“It’s only a car on the main road,” said Mary.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“By the broken window in the next room. I cycled out here one morning, and walked round the place and found the broken catch.”
“Perhaps it is left open on purpose. That may be the way M. Bommaerts visits his country home.... Let’s get off, Mary, for this place has a curse on it. It deserves fire from heaven.”
I slipped the contents of the attache case into my pockets. “I’m going to drive you back,” I said. “I’ve got a car out there.”
“Then you must take my bicycle and my servant too. He’s an old friend of yours—one Andrew Amos.”
“Now how on earth did Andrew get over here?”
“He’s one of us,” said Mary, laughing at my surprise. “A most useful member of our party, at present disguised as an infirmier in Lady Manorwater’s Hospital at Douvecourt. He is learning French, and....”
“Hush!” I whispered. “There’s someone in the next room.”
I swept her behind a stack of furniture, with my eyes glued on a crack of light below the door. The handle turned and the shadows raced before a big electric lamp of the kind they have in stables. I could not see the bearer, but I guessed it was the old woman.