"'Twas you took it, Carus," he said. "Were you not showing the pistols to Elsin Grey?"
I dropped my head, pretending to think. He waited a moment, then drew out his latch-key and opened the door very softly. A single sconce-candle flared in the hall; he lifted it from the gilded socket and passed into the state drawing-room, holding the light above his head, and searching over table and cabinet for the inlaid case.
Standing there in the hall I looked up the dark and shadowy stairway. There was no light, no sound. In the drawing-room I heard Sir Peter moving about, opening locked cupboards, lacquered drawers, and crystal doors, the shifting light of his candle playing over wall and ceiling. Why he had not already found the case where I had placed it on the gilded French table I could not understand, and I stole to the door and looked in. The French table stood empty save for a vase of shadowy flowers; Sir Peter was on his knees, candle in hand, searching the endless lines of book-shelves in the library. A strange suspicion stole into my heart which set it drumming on my ribs. Had Elsin Grey removed the pistols? Had she wit enough to understand the matters threatening?
I looked up at the stairs again, then mounted them noiselessly, and traversed the carpeted passage to her door. There was a faint light glimmering under the sill. I laid my face against the panels and whispered, "Elsin!"
"Who is there?" A movement from within, a creak from the bed, a rustle of a garment, then silence. Listening there, ear to her door, I heard distinctly the steady breathing of some one also listening on the other side.
"Elsin!"
"Is it you, Carus?"
She opened the door wide and stood there, candle in one hand, rubbing her eyes with the other, lace night-cap and flowing, beribboned robe stirring in the draft of air from the dark hallway. But under the loosened neck-cloth I caught a gleam of a metal button, and instantly I was aware of a pretense somewhere, for beneath the flowing polonaise of chintz, or Levete, which is a kind of gown and petticoat tied on the left hip with a sash of lace, she was fully dressed, aye, and shod for the street.
Instinctively I glanced at the bed, made a quick step past her, and drew the damask curtain. The bed had not been slept in.
"What are you thinking of, Carus?" she said hotly, springing to the curtain. There was a sharp sound of cloth tearing; she stumbled, caught my arm, and straightened up, red as fire, for the hem of her Levete was laid open to the knee, and displayed a foot-mantle, under which a tiny golden spur flashed on a lacquered boot-heel.