"I don't know, but after all the business about the ghost which you spoke of some time ago, I was afraid finding a corpse - must have been a bit of a shock, eh? Glad I didn't stumble on it - might rather put the lid on it."
"A new theory," Peter remarked. "The Priory ghost killed Duval. You'll be making my sister nervous, if you're not careful, sir."
"Well, I wouldn't do that for the world," said the Colonel gallantly, and began at once to talk of something else.
But it seemed as though no conversation could for long steer clear of the problems besetting the owners of ihc Priory. The Colonel's talk led to a description of a round of golf he had played the day before, and since his partner had been Michael Strange it was not surprising that he began to talk about him. "Seems a nice chap," he said. "How do you get on with him?"
"We hardly know him," Celia replied.
"He's played golf with me once or twice," the Colonel said. "Retiring sort of fellow, but I always feel sorry for people taking a holiday by themselves. Dull work, what? What's his job by the way? Haven't liked to ask him outright since he seemed so uncommunicative. Wondered whether, like so many poor fellows since the war, he's had to take up some rotten thing like selling from house to house. Distressing, the number of sahibs who are doing jobs they wouldn't have touched in 1914."
"I'm afraid we can't tell you anything about him," Celia said. "We've really only met him to talk to once, and that was at your party." She looked round. "Will anyone have any more tea? No? Then what about another set?"
The next day passed quietly enough, and was only marred, Charles said, by the prospect of having to go to dinner with the Pennythornes. He spoke bitterly on the subject of people who shirked their clear duty, but his words made not the slightest impression on either Peter or Margaret.
"We shall be with you in spirit," Peter told him, but so far from consoling Charles this assurance provoked him to embark on a denunciation of his brother-in-law's character, which was only stopped by Celia hustling him upstairs to change into his dress clothes.
Peter and Margaret enjoyed a tete-a-tete meal, and sat down afterwards in the library to play piquet together. After three hard-fought rubbers they gave it up, and to Margaret's dismay Peter, instead of retiring as he usually did, into a book, showed a disposition to talk. She had a shrewd idea whither his conversation would lead, and she was not mistaken. In a very short time Peter, busy with the filling of a pipe, tackled her bluntly. "I say, Sis, mind if I ask you a question?"