Roberta now saw that this part of the wall consisted of a boarded-up door which evidently had at one time opened into the drawing-room. The Lampreys were listening at the crack. The voices of Lord Charles and his brother could be clearly heard above the comfortable sounds made by the drawing-room fire.
“I’d better not,” breathed Roberta, diffidently.
“It’s all right,” said Frid in her ear. “Daddy wouldn’t mind. Ssh!”
“… so you see,” said Lord Charles’s voice, “it’s been a series of misfortunes rather than any one disaster. The jewellery and objets-d’art idea seemed a capital one. I really couldn’t foresee that poor Stein would shoot himself, you know. Now could I?”
“You go and tie yourself up with some miserable adventurer—”
“No, no, he wasn’t that, Gabriel, really.”
“Why the devil didn’t you make some enquiries?”
“Well I–I did make a good many. The truth is—”
“The truth is,“ said Lord Wutherwood’s voice edgily, ”you drifted into this business as you have drifted into every conceivable sort of blunder for the last twenty years.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Lord Charles’s voice: “Very well, Gabriel. I’ll take that. It’s quite useless in my predicament to offer excuses. I readily confess that the sort of explanation I have to make would seem quite ridiculous to you.”