“Tennis shoes? That’s right. Now, Inspector, I want you to understand clearly that silence is absolutely essential when we get to work. We’ll need to take a leaf out of the book of the ‘Pirates of Penzance’:
With cat-like tread
Upon our prey we steal.
That’s our model, if you please. The car’s outside. We’ll go at once.”
As preparations for an important raid, these remarks seemed to Armadale hardly adequate; but as Sir Clinton showed no desire to amplify them, the Inspector was left to puzzle over the immediate future without assistance. The hint about the otophone had roused his curiosity.
“Foss’s hearing was quite normal,” he said to himself, turning the evidence over in his mind. “He heard that conversation in the winter-garden quite clearly enough. So quite evidently one couldn’t call him deaf. And yet he was dragging an otophone about with him. I don’t see it.”
The Chief Constable pulled up the car in the avenue at a considerable distance from the house.
“Change here for Ravensthorpe,” he explained, opening the door beside him. “I can’t take the motor nearer for fear of the engine’s noise giving us away.”
He glanced at the illuminated clock on the dashboard.
“We’re in nice time,” he commented. “Come along, Inspector; and the less said the better.”
They reached the door of Ravensthorpe exactly at one o’clock. Cecil was waiting for them on the threshold.