Sir Clinton lifted his glasses and examined the place in his turn.
“I can see him moving about in the room,” the Inspector reported excitedly. “Now he’s going over towards the safe. Can you see him, sir?”
“Fairly well. What do you make of him?”
The Inspector studied his quarry intently for a while.
“That’s the otophone, isn’t it, sir? I can’t see his face; it seems as if he’d blackened it. . . . No, he’s wearing a big mask. It looks like . . .”
His voice rose sharply.
“It’s Marden! I recognize that water-proof of his; I could swear to it anywhere.”
“That’s quite correct, Inspector. Now I think we’ll get down from this tree as quick as we can and I’ll blow my whistle. That ought to startle him. And I’ve arranged for that to be the signal for a considerable amount of noise in the house, which ought to give the effect we want.”
He slipped lightly down the branches, waited for the slower-moving Inspector, and then blew a single shrill blast on his whistle.
“That’s roused them,” he said, with satisfaction, as some lights flashed up in windows on the front of Ravensthorpe. “I guess that amount of stir about the place will flush our friend without any trouble.”