At that moment the door of Sir Humphrey's room was wrenched open and Sir Humphrey hurried out. "Who's there?" he demanded and switched on the light at the top of the stairs.
Amberley said something under his breath and reached the hall in a couple of bounds. He was too late; when he flashed his torch round the drawing room it was empty. The French window was swinging wide, and the curtain bellied into the room in the draught. Amberley tore it aside and looked out. The moonlight flooded the garden, but there were patches of shadow cast by the trees. No one was in sight, the torch-beam revealed no lurking form. Whoever had broken into the house was by now well on his way to the road, and to follow would be a futile task.
Mr. Amberley went back into the drawing room and inspected the window. Two small panes of glass had been neatly cut out, enabling the burglar to unbolt the window, top and bottom.
Sir Humphrey's voice was upraised. "What the devil are you up to, Frank?" it demanded wrathfully. "Are we never to have a night in peace?"
Amberley strolled back to the hall. "Just come down here, Uncle," he said.
"I've no wish to do anything of the kind! What are you playing at?"
"You've had a visitor," said Amberley, and wandered back to the drawing room and stood in the doorway surveying the chaos there.
Sir Humphrey joined him. "It wasn't you? do you mean to say… God bless my soul!"
The ejaculation was provoked by the sight that met his eyes. To a tidy man it was certainly startling. Someone would seem to have been frenziedly searching for something. The room was turned upside down; cushions, books, papers were scattered higgledy-piggledy over the floor. The drawers of Lady Matthews' bureau were all open and the contents thrown out. In the tiled fireplace the broken pieces of a large vase added to the litter. Obviously the intruder had accidentally knocked it over, and it was the noise of the smash that had awakened the household.
The window next caught Sir Humphrey's dazed eye. He repeated rather feebly: "God bless my soul!" and stared at Amberley.