"I'm not prepared to answer that question without due warning," Charles said cautiously. "All I know about him at present is that he's a rather mysterious fellow who holds distinctly fishy conversations with a palpable old lag, and who - apparently - knows how to get round persons of your sex."
"That's all rot," Margaret said without hesitation. "There's nothing in the least mysterious about him, and I expect if you'd heard more of it you'd have found that the fishy conversation was quite innocent really. You know how you can say things that sound odd in themselves, and yet don't mean anything."
"I hotly resent this reflection upon my conversation," Charles said.
"You've got to remember too, Peg, that when we heard that groan before, we found Strange close up to the house, and on the same side as the secret entrance," Peter interposed. "I don't say that that proves anything, but it ought to be borne in mind. I certainly think that Mr. Michael Strange's proceedings want explaining."
"I think it's utterly absurd!" Margaret said. "Why, you might as well suspect Mr. Titmarsh!" Having delivered herself of which scornful utterance, she rose, and announced her intention of going back to bed.
To be on the safe side, Charles and Peter spent the following morning in sealing up the hidden entrance. An account of the night's happenings did much to reconcile Celia to her enforced stay at the Priory. Human beings, she said, she wasn't in the least afraid of.
"I only hope," said Mrs. Bosanquet pessimistically, "that we are not all murdered in our beds."
Both she and Celia were agreed that the latest development made the calling in of police aid imperative. The men were still loth to do this, but they had to admit that Celia had reason on her side.
"There's no longer any question of being laughed at," she argued. "Someone broke into this house last night, and it's for the police to take the matter in hand. It's all very well for you two to fancy yourselves in the role of amateur detectives, but I should feel a lot easier in my mind if some real detectives got going."
"How can you?" said Charles unctuously. "When you lost your diamond brooch, who found it?"