"I saw smoke and sparks coming out of the tower as I came up to the door," I said, doubtful about accepting this halting explanation.
The fellow flushed to the roots of his black oiled hair as I watched him.
"Did you see that, sir?" he exclaimed, ingenuously. "It's master's laboratory up there, though you'd never think it from the outside, would you? Something's gone wrong with one of the–the apparatuses, sir–I don't know the name for it–and the fact is I did suppose you were the gentleman who had come to examine into the trouble. He was to have arrived to-day, and so I thought—But I see, sir, as you refer to the sparks, and seem not to understand what makes them, I must have been mistaken."
"Yes, you were mistaken," I returned, only half satisfied, yet not caring to allow myself morbidly to scent a mystery where mystery there was none.
"Would you step in here, sir, and wait for my master?" he went on hastily, drawing aside the portière from a door close by. "I shouldn't have given you the bother of going so far before, only I thought you'd come on business which would take you to that part of the house. This is the drawing-room, sir, if you'll be pleased to walk in, and I'll fetch you your hat and stick from the studio."
I had no objections to make to this suggested course, though I was conscious of a vague desire to return to the octagon room.
The butler noiselessly preceded me, turning up the lights, which had been dim, and touching a match to four or five candles on the mantelpiece. I saw then that I was in a large, old-fashioned drawing-room, with plenty of ancient blue and white china, Sheraton furniture, and a fireplace suggesting a design of Adams'.
I sat down beside it to finish my time of waiting, not quite sure whether to be crestfallen over having made an unnecessary sensation, or to be distrustful of the butler, with his shifty face. I scarcely heard his decorous footsteps, as he moved away over the polished oak floor of the great hall, but he had not been gone more than a moment or two, when the sound of voices whispering together reached my ears.
I had always particularly sensitive ones, and no doubt my somewhat precarious, wandering life had done much to sharpen them. At all events, I was able to hear that which did not reach the ears of other men less favoured in this regard, and now I caught a word or two spoken outside in the hall.
"In the drawing-room ... 'tisn't he, after all ... confound your stupidity! ... fool you are.... Well, it can't be helped now ... story will have to do."