At the foot of the stairs Bernard halted and turned.
“Suggest you give orders that nobody’s to leave the house today,” he smiled. “After that I want Stimson.”
“I’ll do it, sir,” replied Landis, his tone almost a humble one. “I’ll send the butler to you in the library.”
Bernard flung at him a quick, shrewd glance, then lumbered away, growling under his breath.
Luckily the household had not yet scattered. Landis sought and found Miss Mount in the kitchen and put his command to her in the form of a request. She accepted it with stiff amiability and sent Stimson upstairs to repeat it to Isabelle and Joel. She told Landis that he would find Anita and probably the two young men in the billiard-room.
Landis waited for Stimson’ to return and dispatched him to find Bernard in the library. He made his own way through the ground floor halls and paused in the billiard-room door.
It was a brilliant blue October day. Across the end of the room from him the door into the sunken garden stood open, admitting a shimmering flood of light. His eyes narrowed to meet the glare. Beyond the door, nature lay glittering and alert under the bright blue sky, as though she had gathered herself for one recrudescent blaze of splendor before her winter sleep. A puff of breeze with a sweet, chill tang swept in through the open door and set the smoke-laden atmosphere aswirl.
Landis turned his head. In three deep chairs before a blazing fire, Anita and Russell and Allen lay slumped on their shoulder-blades. Anita, nearest the far windows, he could see in profile. She had turned her head at his appearance and looked lazily away again, brushing her skirt over her knees. The presence of the two men was betrayed by an elbow a-piece, for the backs of their chairs hid the rest of them.
Far from being impressed by their obvious intention to ignore him, Landis felt a touch of contempt at their method of passing such a morning. His lips tightened a little as he approached the fire.
He found a position from which he could look down into their faces and nodded shortly.