The detective turned from him with an impatient movement, and stood looking down at the sofa with a frown on his face. It was exactly the same as the one in the front part of the room, but, instead of a cover of pink and white chintz, it displayed only the upholstery with which it had been originally covered by the makers: a kind of white tapestry with grey flowers and flecks of red, in general colouring not unlike the chintz on the other sofas and chairs, but tightly fitting and leaving exposed the bare legs of brown varnished wood, which were of a particularly ugly shape.
“Come,” said Gimblet at last, “I must go downstairs.”
“What did you find?” Sir Gregory asked him anxiously as they went down, followed at a distance by the clerk, “what did you find by the other sofa?”
The detective hesitated an instant.
“Sir Gregory,” he said, “there is something here, some story to be read, if I can read it. The walls are trying to speak to me, I believe, if I could only listen rightly. There are things very plain that I can see, but not enough of them, and there is something that I don’t understand. But what I have seen points to sinister things, and I must warn you that I don’t like the look of them.”
“Mr. Gimblet!” cried Sir Gregory. “What do you mean?”
“Yes, Sir Gregory,” said the detective. “I am very much more—uneasy about your friend than I have yet been. I fear that, when I am in a position to give you news of her, it may be very bad. You may have to stand a shock. Don’t you think it would be best if you went home and waited till I came to you?”
But, though on Sir Gregory’s face there crept a look of terrified grief, he would not go.
The dining-room told nothing, Gimblet’s researches there were vain, and he soon adjourned to the room behind it, which seemed to be a library or smoking-room. The shutters, as they had seen from the garden, were fastened, but by this time the last of the long summer twilight was fading and the night promised to fall dark and windy. Gimblet’s first act was to light the gas.