“I said that so I thought at the time,” replied the Earl gently. “But if chance had not intervened, in the person of Miss Morville, not only should I have been despatched, but I think you would have contrived to supply evidence against Martin. Did you not do so once before?”
“When?” demanded Martin sharply.
Theo uttered a bark of laughter. “You may well ask!”
“On the night of the storm,” said Gervase, “when I am very sure that you entered my room by way of the secret stair, and dropped one of Martin’s handkerchiefs beside my bed.”
“Why — why — that night?” Martin exclaimed. “The night I went to Cheringham? I remember that you gave me back a handkerchief! You said I had dropped it. I thought you meant I had done so on the gallery!”
The Earl shook his head. “I found it in my room. I think you meant only to leave it if you succeeded in accomplishing your purpose, Theo. Perhaps you were startled by the slamming of the door which must have roused me. Was that it? Or was it my awakening that alarmed you?”
“Really, Gervase, this goes beyond the line of what is amusing! What possible grounds can you have for assuming that because you fancied you heard someone in your room, and later found a handkerchief of Martin’s by your bed, it must have been I who had been there? It is nothing but a wild story imagined by you to lend colour to the rest of your absurd suspicions!”
“Not quite,” answered Gervase. “I have an excellent memory, Theo. I recall very vividly what passed between us on the following day. How was it that, although you had warned me to beware of Martin, you did not, when I told you that I believed him to have been in my room that night, warn me that there was a way into the room of which I knew nothing?”
There was a moment’s silence before Theo retorted: “Good God, how should I have guessed that you were ignorant of it? That old stair! I never even thought of it!”
“That won’t fadge!” Martin interrupted. “If Gervase told you someone had entered his room, you must have thought of it!”