"Jove," he said, shaking himself, "this is Paradise compared to that up there. The lower floor is a wreck: two of them are asleep, three of them are standing on chairs and talking at once, and a tall, fair woman in green satin is having ladylike hysterics by herself in a corner."
"The tall, fair woman in green," I said coldly, "is Mrs. Harcourt-Standish. It is strange you did not know her."
He whistled and then looked at me with one of his slow, boyish smiles.
"Well, as to that," he observed, opening the hamper, "I—you see, I never saw her in hysterics. It's supposed to make a great difference."
"We need a box from the other room," I said, inwardly trembling. "We have used one for firewood." We had, purposely, and it threatened to fire the chimney. I don't mind saying that I had a horrid guilty feeling when I said it, like Delilah cutting Samson's hair, or the place where Blanche Bates took the card out of her stocking in The Girl of the Golden West. The Unknown glanced at the box on the hearth, at the Prime Minister, who was getting out the salad, and at me, feeling as I have just said. Then he turned on his heel, whistling softly, and went into the inner room.
Sir George dropped the salad on the instant, with a crash, and had the door slammed and locked immediately. His sandy moustache stood out quite straight, and he looked very military (or is it militant?). There was silence from the inner room, and then my gentleman found the door and rattled the crazy latch.
"The lock has sprung in some way," he said politely from the other side. "I will have to trouble you to open it."
The band around my throat began to loosen, and, anyhow, if he had been little and ugly I would not have cared. Why should I condone a crime because Nature had given him a handsome body to hold an ignoble spirit? I went over to the door and called through it triumphantly:
"We are not going to unlock the door, and when Bagsby comes we are going to send for the police."
(That was the Premier's plan. He would waylay Bagsby at the point of his revolver—Sir George's—and make him take him to the nearest constable. Then Sir George would get a conveyance and make his escape after sending me on to Ivry. I would not stay in the lodge alone with a desperate criminal, and I did not wish to face Daphne and the rest in their present condition.)