“Well, go and tell the servants not to talk, Kitteridge,” said Peggie. “My uncle, no doubt, had reasons for going out again. Have you said anything to Mr. Tertius?”
“Mr. Tertius isn’t down yet, miss,” answered the butler.
He left the room, followed by the coachman, and Peggie turned to Selwood. “What do you think?” she asked, with a slight show of anxiety. “You don’t know of any reason for this, do you?”
“None,” replied Selwood. “And as to what I think, I don’t know sufficient about Mr. Herapath’s habits to be able to judge.”
“He never did anything like this before,” she remarked. “I know that he sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and comes down here, but I never knew him to go out. If he’d been setting off on a sudden journey he’d surely have let me know. Perhaps——”
She paused suddenly, seeing Selwood lift his eyes from the papers strewn about the desk to the door. She, too, turned in the same direction.
A man had come quietly into the room—a slightly-built, little man, grey-bearded, delicate-looking, whose eyes were obscured by a pair of dark-tinted spectacles. He moved gently and with an air of habitual shyness, and Selwood, who was naturally observant, saw that his lips and his hands were trembling slightly as he came towards them.
“Mr. Tertius,” said Peggie, “do you know anything about Uncle Jacob? He came in during the night—one o’clock—and now he’s disappeared. Did he say anything to you about going away early this morning?”
Mr. Tertius shook his head.
“No—no—nothing!” he answered. “Disappeared! Is it certain he came in?”