She glanced up at him shrewdly. "Not pleased, my dear?"
"Not so very," he admitted.
"Annoying," she said, "losing things. I once lost my engagement ring. It turned up. Better not say where, perhaps."
He took his pipe out of his mouth. "You're too acute, Aunt. I shall go and play golf with Anthony."
"I prefer that you should not mention this disagreeable occurrence to Fountain," said Sir Humphrey stiffly. "I myself intend to ignore it."
"I should," said Amberley. "It would surprise me very much if he knows anything about it."
He arrived at the manor to find Corkran practising approach-shots on the lawn. Corkran hailed him with enthusiasm. It appeared that Amberley was just the man he wanted to see. He announced that the manor had just about got his goat. Joan was right: there was something about the darned place that made everyone behave in an odd manner. He enumerated the various vagaries, starting with his prospective relative's moodiness, and passing on by way of the murder of Dawson to the night prowlings of Collins and the extraordinary conduct of Baker. He wanted to know what Amberley made of a butler who started to dust the library at ten o'clock at night.
"Damn it, butlers don't dust!" he said. "Have you ever seen one at it?"
"Dusting the library?" repeated Amberley.
"Absolutely. Those people from the grange - woman with a face like the back of a cab, and spouse - were here to dinner and we played bridge. I went to fetch my cigarette case, which I'd left in the library, and I'm dashed if that Baker fellow wasn't there dusting the books. Well, I mean to say! Told me he didn't like to see them so dusty and understood Fountain didn't allow the skivvies to touch 'em. A whole lot of eyewash about not having time - no, leisure - to do it in the daytime. Too jolly fishy by half. What do you think?"