Michael turned away.
“It’s fairly clear he doesn’t like my company,” he reflected, as he stepped across and picked up his coil of rope from the ground. “But I’ve known politer ways of showing it, I must say.”
With a final glance at the prostrate figure of Maurice, he walked on and took the road back to Ravensthorpe. But as he went a vision of Maurice’s face kept passing before his mind’s eye.
“There’s something damned far wrong with that beggar, whether it’s an evil conscience or cramp in the tummy. It might be either of them, by the look of him. He didn’t seem to want any assistance from me. That looks more like the evil conscience theory.”
He dismissed this with a laugh; but gradually he grew troubled.
“There he was, in white—same as the burglar. He’s in a bit of a bate at being discovered, that’s clear enough. He didn’t half like it, to judge by his chat.”
A discomforting hypothesis began to frame itself in his mind despite his efforts to stifle it.
“He’s the fellow, if there is one, who would know all these secret passages about here. Suppose there really is one leading out of that cave. He could have swarmed down the rope, got into the cave, sneaked up the subterranean passage, and got behind us that way.”
A fresh fact fitted suddenly in.
“And of course the other end of the passage may be in that Fairy House! That would explain his being there. He’d be waiting to see us off the premises before he could venture out in his white costume.”