door, “so I suppose the bottom can be pushed up.”
Mr. Goddard felt like a burglar, which is an unpleasant sensation for a police officer, but one which he was getting gradually accustomed to. He had experienced it when he hid in the stable of Jimmy O’Loughlin’s hotel and when he entered his own house by way of the back garden. He had experienced it when he drove out of Ballymoy in the early morning and when he tried to escape from Lord Manton’s library. He had experienced it again when he concealed himself in the Clonmore post-office. He opened the window and climbed in. Miss Blow followed him. Lord Manton, moving rather stiffly, for he was not used to climbing, followed her. They stood together in the dining-room.
“Dear me,” said Lord Manton, “what a very remarkable taste Mr. Red has in wall decoration! Yellow dragons on a crimson ground! Did you ever see anything like that before, Miss Blow?”