"No," said Malcolm Sage, putting a detaining hand upon his arm. "If you want to demonstrate your agility, try the other. There are marks on this I want to preserve."
"Right-o," cried Glanedale with a laugh, and a moment later he was shinning up the further pipe with the agility of a South Sea islander after coker-nuts.
Malcolm Sage walked towards the pipe, glanced at it, and then at the footprints beneath.
"You were quite right," he remarked casually. Then a moment later he enquired:
"Do you usually sit up late?"
"We're not exactly early birds," Glanedale replied a little irrelevantly. "The Mater plays a lot of bridge, you know," he added.
"And that keeps you out of bed?"
"Yes and no," was the reply. "I can't afford to play with the
Mater's crowd; but I have to hang about until after they've gone.
The governor hates it. You see," he added confidentially, "when a
man's had to make his money, he knows the value of it."
"True," said Malcolm Sage, but from the look in his eyes his thoughts seemed elsewhere.
"By the way, what time was it that you had a shower here last night?"