Drummond, his hopes dashed, followed Bulstrode to the library. “Now,” said the clubman sneering, “I shall be glad to hear your explanation of your slander of my son. In the morning I can promise you my lawyers will attend to it in detail.”
“I was deceived,” the wretched Drummond sought to explain. “A man dressed like your son whom I know by sight came in and——”
He went through the whole business. By this time the butler was standing at the open door listening.
“I can only say,” Mr. Bulstrode remarked, “that these excuses you offer so glibly will be investigated.”
“Excuses!” cried the other goaded to anger. “Excuses! I’ll have you know that a father with a son like yours is more in need of excuses than I am.”
He turned his head to see the butler entering the room. There was an unpleasant expression on the man’s face which left him vaguely uneasy.
“Show this person out,” said Bulstrode in his most forbidding manner.
“Wait a minute,” Drummond commanded, “you owe it to me to have this house searched. We all saw that impostor go upstairs. For all we know he’s in hiding this very minute.”
“You needn’t worry,” Old Man Afraid of His Wife observed. “He went out just before Mr. Graham came back in the motor. I was going to see what it was when the car came between us.” The man turned to Clent Bulstrode. “It’s my belief, sir, they’re accomplices.”
“What makes you say that?” demanded his master. He could see an unusual expression of triumph in the butler’s eye.