The draft from the open casement was causing the fire to belch puffs of smoke into the room. Nicky said, “It’s all very well of you to have opened the window, but she’s more likely to be smothered by this smoke than to derive the least benefit from such a devilish draft!”
“Open the window! You cannot suppose me to have been so imprudent!” exclaimed Francis. “Good God, I had not noticed it! Pray shut it this instant, dear boy! Do you wish me to die of an inflammation on the lung?”
Nicky pulled it to, but turned to stare in surprise. “Did you not throw it open? Who can have done so, then? She would not be sitting here with that wind blowing into the room! And how came that cushion to be on the floor?”
The smell of burned feathers began to mingle with the smoke. Miss Beccles looked up to say, “No, no, she would not have sat with the window open on such a day as this! I know it was not so when I came into this room only half an hour ago! Oh, what can have happened? Is it possible someone has been here and escaped by that way?”
“Not with Bouncer in the house!” Nicky averred.
“Oh, but the naughty doggie has gone off hunting! I should never have left her, but, to be sure, I never supposed—and in broad daylight, too!”
“Are you telling me,” said Francis, in a failing voice, “that some desperate person has been able to enter this house without let or hindrance?”
“They could have done so, for the side door is unlocked,” Nicky said shortly. “I came in through it myself. But that any should have dared—” He broke off, for a bell was clanging in the distance.
“That’s the front door, that is,” Barrow said, thrusting the decanter of brandy he was holding into his wife’s hand and going off to answer it.
“Crawley,” said Francis faintly, “if Miss Beccles is not using my vinaigrette, pray bring it back to me! Thank you—and perhaps a little of that brandy. Yes, that is enough. Now go and secure any door which you find open! I cannot understand how anyone could be so careless, for how can one tell what evil characters may be in the neighborhood only awaiting their chance to rob the house? I dare say there may be gypsies in the vicinity, and I have the greatest horror of gypsies! I cannot answer for the consequences if there is any possibility of the house’s being broken into again, for already I have the gravest fear that I may be going to have one of my spasms. Perhaps it would be as well if you, dear Nicholas, were to take the precaution of searching the grounds. I cannot be easy until I know that no one is lurking in those dreadfully overgrown bushes, as I feel might so well be the case.”