Cleek could barely restrain a laugh. The whispered conversation had taken the merest fraction of a minute and, during it, he had had full view of the green baize door which led down to the servants' quarters. Borkins had gone through it some time before. Then he heard the butler's deep, measured tones in the garden, and caught sight of him talking to one of the grooms in the courtyard. He heaved something like a sigh of relief.
Dollops left, and Cleek then rejoined the two men who stood talking together in low, earnest tones.
"Now," said he, briskly, "if you're ready, Mr. Lake, I am. Let us be off. Sir Nigel, I hope by dinner time to have some sort of news to impart to you, whether good or ill remains to be seen. By the way, have you, in your employ, a dark, square-faced individual, with close-set eyes and a straggling moustache? Rather undershot, too, I believe? It would be interesting to me to know."
Merriton considered for a moment.
"Tell you the truth, Mr. Headland, I can't fit the description in anywhere among the people here," he said after a pause. "Dimmock's fairish—though he has got a moustache, but it's a military one, and Borkins is, of course, smooth shaven. The other men are clean-shaved, too, except for old Doughty, the head gardener, and he wears a full, gray beard. Why?"
Cleek shook his head.
"Nothing important. I was only just wondering. Now then, Lake, you'll be late if you loiter any longer, and our—er—friends will be waiting. Good-bye, Sir Nigel, and good luck. Lunch at one-fifteen, I take it?"
He swung upon his heel and linked his arm with Mr. Narkom's, then, taking his cap from a peg on the hall stand, clapped it on his head and went down and out to the task that awaited him, and a discovery which was, to say the least of it, startling in the extreme.
They walked for some time in comparative silence, puffing at their cigarettes. Then of a sudden, Cleek spoke.
"I say, old man, you'll want to keep a close look-out upon your own personal safety," he said, abruptly, wheeling round and meeting his friend full in the eyes.