It was a simple word of little significance, but the voice in which it was said filled me with a very unpleasant sensation. The man spoke in such a familiar, confidential way that I suddenly felt I could have shot him cheerfully. For the instant I forgot the problem of the other voice I had heard.
"Mr Belke is with me! He insisted," she cried.
At this I knew that the unknown voice could not belong to an enemy, and I advanced again. As I passed the bend in the passage I was just in time to see Tiel closing the front door behind a man in a long dark coat with a gleam of brass buttons, and to hear him say,
"Good-night, Ashington."
Eileen passed into the parlour with a smiling glance for me to follow, and Tiel came in after us. I was not in the most pleasant temper. In fact, for some reason I was in a very black humour.
"I thought you had gone out," I said to him at once.
"I did go out."
"But now I understand that the worthy Captain Ashington has been visiting you here!"
"Both these remarkable events have occurred," said Tiel drily.
When I recalled how long Eileen had been up in my room, I realised that this was quite possible, but this did not, for some reason, soothe me.