A telephone bell rang behind his sister, and startled him out of his reverie.
"Mr. Slyne says her ladyship wishes rooms prepared for the duchess and Lord Ingoldsby," she told him as she turned back from the instrument. "And dinner's to be served in the banquet-hall. I must be off about my business now, Farish. Will you wait here till I come again—and promise to work no more harm?"
"I'll find a quieter corner to hide in," he answered indifferently. And, in response to her harassed glance, "You must just trust me to take care of myself and not trouble you more than need be," he told her. "I know this old vulture's-nest well enough not to be discovered in it. And—I'll do Dove no violence, Janet; you have my pledged word for that."
She lingered still, almost distracted, not knowing what to do for the best. But she did know, of old and sad experience, how little heed he was likely to pay to any advice or direction of hers, and at last had to hurry away to her duties leaving him, safe enough there, to his own devices till she could return.
As soon as she had gone, he swallowed a little more of the food and wine on the table, put on his dirty white robe again, pulling its baggy hood well over his features, and, having assured himself that the long passage down which she had disappeared was empty, set out with soundless but steadier steps to secrete himself in some more remote recess of the spacious castle.
He knew his way about every turn of the back-corridors intimately. He was passing the gun-room pantry when he heard from within a voice that he recognised at once, shouting, "Hold your row!" He paused. Distant footfalls in the passage prompted him to a swift decision. The pantry door was ajar. He pushed it a little further open, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.
The place was practically in darkness, but he soon found the service-wicket, and, having first made sure that he would not be intruded upon, slipped the blade of his knife under its wooden shutter, raised it, without sound, sufficiently to hear and see all that was going on in the gun-room.
His eyes began to gleam balefully as he looked through at its unsuspecting inmates. The old man Dove and the London lawyer were evidently at loggerheads, but presently calmed down again, and grew almost confidential together. And afterwards Slyne came in to them with his contemptuous story of the White Lady—at which the lurking listener frowned anxiously, since it went to show that he must have been seen notwithstanding all his precautions. And then the lawyer got up to go.
To Slyne's subsequent conversation with Captain Dove the ex-Emir listened no less greedily, licking his lips. And after that he pushed noiselessly past the swing-door of the pantry, into their company. He thought he could see his way quite clearly by then.
Slyne drew back in speechless alarm at sight of the gaunt, hooded figure coming forward on soundless feet. Captain Dove had made an attempt to rise, but apparently could not; he sat still, staring over one shoulder, aghast, at that grey ghost of a man he had never expected to see again.