“The girls are sitting up, waiting for us,” Cecil explained. “They said they’d have coffee ready when we came back.”
“The deuce they did!”
Sir Clinton was obviously put out.
“I’d been counting on their going back to bed again. Then we could have got Marden’s body away quietly—if he’s been murdered, as I think he has. There’s no use upsetting people if you can avoid it. Ravensthorpe’s had its fill of sensations lately and there’s no need to add another to-night.”
He reflected as he walked on, and at last he seemed to hit on an expedient to suit the circumstances.
“The bottom’s out of this case now,” he said, at last. “There’ll be no trial; so there’s no need for any more secrecy, so far as I can see. I’ll be giving nothing away that I shouldn’t, at this stage of the game.”
He threw away the end of his cigarette and looked up at the bulk of Ravensthorpe before them. Here and there on the dark front the yellow oblong of a window shone out in the night.
“Suppose I spin them a yarn,” Sir Clinton went on. “I can keep them up until dawn with it. After that, they’ll sleep sound enough; and while they’re asleep, we’ll get Marden’s body away in peace and comfort. It’ll spare them the shock of finding another corpse on the premises; and that’s always something gained.”
When they reached Ravensthorpe, Sir Clinton turned to Cecil.
“You’d better go and close the safe in the museum. No use leaving things like that open any longer than’s necessary. I must go up to Marden’s room now. I’ll be back again in a minute or two.”