“You don’t know everything,” said Joan, in defence of her brother.
“I know a good deal, Joan,” Sir Clinton retorted in a decisive tone. “Perhaps I know more than you think about this business.”
In a few minutes the keeper knocked at the door.
“Well?” demanded Sir Clinton, opening it.
“I can’t find Mr. Polegate anywhere, sir,” Mold reported. “No one’s seen him; and he’s not in the house.”
“He was here to-night,” Joan declared. “I recognized him when I was dancing with him. You can’t mistake that shock of hair; and of course his voice gave him away when he spoke.”
Sir Clinton did not seem perturbed.
“Bring Mr. Cecil, Mold,” he ordered, and locked the door again as the keeper went off on his fresh errand.
This task Mold completed in a very short time. Sir Clinton opened at his knock and Cecil Chacewater came into the museum. He was dressed as a Swiss admiral and behind him came Una Rainhill in the costume of Cleopatra.
Sir Clinton wasted no time in preliminaries.